The piano adaptation of Christos Hatzis's "Quantum Entanglements 2-IV" for two marimbas composed for Theodor Milkov. It is based on the Sonata K.94 in F major by Domenico Scarlatti. For information on the four volume project of Quantum Superpositions 1 & 2 and Quantum Entanglements 1 & 2 for one, two and three marimbas, you can download my  monograph,
PATTERNS & METAPHORS: 
Quantum Superpositions and Entanglements
(The Theodor Milkov – Domenico Scarlatti Project)
https://www.christoshatzis.com/document/32

Quantum Entanglements 2-IV for two pianos (MIDI track)

Jamie Sommerville, French horn
CBC Radio Orchestra, Mario Bernardi, conductor.
December 15,  2004, Yellowknife Arts & Culture Centre, NWT, Canada

Commissioned by the CBC Radio Orchestra for French horn virtuoso Jamie Sommerville, Winter Solstice was created for a premiere in the Canadian Arctic around the time of the winter solstice in December 2004. Jamie had initially approached me with the idea of a horn concerto commission when he participated in the premiere of my woodwind quintet Burial Ground in 1992. Soon after that, Jamie moved away from Toronto to assume the principal horn position with the Boston Symphony Orchestra but we both kept on looking for an opportunity to make this collaboration possible and the opportunity finally came twelve years later when the CBC Radio Orchestra in Vancouver asked me for a work for horn and strings. In my work, the title refers to the spiritual meaning of the “longest night”; it is a meditation on our own times and the proposed visions for the future of our species. In my mind, the twentieth century has been one of the darkest moments of human history, despite its accomplishments in the realms of science, technology and conveniences for human life. In The Darkest Hour, the first movement of the concerto, this darkness is explored through juxtaposed and disjointed sound bites of twentieth century music. The darkness is expressed not only by the nature of the sound bites themselves (it is one of the few instances in my work that I have experimented extensively with twelve-tone music) but by the way that they are structured. There is frustration and fragmentation in the background structure while the foreground structure often follows the serial pitch organization principle to its absurd conclusion—individual (melodic) strategies developing independently and with little regard for the social (harmonic) interconnection between these strategies—giving suddenly way to static pop-music riffs which are entirely foreign to these strategies—resuming the serial strategies again in a rather incomprehensible manner that adds to the overall tension of the music. The music starts in low tones with a D minor motif, a small island of sadness in a large sea of despair, to which we return periodically throughout the movement. 

Simulacrum, the second movement, was originally designed to be the finale of the concerto, but I realized during the course of its composition that what the music proposes or promises is not real or at least conclusive enough for a finale. The title refers to a fictional, fabricated ‘reality’ that is served to us in generous portions by the media and by every other worldly concern in our lives that manages to disguise itself as ‘information’. In many respects, this deceptively ‘luminous’ music is more sinister than the music of the first movement. The darkness here is not depicted directly: it must be inferred to by the listener. The pervasive, ‘beautiful’-sounding melody near the beginning of this movement is eventually revealed in the solo horn cadenza as a variation of the twelve-tone row which was predominant in the first movement, disguised here appropriately to reflect the underlying mindset of the simulacrum. Further development of this melody finally reveals and exposes it as the shallow ‘elevator music’ of the closing measures. There is a subtext in the music of this movement that many listeners may not discern, but it is there non-the-less. Everything in it, from the ‘American’ opening to its ‘Pacific’ closing reminds one of a synthetic, fabricated deception of global proportions that is involved with information, commodities, and other trappings of ‘civilization’, with no evidence of Spirit. Somewhere in the middle of this movement the deception is temporarily shattered and there is a musical rebellion against this simulacrum somewhat reminiscent of the music of the first movement. But, with the exception of this brief moment, everything else in the middle movement represents the false promises for our future, a Technicolor utopia based on carnal pleasure and spiritual numbness, with Big Brother perpetually watching.

The first theme in G minor of Prophet of Light, the third movement, was already hinted at by the opening music of the first movement (the “island” I spoke of earlier). In fact the third movement picks up with a misleading D minor exactly where the first movement left off, thus refusing to acknowledge the Simulacrum in the middle as anything of substance or anything at all. The third movement is written predominately in the nineteenth century romantic style. The nineteenth century was an interesting era in the history of western music. It represented the culmination of the spirit of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment—it was, I believe, the thread of these two philosophical revolutions that lead us into the darkest moments of the twentieth century—but it also embodied a much deeper spiritual vision of the world, whose fruition is yet to come. For this reason I felt that musical romanticism was an appropriate musical language for delineating my own spiritual vision of the future in Winter Solstice. Richard Wagner’s music may have become the musical banner of the Nazis and of what they represented, but there is beauty in Wagner’s music that is still pointing towards future possibilities that have nothing to do with the atrocities of the past. It was this latter vision that has inspired the closing theme in the Prophet of Light. In this vision I tried to divorce the music from any hint of urgency or militancy and invest it instead with a timeless quality. The French horn as the voice of the Prophet of Light speaks slowly and meekly, undisturbed by the occasional impatience of the accompanying instruments, like the solo violin in one instance or the hyperactive orchestra towards the end, but it displays instead clarity of vision, steadfastness and the longer view of things. It seems to say that we, the human race, who in our passage through time have committed unspeakable atrocities but also wonderful acts of kindness and inspiration, have a birthright to a future that is much brighter than the darkness of our past or the simulacra of our present. The horn’s long, arching lines and simple melodies deliver this message in a simple manner, bringing the music to a realm where sound and spirit meet and sing together. Towards the end, the music embraces a musical aesthetic that externally is not that much different from the concluding (“elevator”) music of the second movement. However, here the music is written from the heart and, to my mind at least, is a summation of quite different substance than the earlier parody. It seems to say that, in some ways, the New Age, God’s Kingdom on Earth, may already have come and that it is our own spiritual blindness that is responsible for our inability to see it. After this last glimpse of utopia, the music returns to D minor of the very beginning and solemnly descends into the extreme low register of the double basses. At the same time, the soloist reiterates the opening material of the first movement while slowly walking offstage. The last horn calls are heard from a distance disappearing inside the double bass drone. The prophecy of light is ended; the cycle is complete. 

Winter Solstice 3rd movement

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EXTREME UNCTION is part of Jeff Reilly's release TO DREAM OF SILENCE which was released at jeffreilly.bandcamp.com on September 22nd, 2017 and internationally on all major download and streaming sites on September 29th, 2017. 

Jeff Reilly, bass clarinet with the Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra conducted by Kevin Mallon

Extreme Unction is the name given to the last rite of the Catholic Church reserved for people who are on the threshold of passing from the material consciousness and state of being to a different one. As the title implies, Extreme Unction is a dark piece about dying and the difficult but inevitable transformation from a physical consciousness, to a higher one. It depicts the quiet opening of the floodgates of the Spirit, as our connection to the material world weakens and eventually ceases altogether. This process is often not a willing surrender. It alternates between our sense of an approaching light and the peace and joy that accompany it and the often violent efforts of our physical body to cling to that which we already know and hold dear.

Half notated, half improvised, Extreme Unction is a composition that allows for an imaginary glimpse of our afterlife and of our instinctive struggle to cling on to the things we know. It is a meditation on dying and on what may lie beyond, as well as a (hopefully) early attempt to come to terms with this important and inevitable milestone in my own life.

(From program notes by Christos Hatzis)

Jeff Reilly, bass clarinet with the Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra players:

First violins: Manuela Milani, Martine Dubé, Sara Mastrangelo, Geneviève Petit 
Second violins: Solange Tremblay, Marjolaine Lambert, Maria Nenoiu,Brigitte Amyot 
Violas: Catherine Ferreira, Sonya Probst 
Cellos: Julian Armour, Thaddeus Morden
Bass: John Geggie

Conducted by Kevin Mallon
www.thirteenstrings.ca
www.jeffreilly.ca

To Dream of Silence

Extreme Unction

Excerpt from Extreme Unction, by Christos Hatzis

In the Fire of Conflict - Christos Hatzis (*1953)
Fabian Ziegler, Marimbaphone
Mario Bruderhofer, Audio

Christos Hatzis - In The Fire Of Conflict

With two recent Juno awards and a SOCAN Award to his credit and a slew of recent commissions by internationally recognized touring artists such as violinist Hilary Hahn, percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, soprano Suzie Leblanc, flutist Susan Hoeppner, the Pacifica Quartet and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra among others, as well as pop celebrities, such as George Dalaras, Sarah Slean and Steven Page,  Christos Hatzis is widely recognized as “one of the most important composers writing today” (CBC) and "a contemporary Canadian master" (New Yorker.) An unusually large number of performances and CD recordings of his music for Naxos, EMI, Analekta, Sony, CBC and other major and independent labels as well wide internet distribution of his audio playlist (over 1,700,000 hits since 2008) have garnered a loyal international following for his music. Recent and current work includes the premiere and US and European tour of Coming To and Dystopia by violinist Hilary Hahn, Lamento, a song cycle for pop singer Sarah Slean and Symphony Nova Scotia in April, Departures, Hatzis' second flute concerto, which premiered in August 2011 by Susan Hoeppner and the Kyoto Symphony and in September by Patrick Gallois and the Thessaloniki State Orchestra and will be recorded for upcoming CD releases in 2012. Recent and upcoming orchestral tours include Hatzis' Telluric Dances with the Thessaloniki State Orchestra, which culminated in a concert at the Herod Atticus open amphitheatre at the foothill of the Acropolis in Athens last June; Mirage? with Dame Evelyn Glennie and the Berlin Chamber Orchestra in October and Pyrrichean Dances, with the Wiener Concert Verein in November. Hatzis’ music is influenced by early Christian spirituality, Pythagorean and Hermetic ideas, his own Byzantine music heritage, world cultures and religions, and various classical, jazz and pop music idioms from the past and present. He is a believer in borderless culture and the uninhibited flow of cultural information. A professor of composition at the University of Toronto, Hatzis writes extensively on these and other related subjects. His writings, audio playlists and other information about the composer are available at www.hatzis.com

Winter Solstice 3rd movement

christoshatzis

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