Three new chamber music works by Miroslav Srnka receive their first performances: Coronae for solo horn was premiered at Alte Oper Frankfurt, Tree of Heaven for violin, viola and cello will be premiered at Konzerthaus Wien, and Escape Routines for clarinet, string trio and harp, a commission from the Terezín Chamber Music Foundation will be premiered in Boston.
A horn, surreal and virtuoso
The title Coronae plays on the root of the instrument name, cor, and at the same time suggests images of the shimmering gold of a crown, of the circle of a solar eclipse – that is, of an almost unreal light in the far distance. Miroslav Srnka’s composition for solo horn, which Saar Berger performs on 16 March in the Alte Oper Frankfurt in a concert marking the thirtieth anniversary of the Ensemble Modern, begins with hidden, far away sounding lines. Srnka derives the musical material for the entire composition from the overtones of the third octave, a peculiar scale which begins with a major second and ends with a minor second. Out of the lines, played at quadruple pianissimo, more strongly rhythmicised movements emerge, dropping like water – the instruction is also “surreal” here – before virtuoso cascades bring the events nearer. What interests Srnka in this piece is the tonal and stylistic freedom of the instrument, in the sense of natural intonation: “Amongst the brass instruments, the horn is the freest or most natural, as in terms of sound it is the least burdened by the powerful Romantic instrument makers, so that the natural instrument always shines through.” And in this way, Srnka combines the overtone series over various fundamental notes and in changing registers to achieve a particular thrilling melodic shape which is far from any known semantics, and mysterious like an apparition in the distant sky. The work is dedicated to the memory of Milan Slavický, Miroslav Srnka’s teacher, who died last year.
Psychology of a triangular relationship
“The essence of the string trio for me is the individuality of the respective parts, unlike in the string quartet, which can form a homogeneous ensemble on its own”, says Srnka about the scoring of his new work for violin, viola and cello. Whilst he was concerned with a stream of sound in the string quartet and most recently in his piano quintet pouhou vlnou, and with the homogeneity of the overall sound, in Tree of Heaven he makes the soloistic principle into the concept: the worlds of three people collide and are abstracted in sound, three individuals interact, each has his voice. Therefore Tree of Heaven is a piece about the psychology of a triangular relationship: a conversation between three characters takes place with a specific process of tension. And the title contains information about this: “It is a tree which is found everywhere in China. Actually it is a paradox that the tree of heaven is a plant which grows everywhere in the countryside. Something peaceful which presents itself, which only has to be seen, and which the instruments do not “see” for a long time in their conversation. These trees are omnipresent in Peking, where I began the piece on 04/05/2009” ... Tree of Heaven receives its first performance at the Witten Days for New Chamber Music, performed by Ernst Kovacic, Steven Dann and Anssi Karttunen on 25 April 2010.
Destroying the familiar
In Escape Routines for clarinet, harp and string trio, a commission for Miroslav Srnka from the Terezín Chamber Music Foundation for the Prague Spring Festival, a three-way configuration similarly prevails: the vocality of the clarinet, the physicalness of the string trio and the richness of the harp as harmony instrument are linked in a process concerned with ritual and repetitive structures. “This piece deals with the energy of that which returns and yet is never the same. And it is finally about the shattering of this recurrence, the fulfilment of the expected and also about surprise”. Destroying the familiar is an event which can either be a catastrophe or a point of departure. Therefore Srnka proceeds here with repetitions which are gradually undermined by disintegration, finally leading into a complete break: “The security of the reliable is lost, and a freedom is won which is achieved by a smashing of constraints and which was unimaginable at the beginning. I’m directly concerned with the beauty of the disintegration.” The first performance will be given by Thomas Martin (clarinet), Si-Jing Hang (violin), Mark Ludwig (viola), Sato Knudsen (violoncello) and Kateřina Englichová (harp) at the Prague Spring Festival on 28 May 2010.
Marie Luise Maintz
(from [t]akte 1/2010)