Orion (1979) pour grand orchestre [for large orchestra]
Composer: Claude Vivier (1948 - 1983)
Performers: Orchestre Métropolitain, dir. Walter Boudreau
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"Orion is the second - and last - composition for full orchestra by Claude Vivier. Commissioned by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and premiered by the same orchestra under the baton of Charles Dutoit in 1980, it is for this work - together with the opera Kopernikus of the same year - that Vivier was awarded the Conseil Canadien de la Musique. In the light of the fate that had befallen Siddhartha three years previously, the composer facilitated the performers’ task by making it half as long, reducing the number of players (especially the percussion), and adhering to the traditional arrangement of the orchestra. Orion is the story of a melody. This four-part melody is presented at the start of the piece by the trumpet, an instrument that Vivier selected due to its connotation of death. Following the melody‘s progressive fragmentation, it returns towards the end and is reinforced by a majestic tutti to conclude the work. The musical development of Orion, therefore, which moves towards its point of departure - or at least something resembling it -, is a relative development, or, as the composer himself writes in his programme note: “I have the impression of walking in an aeroplane; I stay exactly where I am, yet travel from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur.” The melody contains all 12 notes of the chromatic scale, as is often the case with Vivier, though they are distributed between the four segments in such a way as to form motives with a modal character, and the repetition of certain pitches is by no means taboo. The stages of the melody’s destruction can be summarised as follows:
1. “Harmonisation” through the layering of several
transpositions, inversions and rhythmic variants
of the melody, also through different kinds of
phase shifting; simultaneity of different melodic
segments.
2. Rhythmic standardisation of the segments.
3. Gradual transitions between segments.
In this way, a defining melody consisting of four motives, each with its own identity, becomes a single stream of pitches without any precise direction. The work’s underlying temporal structure is rendered audible through gongs and similar percussion instruments. This applies from the highest structural level (the division of the whole piece into sections) down to the lowest (the actual rhythms). Stylistically, Orion occupies an important position in Vivier’s œuvre. Although one can sense that the composer is still searching (the passage reminiscent of “minimal music” - something previously unknown in Vivier’s music - is a sign of this), he is in the process of finding his own musical language: it is the first work in which he employs the layered overtones (third interlude: percussion, violins and violas) that would later become one of the trademarks of his late style. The title Orion, invoking the equatorial constellation, is a pars pro toto, as the working title of the piece, Chant aux Etoiles, confirms. It refers to the entire universe, a constant source of inspiration for Vivier, who assumed that the “inner spaces” of humans are a mirror image of outer space. In this work, the composer displays in rather clear terms the connection he sees between the cosmos and humanity: on the one hand very intimate and human forms of expression, such as the calls of “he-o” and the wonderfully still percussion interludes, written in a style one could term “meta-Asiatic”; and on the other hand an unbridled orchestra, very low notes and terrible grinding sounds, metaphors for unimaginable and inescapable forces."
~Jaco Mijnheer
Source: www.kairos-music.com/cds/0012...
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