Flute guitar duo written for Noemi Gyori and Katalin Koltai, 2005

Flute guitar duo

A simple canon, spread in registers creates surprising textures. Slow motion, so we observe each note as a happening. Recorded on a lunch concert in 2012 Cyprus Youth Orchestra session, originally written as part of the wedding ceremony songs for Katalin Koltai's wedding in 2012.

String Trio

Written in 2008, it was part of my graduation of my first masters in composition, In Liszt Ferenc Music Academy. This recording is made by the compose (me) singing all the voices, only the 2 lowest base lines being transposed an octave lower, the female parts sung in falsetto. The recording is made purely as a sketch to hear the piece, it has no value as to be a professional,good recording. Still, I found I would like to share with you the beauty I saw in this is song. The raw translation would be:
The forest is on fire, mother! The forest of Yasen, the forest of Gaber.
A nest is burning with three small eagle babies.
Above the nest flies sadly the eagles' mother. She shouts sad and desperate: no one can get them out of there. No one is brave enough to through himself in fire. 
Stephan, good man, throughs himself in the fire, so he brings out the three small eagle babies. 
The old eagle mother tells to Stephan:
"Stephan, good man, who does the good, is nor burnt by flames, nor sinks in water, the one, who does good, also receives good."

Zapali Se Gora (Bulgarian Folksong For 16 Voices)

Three motets for 5 voices on texts of Angelus Silesius about the Sun.
Each is an homage:
1. Schütz
2. Gesualdo (now that I listen to it its may be more Messiaen:)
3. My former teacher, Gyorgy Orban
 

Drei Sonnen Motetten

From the album 'Sound the trumpet' with the Amers Consort, 
cond. Dirkjan Horringa
2014 nov

Deposuit Potentes - Georgi Sztojanov, tenor

Schlaf meine Seele

Neprimirima

Georgi Sztojanov 
Angelic books

A selection of movements for 3 mixed choirs on diverse texts from the times of WW1 – in different languages and setups

The three big movements are the core of the piece.
The musical material for these is based on two scales which are put together in a bitonal harmonical sequence, one musical material referring to the other.

These bigger movements are surrounded with ‘Angelic comments’ – on texts of Angelus Silesius. The material for these originates in older sketches of a piece of mine for 12 voices.

The third big movement is based on a Hungarian novel, from which the title of the whole collection came. Although written 100 years ago, the text reflects on a growing problem in our modern world: violent and fanatic nationalism. The writer, Kosztolányi, appoints it as one of the main reasons that lead to WW1 – and wars in general. Shouldn’t we learn from it? And ‘teach our children to love Humans…and make peace?’


Prologue 

“They say: Space, and Time, Now, and Eternity.
What is Space, and Time, Now and Eternity?”

Three times three voices three questions.

I.	Come questa pietra – Marcia

An Italian funeral march. The weeping of a mother, “as cold, as tough… as totally disheartened… as a stone” – a chested, folky melody, introducing one of the scales of the piece. She is joined by growing groups of mourners. Their melodies blend into one harmonic progression.
Meanwhile the decomposed elements of the text are whispered, moving from left to right, and back – the marching of a ghost army.
The culmination: ‘Death is alive’.

II.	Saillant / Der Abend, Im Osten 
-  A (never ending) night on the (never ending) field

In the 2nd movement we hear the French and the German side, and in-between the noises of the emptiness - The tragic ‘boredom’ and uncertainty of the Front.
Suddenly a fight occurs, an explosion, from which we return to the weeping material of the 1st movement. Someone starts singing a Christmas carol: ‘Veni, veni Emmanuel’ (first in the scale of the piece, then slowly going back to its original modal form). The Latin text version is echoed in French and English.
Both parties join the song, for a day, instead of killing, comes the message of Love and Light. 
Then Death returns.

Intermezzo 

Chromatic etude - the leaves slowly falling and fading, so as we do, on our way to doom.
“Die before you have to die, so when you have to die you don’t die, otherwise you’ll be damned.”

III.	Nemzetesdi (Playing ‘Nationalism’)

Describing a nightmare of sick children (the different nations) lying on beds next to each other, and still screaming in their nightmares each other’s names – fearing they might be attacked by each other. 
Being lost in his thoughts, the writer draws his conclusions: 
‘Shouldn’t… all the poets, All the good-willed people of the world unite,
Write teaching books, respectable, smart, Angelic books…
So that our children can learn to love Humans… and make peace’.

Epilogue 

The angels talk about losing one’s self for God.
Is this self-sacrifice what brings us above ourselves? – or is it what is also used to motivate us to die or kill for our nation, religion or belief? 

This choral has “haunted me” for long time, before it found its place as the ending of Angelic Books.

Georgi Sztojanov2

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