TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2015

QUOTE:

"The source of genius is imagination alone, the refinement of the

  senses that sees what others do not see, or sees them differently."

AUTHOR: Eugene Delacroix

MEANING OF THE QUOTE:
"Artistic genius is a product of a person who

 perceives the world differently then the average."

COMPOSER

PENDERECKI

DIES IRAE

AUSCHWITZ ORATORIUM

Old Dies Irae chant in Medieval Style

DIES IRAE
AUSCHWITZ ORATORIUM
Lamentatio (Part 1/2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_jvgdAFJlM

Stained Glass Window in Auschwitz, 1977

DIES IRAE
AUSCHWITZ ORATORIUM
Lamentatio (Part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7pDqsF68Zgo

http://www.abitoffthetop.com/blog-articles/remembering-the-holocaust-through-fact-and-fiction/

DIES IRAE
"DAY OF WRATH"
Gregorian Chant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlr90NLDp-0
http://diesirae.nikkojazz.fr/les-origines/le-chant-gregorien-ou-plain-chant

Collective chanting from large-format books stationed
on lecterns has been recorded in a number of
medieval illuminations and paintings.

The Dies Irae is a mid thirteenth century

hymn of singular awe and piety customarily

sung as part of the Requiem Mass (the

mass said for the repose of the deceased)

and is commonly attributed

to the authorship of Friar

Thomas of Celano.

http://www.franciscan-archive.org/de_celano/opera/diesirae.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_Irae

Giovan francesco Gonzaga: Dies Irae, 1995
http://www.gonzagagiovanfrancesco.com/oli.html

DIES IRAE

AUSCHWITZ ORATORIUM

Apocalypsis (1/2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_jvgdAFJlM

David Olère: Unable to Work

Inability to work was often an immediate death sentence.
In the background  of this painting, smoke rises from the
crematorium to form the SS insignia.

DIES IRAE

AUSCHWITZ ORATORIUM

Apocalypsis (2/2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL-bd1N9KpM

Anselm Kiefer:  Eisen-Steig, 1986

DIES IRAE

AUSCHWITZ ORATORIUM

Apotheosis: End

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgxmysc0sh0

http://jewishnews.com.ua/ru/publication/glavniy_hudozhnik_mosada

AUSCHWITZ

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oświęcim, near Krakow, Poland

Auschwitz, Polish Oświęcim, also called

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Nazi Germany's largest

and best-known concentration camp and

extermination camp. Located near the

industrial town of Oświęcim

Southern Part of Poland near Krakow and
between Krakow and Warsaw, Poland

in southern Poland,  Auschwitz was
actually a network of three camps in
one: a prison camp, an extermination camp,
and a slave-labor camp. Some prisoners
were also subjected to barbaric
medical experiments led

by Josef Mengele

Josef Mengele

(1911-79). During World War II

(1939-45), more than 1 million people,

by some accounts, lost their lives at

Auschwitz making it the most lethal of

the Nazi extermination camps thus Auschwitz

has become the emblematic site of the “final

solution,” a virtual synonym for the Holocaust.

Judith Dazzio: Holocaust Prisoners Shown at Birkenau Death Camp
Each row shows the prisoners losing more and more life.

AUSCHWITZ ALBUMS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRnbCl_ww8U

Holocaust Orchestra

LINKS
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/43486/Auschwitz

http://www.history.com/topics/auschwitz

http://holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/

http://isurvived.org/TOC-I.html#Up

http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/auschwitz.html

Edith Birkin: Ghosts: A Group of Twins from Holocaust Survivors Art

ARTICLE FROM:

http://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?id=41999&lang=it

DIES IRAE

AUSCHWITZ ORATORIUM

A memorial to the victims at Auschwitz,

Dies Irae allows the singers and players

to improvise according to their talents and

abilities. The chorus recites words, rather

than singing them, and the instruments

are the framework for the rhythm and

pitch. It was first performed on the

grounds of Auschwitz in 1967.

International Monument at Auschwitz II Birkenau, Unvailed in 1967
This memorial was originally called the International Monument to the Victims of Fascism in Birkenau

Penderecki composed Dies Irae (also known

as Auschwitz Oratorio) after the successful

performances of his St. Luke Passion.

SAINT LUKE PASSION

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNWs-F9-f_M

It has much in common with that work, though

it is on the whole a less impressive achievement.

The text draws on various literary sources: Psalm 116,

Michelle Greene Wheeler: Psalm 116-2

The Apocalypse, Frontispiece, Book of Revelation,

Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura, 9th century

Aeschylus's Eumenides

http://www.amazon.com/The-Orestes-Plays-
Aeschylus-Agamemnon/dp/0452011663

as well as poems by Broniewski, Aragon, Rózewicz

and Valéry. (All the contemporary texts are translated

into Latin while the Aeschylus fragments are sung in

Greek.) The scoring is for very substantial orchestra

with a large percussion section, though without violins,

violas and clarinets, the latter being replaced by

saxophones. The choral writing often uses divisions

(up to 24 parts at times) and mixes song, speech and

chant with a variety of unusual vocal effects, as it did

in the masterly St. Luke Passion. Dies Irae may well

be an occasional piece, but it is nevertheless a

substantial work as well as a deeply-felt statement.

Fritz Hirschberger: Indifferance

MONDAY, MAY 25, 2015

QUOTE:
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward
 appearance of things, but their inward significance."

AUTHOR: Aristotle

MEANING OF THE QUOTE: 
"Art is a very powerful communication tool often used
  by the artist to help bring about changes in the world."

COMPOSER
PENDERECKI

THRENODY TO THE
VICTIMS OF HIROSHIMA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOnC5X8rWi0

http://www.wmich.edu/mus-gened/mus150/1500%20webbook%20modern%20artmusic/PendereckiThrenody.jpg

ARTICLE FROM:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody_to_the_Victims_of_Hiroshima

Mauro Bordin: Hiroshima after the Atomic Bomb

Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima

(Tren ofiarom Hiroszimy in Polish) is a

musical composition for 52 string 

instruments, composed in 1960 by 

Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933), which

took third prize at the Grzegorz Fitelberg

Composers' Competition in Katowice in

1960. The piece swiftly attracted

interest around the world and made

its young composer famous.

Krzysztof Penderecki

The piece, perhaps as a nod to John Cage,

originally called 8'37" (at times also 8'26"),

applies the sonoristic technique and rigors

of specific counterpoint to an ensemble of

strings treated to unconventional scoring.

Penderecki later said

"It existed only in my imagination,

in a somewhat abstract way."

When he heard an actual performance,

"I was struck by the emotional charge of

the work...I searched for associations

and, in the end, I decided to dedicate

it to the Hiroshima victims."

A painting from a person who was in Hiroshima
at the time of the a bombing.
http://thejapaneseeye.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/hiroshima-paintings.html

Michiko Hattori: Rescuing victims for three days and nights without food or drink.
Courtesy of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The piece tends to leave an impression

both solemn and catastrophic, earning

its classification as a threnody. On

October 12, 1964, Penderecki wrote,

"Let the Threnody express my firm belief

that the sacrifice of Hiroshima will

never be forgotten and lost."

Hiroshima, Japan before and after the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945

http://voiceseducation.org/content/hiroshima-marks-67th-anniversary-bomb-attack

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb (1945)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t19kvUiHvAE

The piece's unorthodox, largely symbol-
based score sometimes directs the

musicians to play at various unspecific

points in their range or to concentrate

on certain textural effects; they are directed

to play on the opposite side of the bridge

or to slap the body of the instrument.

http://www.anthonybannach.com/uploads/2/1/6/7/21674290/pendereckipaper.pdf

Penderecki sought to heighten
the effects of traditional chromaticism by using "
hypertonality," composing in quarter tones,
which sometimes makes dissonance
more prominent than it would
be in traditional tonality.

http://www.anthonybannach.com/uploads/2/1/6/7/21674290/pendereckipaper.pdf

The piece includes an "invisible

canon," in 36 voices, an overall musical 

texture that is more important than the

individual notes, making it a leading

example of sound mass composition. As

a whole, Threnody constitutes one of the

most extensive elaborations

on the tone cluster.

Sound Cluster Notation

THRENODY TO THE

VICTIMS OF HIROSHIMA

Animated Score

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8

Woodblock Print by Atom Bomb Survivor:
Evening glow over Hiroshima

Listening Guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp3BlFZWJNA

INFORMATION FROM:
https://articulatesilences.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/
threnody-to-the-victims-of-hiroshima-krzysztof-penderecki/

THRENODY TO THE
VICTIMS OF HIROSHIMA
Krzysztof Penderecki

Krzysztof Penderecki

by Tacet
Threnody can be split into 3 parts:
(Indicated times are taken from the video above.)
PART 1

Part 1 at 0:00 opens with the musicians
bowing their highest notes, with the 52
players gradually brought into a mass of
sound. At 0:18 slow quarter tone vibrato
is combined with fast, regular vibrato in
the violins and violas. At 0:52 the playing
descends into percussive effects with the
musicians offered a choice of “musical
patterns” to follow. Sounds overlap, slide
apart, and build to a cacophonous cluster
at 4:50 before dropping to a single
sustained cello line by 5:33 and then a
fade into 5 seconds of silence at 5:50.
PART 2

Part 2 at 5:56 marks an abrupt change in
texture with a scattered collection of sounds
feeling almost improvisatory, and yet bound
in the veiled symmetry of a 36-voice canon.
PART 3
Part 3 returns to the music of the opening by
7:30, with overlapping clouds of sound
building to a huge tone cluster.

CHILD OF HIROSHIMA:

I Come and Stand by Every Door
Written By:  Nazim Hikmet

and Pete Seeger

http://folksongcollector.com/child.html

I Come and Stand by Every Door

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=55&v=zpfRP_DZy1I

I come and stand by every door

But none can hear my silent tread

And none can see me where I stand

For I am dead, for I am dead.

I was only seven when I died

In Hiroshima long ago

I'm seven now as I was then

When children die, they do not grow.

My hear was scorched by swirling flame

My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind

The fire turned my bones to dust

And it was scattered by the wind.

I need no meat, I need no rice,

I need no sweets, nor even bread

I need nothing for myself

For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace

You strive today, you strive today

That the children of a future time

May live to grow and run and play.

A child's tricycle and helmut found after the bomb was detonated.

LINKS

http://culture.pl/en/work/threnody-to-the-victims-of-hiroshima-krzysztof-penderecki

http://www.anthonybannach.com/uploads/2/1/6/7/21674290/pendereckipaper.pdf

http://musica3r.escorialvic.org/?p=407

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody_to_the_Victims_of_Hiroshima

https://articulatesilences.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/threnody

-to-the-victims-of-hiroshima-krzysztof-penderecki/

http://www.wmich.edu/mus-gened/mus150/1500%20webbook

%20modern%20artmusic/PendereckiThrenody.jpg

http://soundpurveyor.com/2013/07/31/krzysztof-penderecki

-threnody-for-the-victims-of-hiroshima/

https://archive.org/details/06ThrenodyForTheVictimsOfHiroshimaFor52Strings

http://ninateka.pl/kolekcje/en/three-composers/penderecki/audio/tren-na-52-instrumenty-smyczkowe

http://theory.music.temple.edu/~aleck/Courses/theory.IV/Notes/Sound.Mass.notes.pdf

Stéphane Chabrières: Hiroshima, 1992