The music of Field
door Tom Swaak, wo 27 nov 2024
Kirsten Wicklund put together an intriguing musical programme for FIELD. Alongside a brand-new soundscape by composer Jean Delouvroy and one movement (the ‘Melodia’) from Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin, the greater part is covered by Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 in C minor.
INNERSCAPE
For the first part of her performance, Kirsten Wicklund wanted something that contrasted with the next two chapters. At the same time, this soundscape needed to be a bridge to the universe that follows. Composer Jean Delouvroy was happy to take up the challenge. Together with Wicklund, he selected atmospheres, quotes and musical ideas from FIELD’s other music. For example, both are fans of Shostakovich’s use of sustained tones, also known as drones. Based on their musical mood board, Delouvroy composed around thirty phrases that he then had recorded by the production’s string quartet. These recorded fragments in turn formed the building blocks (which he endlessly manipulated and rearranged) for his electronic composition Innerscape.
DSCH
The compositional protagonist in the moving Eighth String Quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) is a motif consisting of just four notes: D, E-flat, C, and B. It is the musical translation of the composer's initials (DSCH). Ordinarily, Shostakovich would tend to conceal this musical signature within his score, but it is clear from the very first notes that things are different here. The cello opens with the motif, after which it is taken over by the viola, then by the second violin and finally by the first violin. The motif will appear hundreds of times in what follows – in each of the five movements of the Eighth String Quartet: sometimes slowly and in unison, then quickly, inverted, extended or in canon. In between the many flashes of the DSCH motif, the listener hears music that always has its origins in older compositions. These ‘quotations’ or allusions can be divided into two categories. First, there are the memories of highlights from Shostakovich’s earlier works. After about fifteen bars, for example, Shostakovich already quotes the opening notes of his First Symphony in the opening movement Largo. Later on, he also draws on other compositional triumphs of his, such as his Fifth Symphony or his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The second category of quotes initially seems less homogeneous: the Sixth Symphony by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky makes an appearance alongside the revolutionary song Zamuchen tyazholoy nevoley ('Tormented by grievous bondage') or the ‘Funeral March’ from Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
From a letter the composer wrote to his friend Isaäk Glikman, we know how Shostakovich arrived at his intriguing form and his affecting music. In 1960, his health began to deteriorate and he found himself forced into a political straitjacket that was not to his liking. Things were not going well for Shostakovich and he considered ending his life. In a fit of ‘pseudo-tragedy’, as he himself described it, he wrote this string quartet as his own musical keepsake that meanders between melancholy, sadness and anger. The DSCH motif would thus literally stand for Dmitri Shostakovich who, as a kind of defeated narrator, on the one hand takes us through musical mementos from his own career, while on the other hand, the quotes from other composers appear to have been chosen because they all carry the connotation of death. To this day, it is speculated whether Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, his 'Pathétique’, was not actually his musical farewell letter.
MELODIA
In 1944, the health of the innovator Béla Bartók (1881-1945) was also failing. A year before Bartók was to die of leukaemia, legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin ordered a sonata for solo violin from him. Kirsten Wicklund chose the enigmatic third movement from it. In a first section of this 'Melodia', the composer introduces a lyrical melody that travels through the entire range of the violin, from low to high and even higher with shrill flageolet tones. Incidentally, the entire 'Melodia' is constructed according to the same pattern: a musical phrase is heard, each time followed by a postscript or echo. After a second section with challenging double stops, the opening melody returns. It also begins to dawn in this final section that some of the ‘echoes’ may well be taken from the real world. Many a commentator and music lover believes they reflect bird sounds.
INNERSCAPE
For the first part of her performance, Kirsten Wicklund wanted something that contrasted with the next two chapters. At the same time, this soundscape needed to be a bridge to the universe that follows. Composer Jean Delouvroy was happy to take up the challenge. Together with Wicklund, he selected atmospheres, quotes and musical ideas from FIELD’s other music. For example, both are fans of Shostakovich’s use of sustained tones, also known as drones. Based on their musical mood board, Delouvroy composed around thirty phrases that he then had recorded by the production’s string quartet. These recorded fragments in turn formed the building blocks (which he endlessly manipulated and rearranged) for his electronic composition Innerscape.
DSCH
The compositional protagonist in the moving Eighth String Quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) is a motif consisting of just four notes: D, E-flat, C, and B. It is the musical translation of the composer's initials (DSCH). Ordinarily, Shostakovich would tend to conceal this musical signature within his score, but it is clear from the very first notes that things are different here. The cello opens with the motif, after which it is taken over by the viola, then by the second violin and finally by the first violin. The motif will appear hundreds of times in what follows – in each of the five movements of the Eighth String Quartet: sometimes slowly and in unison, then quickly, inverted, extended or in canon. In between the many flashes of the DSCH motif, the listener hears music that always has its origins in older compositions. These ‘quotations’ or allusions can be divided into two categories. First, there are the memories of highlights from Shostakovich’s earlier works. After about fifteen bars, for example, Shostakovich already quotes the opening notes of his First Symphony in the opening movement Largo. Later on, he also draws on other compositional triumphs of his, such as his Fifth Symphony or his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The second category of quotes initially seems less homogeneous: the Sixth Symphony by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky makes an appearance alongside the revolutionary song Zamuchen tyazholoy nevoley ('Tormented by grievous bondage') or the ‘Funeral March’ from Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
From a letter the composer wrote to his friend Isaäk Glikman, we know how Shostakovich arrived at his intriguing form and his affecting music. In 1960, his health began to deteriorate and he found himself forced into a political straitjacket that was not to his liking. Things were not going well for Shostakovich and he considered ending his life. In a fit of ‘pseudo-tragedy’, as he himself described it, he wrote this string quartet as his own musical keepsake that meanders between melancholy, sadness and anger. The DSCH motif would thus literally stand for Dmitri Shostakovich who, as a kind of defeated narrator, on the one hand takes us through musical mementos from his own career, while on the other hand, the quotes from other composers appear to have been chosen because they all carry the connotation of death. To this day, it is speculated whether Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, his 'Pathétique’, was not actually his musical farewell letter.
MELODIA
In 1944, the health of the innovator Béla Bartók (1881-1945) was also failing. A year before Bartók was to die of leukaemia, legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin ordered a sonata for solo violin from him. Kirsten Wicklund chose the enigmatic third movement from it. In a first section of this 'Melodia', the composer introduces a lyrical melody that travels through the entire range of the violin, from low to high and even higher with shrill flageolet tones. Incidentally, the entire 'Melodia' is constructed according to the same pattern: a musical phrase is heard, each time followed by a postscript or echo. After a second section with challenging double stops, the opening melody returns. It also begins to dawn in this final section that some of the ‘echoes’ may well be taken from the real world. Many a commentator and music lover believes they reflect bird sounds.