Creation of Life
PROGRAMME NOTES
written by AURÉLIE WALSCHAERT
Darius Milhaud La Création du monde, op. 81a (1923)
Martin Matalon Relatos, Concerto for Orchestra (Belgian premiere) (2024)*
Richard Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30, TrV 176 (1896)
*co-commission Brussels Philharmonic & Orchestre National de France
[all programme notes]
[discover also: Matinée Also Sprach Zarathustra]
[discover also: Zarathustra Deconstructed]
[discover also: Close Encounters]
[discover also: Symfomania! (8+)]
[discover also: Wolfgang]
-----
14.12.2024 FLAGEY BRUSSELS
Creation of Life
‘The first movement: Sunrise. Man feels the power of God.’ With the tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote one of the best known openings in music history. Partly thanks to the impressive scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the opening melody has become part of our collective memory. In his ballet La Création du monde, the French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) retold the creation story in a jazz setting, as an ode to the big bands that he had heard during his trip to New York. And lastly, the Brussels Philharmonic itself has contributed to creation, albeit of a musical work. Jointly with Radio France, the orchestra asked the Argentine composer Martin Matalon (1958) to write a brand-new concerto for orchestra.
The evolution of humanity in a majestic sound game
Richard Strauss often drew on literary sources for his symphonic poems. In 1896, he took Friedrich Nietzsche’s masterpiece Also sprach Zarathustra [Thus spoke Zarathustra], in which the German philosopher expressed his criticism of his era. Via the character of the prophet Zarathustra, he revealed his disgust for Christendom and democracy and condemned humane values such as tolerance, submissiveness and sympathy. Against these principles, Nietzsche posited that every individual must develop his or her own morality based on power and dominance. Only in this way will human beings find the strength to achieve their goals and develop into an Übermensch. Nietzsche’s concepts reinforced Strauss’s belief in the power of individual human beings to change the world around them. And yet, his musical work of the same name was not a direct interpretation or philosophical orchestration of Nietzsche’s work. Instead, the book served as a source of inspiration, from which the composer borrowed only the concept of the evolution of the human race.
The musical result is an impressive work for a large orchestra and organ, divided into nine movements, parallel to the chapters of Nietzsche’s book. The introductory movement alludes to the prologue, in which Zarathustra leaves his home to watch the sunrise. The powerful image of the rising sun is heard in a pure melody in C Major. Strauss borrowed the magic arising from this impressive introduction from the physics of the natural harmonic sequence. That is, he used the purest intervals from the harmonics of C Major to add force to the beauty of nature. First, the theme is heard in unison in the trumpets, which is followed by the full orchestra. In the latter part, a dialogue emerges between minor and major keys: a musical expression of the doubt and bewilderment of human beings when contemplating the sublimity and at the same time mystery of nature. The supporting timpani, which are intended to represent the human intellect, culminate in a powerful chord in the organ.
The creation story as an African-American spectacle
Darius Milhaud belonged to the renowned ‘Les Six’, a group of young composers in postwar Paris. Their direct, spontaneous music was a reflection of the everyday world and was at times just as absurd as the swirling society in which they lived. Driven by optimism and openness, the exotic sounds of cabaret and jazz also made their way into their work. Of this group, it was mainly Milhaud who drew inspiration from jazz. As the secretary of the writer and diplomat Paul Claudel, Milhaud spent the final years of the war in Brazil. African-American sounds and rhythms were therefore familiar to him. Yet, it was quite late in life that he came into contact with ‘real jazz’. The first time was in 1920, during a visit to London, where he heard Billy Arnold’s Novelty Jazz Band. This was followed, at the beginning of 1923, by a second encounter with the genre during a trip to New York. Milhaud visited one Harlem jazz club after the other and also came across authentic Blues.
Back in Paris, Milhaud received a new commission from the Ballets Suédois, the counterpart to Dhiagilev’s famous Ballets Russes. Drawing on his American adventure and playing thoughtfully on his era’s fascination with exotic cultures. Milhaud found inspiration for his ballet in L’Anthologie Nègre by the Swiss French writer Blaise Cendars. In that collection of African legends, it was mainly the first chapter, on the creation story, that elicited his interest. For the set design, he turned to Fernand Léger, who transformed the stage into a wild, cubist landscape with African masks and earth tones.
The première of La Création du monde was held on 25 October 1923 at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris. The orchestra consisted of 17 soloists, with a central role for the alto saxophone. For the first time, jazzy rhythms and bluesy notes were used not merely to lend an exotic touch in a classical work, but served as the structural basis. Not everyone was enthusiastic, however. One of the reviews published the following day in the press read:
‘The wildest, most dissonant jazz, as one hears among backward peoples, was unleashed with violence. Returning to the tam-tam, the xylophone, the screaming brass, the noise, one is surprised to hear that this is considered avant-garde.’
But as Milhaud himself had predicted, criticism gradually gave way to positive comments. Not long after the première of La Création du monde, Gershwin’s An American in Paris had its première. Gradually, critics also came to recognize how innovative Milhaud had been in his use of a new musical genre. Or, as Leonard Bernstein later summed it up nicely: ‘La Création du monde emerges complete, not as a flirtation but as a real love affair with jazz.’
The creation of a concerto
When writing for ensembles or an orchestra, the Argentine Martin Matalon always searches for a way to create dialogue between individual instruments or sections and the whole. A genre like a concerto for orchestra is thus right up his alley. In Relatos, Matalon offers a unique and innovative view of the sound world of the symphony orchestra by alternating tutti sections with intimate passages.
‘Relatos is made up of nine linked movements, from purely orchestral movements to segments where soloists take centre stage. The end of each movement serves as the beginning of the next. Most of the work demands virtuoso playing. Some orchestral movements are marked by a multitude of micro-solos. In those sections, the pace is rapid, not necessarily in the sense of an abundance of notes, but rather as a variety of ideas. In the solo movements, there are slower passages, allowing the musical idea to come fully into its own.’
Moreover, each section is given its own orchestral writing. Thus, Matalon alternates between massive sounds and atmospheric chamber music, between hectic passages in which all musical ideas tumble over each other and a linear style in which a melody spreads throughout the entire orchestra. ‘Waves of dissonance that sound very beautiful’, as conductor Kazushi Ono describes this exciting orchestral work commissioned by Radio France and the Brussels Philharmonic.