Mark Edwards Wilson
The Phoenix
Completed in spring 2008, The Phoenix was composed in fulfillment of a Creative and Performing Arts grant given by the College of Arts and Humanities, University of Maryland and was premiered November 1, 2008 by the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra, James Ross conducting. Just before the first performance, I learned that the work had been selected as the Grand Prize winner of the Realize Music Challenge, an international competition for new orchestral music sponsored by Notion Music, Inc. and the London Symphony Orchestra. As part of the prize, it was recorded at Abbey Road Studios by the London Symphony Orchestra, Jack Jarrett conducting. (In the press release announcing the results of the competition, noted American composer John Corigliano, who headed the adjudication panel, wrote of the work: “Excellent piece. It really develops its materials and has a fine, large shape. I felt a true symphonic mind at work. Beautiful orchestration, too. Bravo!”) This opportunity came at a particularly important juncture in my development as a composer. The Phoenix was among the first works that I have composed using–what has become for me–a new style emphasizing the dramatic narrative. In 2011, The Phoenix received two performances by the Austin Symphony Orchestra with Peter Bay conducting as part of the orchestra’s Gala Centennial Season.
The inspiration for the work comes from the myth of the legendary bird cyclically reborn out of fire. The Phoenix is a fascinating mythological symbol that has its origins in India and came to the West via Egypt. To the ancient mind both birds and fire were often seen as related mediators between earthly and ethereal domains. Various transformations of the Phoenix myth abound. In the middle ages it was associated with the resurrection of Christ. There is a Chinese variant and several indigenous American Indian cultures have bird-deities associated with fire. Indeed, the myth of the Phoenix has itself been continually reborn through the ages in many cultures.
The dramatic aspects of the piece center on ideas of regeneration springing from moments of crisis. Also, not unlike the Hindu concept of transmigration, the same materials are continually being reborn into new forms. The piece journeys through a series of strongly defined tonal centers, yet it does so using methods that liberate it from the traditional tonic/dominant hierarchy. Similarly, I have felt liberated from the strictures of writing in a conventional academic style, whether those strictures are tonal or atonal in nature.
Exploring a wide dramatic range, The Phoenix consists of three movements, all linked and played without breaks. “Crossing the Horizon,” contains the darkest and most mysterious moment in the work and, toward the end of the movement, we hear the mythological bird sing. “Fire and Transformation” develops a motive with incessant rhythmic drive and leads relentlessly to a climax in which the principal materials of the work are consumed in a series of searing chords. A transition leads directly to “The Phoenix Rising” which, with increasing energy, relates to the mythological bird’s glorious rising from its own ashes.
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major “Romantic”
The life and personality of Anton Bruckner has long presented a paradox, not only since his death but for most of his lifetime. On the one hand, Bruckner was a devout Catholic and of unshakeable faith, convinced of his artistic destiny. On the other, he was constantly subject to depression and self-doubt as a musician, composer, and teacher. He served two masters for most of his life: God and the composer Richard Wagner. It was his association with, outspoken support for, and admiration of the later that created undue hardship for most of Bruckner’s career.
Austrian to the core, his family had lived in Linz since the fifteenth century. His father was a schoolmaster and it was in this profession that Anton spent many years training and working, although rumor has it he was not a very good educator. He was however a brilliant organist, having spent eleven formative years as organist of the monastery of St. Florian, before taking a similar post at the Linz Cathedral. In 1854, Bruckner passed his organ examination in Vienna and soon became known as one of the finest organists in Europe, especially gifted in the art of improvisation. This is the main element of Bruckner’s musical training that directly influences his orchestral writing and works.
The Wagnerian imprint on Bruckner’s music is unmistakable. Like Wagner, his works are vast, of epic design, and on a monumental scale, often entering into the realm of the grandiose and sublime. His harmonic language is ever changing and highly chromatic. Bruckner’s orchestration tends toward a chorale style, making use of huge chordal writing in the brass and winds. That is not to say his music doesn’t contain Austrian folk-like flair or a lusty peasant vigor at times, while his slow movements often reveal a more mystic quality.
The Symphony No. 4 dates originally from 1874, but was revised in 1878 and acquired a new finale in 1880. This version was regarded by the composer as the “last word on the subject” and was published for the first time in 1936, by Robert Haas and the International Bruckner Society. The first performance of the work in 1881 with the Vienna Philharmonic, under the baton of Hans Richter, was Bruckner’s first real success. His previous attempts were either booed, laughed at, or highly criticized by audiences and musicians alike. He add the alternative title of “Romantic” two years after its completion, and although the symphony does not contain a formal printed program, Bruckner did have certain images in mind while composing this work.
The opening movement was said to depict a “medieval town at dawn” with “calls to wake up” heard in the solo horn. After this theme is taken up by members of the woodwind family, the glorious second theme is announced by the full orchestra playing the “Bruckner rhythm”. He described this scene as “knights riding out into the open country on proud stallions”. In the second movement Andante, Bruckner spoke of “a love that has been spurned”. This is depicted in a beautiful, yearning melody heard first in the cellos, then adopted by the rest of the sections throughout the movement. The third movement Scherzo is music of the forest and hunt. In fact, a handwritten entry in the score describes the ländler-like trio of the “hunting scherzo”, which is dominated by the horns, as a “dance tune heard during the meal taken in the course of the hunt”. Regarding the finale, according to one account, Bruckner said he no longer knew what he had thought about when composing it in 1880. Themes and rhythms of the opening movement reoccur, bringing the symphony full circle and to a dramatic close.