I. To the Little House (0:00)
II. Interlude: Vein of Shame (7:28)
III. Kindertotenmusik (10:31)

PROGRAM NOTES

Gretel is in three movements, the first of which is given the subtitle “To the Little House.” The name “Gretel” in the title, of course, refers to the little sister in Hansel and Gretel. As the absence of her brother’s name in the title suggests, however, this work is far from being a retelling of the classic fairy tale.

It is well known that fairy tales are often tinged with dark—even gruesome—undertones. Hansel and Gretel is not an exception: it features heartless parents, attempts at cannibalism and a virtual auto-da-fé. But this 19th century fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm may have an even grimmer undertone.

The original 1812 version of Hansel and Gretel concludes as follows:

Der Vater freute sich als er sie wieder sah, er hatte keinen vergnügten Tag gehabt, seit seine Kinder fort waren, und ward nun ein reicher Mann. Die Mutter aber war gestorben.

The cause of the mother’s death is not mentioned in the story, prompting some commentators to propose that she and the witch are (metaphorically?) the same person—with the implication that Gretel may have committed (metaphorical?) matricide when she pushed the witch into the fiery oven.

The second movement, an interlude entitled “Vein of Shame,” begins and ends with the playback of recordings from the 1993 trial of the Menendez Brothers, who brutally murdered their parents a few years earlier. During the nationally-televised first trial, the brothers’ lawyers introduced the so-called battered-child syndrome as a defense: Lyle and Erik Menendez committed the murders as a result of years of sexual and emotional abuse by their parents. (The “abuse excuse” was not allowed in the retrial and the brothers were subsequently found guilty.)

The third movement, entitled “Kindertotenmusik,” alludes to, and includes quotations from, Gustav Mahler’s 1904 song cycle Kindertotenlieder. The quotes are from the last song “In diesem Wetter!” (“In this weather!”) and are limited to the music roughly corresponding to Mahler’s setting of the following line:

Sie ruh’n als wie in der Mutter Haus, 
(They’re at peace as if in their mother’s house,)

In this song, a father berates himself for having allowed his children out in a storm and then tries to take solace in the belief that they are resting peacefully as if in their mother’s house. Now, doesn’t this sound very much like something that could have gone through the mind of Hansel and Gretel’s father?

If we can make a connection between Kindertotenlieder and Hansel and Gretel in this manner, then maybe we can also add the Menendez Brothers’ case to the mix by imagining Hansel and Gretel making a journey to the witch-mother’s house to avenge themselves for the abuse they had sustained in the past. (Incidentally, while the German word “Kindertotenlieder” is often translated as “Songs on the Death of Children,” the German expression is quite ambiguous in that it can denote anything relating to children and death.)

By pulling these three seemingly disparate threads together, Gretel attempts to give you a glimpse of how one’s childlike innocence gets destroyed, leaving a deep, indelible scar in the individual’s psyche.


PERFORMED BY:

Argento Chamber Ensemble
Conductor - Michel Galante
Flutes - Isabel Gleicher
Oboes - Lillian Copeland
Clarinets - Carol McGonnell
Trumpet - Brad Siroky
Trombone - Jennifer Baker
Percussion - Sean Statser
Piano - Mun-Tzung Chung
Violin - Doori Na
Viola - William Hakim
Cello - Madeline Fayette
Bass - Tristan Kasten-Krause
(Hansel & Gretel recitation: Courtesy of Grace Accidental)

Gretel for Ensemble (Fl., Ob., Cl., Trp., Tbn., Perc., Pf., Vn., Va., Vc., Cb.) (2019-20)

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Praised by The San Diego Union-Tribune for his “unique sonic identity” and music that “leads to a resonant experience”, Sang SONG is a Korean-born composer currently based in San Diego, California. Sang’s music has been performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik (Germany), Ensemble Platypus (Austria), Ensemble Reconsil (Austria), Ensemble TIMF (Korea), Argento New Music Project (U.S.), La Jolla Symphony & Chorus (U.S.) and Wieniawski String Quartet (Poland), among others. His recent honors include a Fromm Commission (2021), the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus’ Thomas Nee Commission (2022) and the Ilshin Composition Prize (2022). A graduate of Columbia University (Ph.D. in Philosophy) and Yale Law School (J.D.), Sang is pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of California San Diego.

(Photo credit: Bauman Photographers)

Gretel for Ensemble (Fl., Ob., Cl., Trp., Tbn., Perc., Pf., Vn., Va., Vc., Cb.) (2019-20)

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