Some news about Walter Saul’s music:
- Walter will perform Tapisseries Serié 5: Flora and Tapisseries Serié 6: Jupiter, two new piano works with video during his composer residency at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, along with several other compositions, including “Pray for Ukraine” from his Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra (Kiev 2014) on Thursday, September 29, 2022.
- On Tuesday, October 4, 2022, at 2:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time, he will perform the two Tapisseries works in the brand-new Warkentine Culture and Arts Center on the Fresno Pacific University main campus at 1717 S. Chestnut Avenue in Fresno, California. These two videos may now be viewed at https://vimeo.com/729656685 and https://vimeo.com/729441368.
- On Sunday, September 4, 2022, at 3:00 Central Daylight Time, he will be the Composer-in-Residence of the Zoom Conference of NACUSA-Texas.
A Review of Richard Cerchia’s Symphony No. 2
In 1894, Gustav Mahler completed his Symphony No. 2, which continues the story of the “hero” of his first symphony, the “Titan” Symphony. The opening movement of the second, or “Resurrection” Symphony, is the funeral march of that hero and the symphony famously explores the hero’s afterlife, especially with the fourth and fifth movements that bring him face-to-face with the Creator.[1] While it was not Mahler’s intention to celebrate the Christian understanding of Resurrection, I cannot help but think of the nadir of Job’s suffering in the 19th chapter of the Book of Job and, in its midst, Job’s amazing vision of a Redeemer he encounters in his flesh.[2]
My own catalogue includes A Christmas Symphony, my first, and a long-planned second symphony, On the First Day of the Week, which focuses on the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection. It is sketched out but remains unfinished as I summon the courage to complete it much as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his last three symphonies, without prospect of hearing them.[3]
A composer who has displayed this courage in his Symphony No. 2 is Richard Cerchia. While it has not been dubbed “The Resurrection Symphony” by the Michigan-based composer or anyone else, its three movements unfold the drama of earthly struggle, tragic death, and resurrection. In the composer’s words:
The Symphony is in 3 movements. #1-Aggressive, #2-more introspective and quieter. #3- Starts out soft but erupts into a grab bag of themes from before turned jovial and playful.
The 1st movement concept was initially one of conflict. The contrasts of the different sections go from aggressive to passive and longing for peace. The 2 battle it out with the aggressive winning in the last blow of the movement. (I’ve been told this movement sounds more joyous. I can understand that, and it is what it is to different hearers. I can only say what the concept was in composing it.)
The 1st movement goes “attacca” to the 2nd movement – the last soft gong from the 1st overlapping solo strings in the beginning of the next. Basically rhapsodic, the general feel is one of needed rest from battle and the sorrow of defeat. The main themes do finally find their strength and sing full voice, only to back down again in exhaustion. The back-and-forth seconds of one of the themes weakly sings as it slowly expires with the faulting heartbeat of the timpani. Unison strings end the movement with a “flat line”. The patient is gone.
The 3rd movement is one of resurrection. Starting off with a soft (almost imperceptible) chorale for strings – at once comforting and mournful. But snare, timpani and woodwinds soon marshal in a jaunty little tune that is joyful, playful, and full of life. A number of variations ensue. Themes from the previous 2 movements show up in different guises – turned on their heads and transformed by the joy of resurrection. There are still some dark spots that show up occasionally – but in the end celebration wins in a headlong 6/8 to the final unison E for full orchestra.[4]
And, indeed, this work is a festive celebration and a long time in coming to us. Cerchia is an unapologetic modernist bringing us the tonal clusters, exaggerated dynamic contrasts and the virtuoso features of Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra as well as the pitch class sets and dark energy of a Béla Bartók and the tonal/atonal contrasts of George Rochberg.
If I were to write my own program for this symphony, I would imagine a cancer patient being first confronted with his diagnosis and prognosis. She, or he, would at first have great optimism and be well energized for the ensuing life-and-death struggle, which is well reflected in the vivaciousness of the opening movement, appropriately marked “Aggressive.” The optimism of this opening salvo is reflected in the many jauntily soaring melodic lines, the brilliant tonal colors, especially of the brass, and the emboldened rhythms, underscored by the timpani and large battery of percussion. But there are the painful moments of reality sinking in: the sudden quiet chords, the gruffness of the dark rhythms that evoke Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and persistent tritones. Also, a hint of disorder and unbalance creeps in through Cerchia’s persistent use of hemiola on many different levels: ¾ versus 6/8, triplets versus duples, etc. Although the more aggressive theme wins the day, its energy begins to flag and, in a reversal of the optimistic upward surging melodies, the closing gesture gently drifts downward toward rest – before the final defiant outburst and the blow on the gong that melts into the second movement.
The middle movement is a place of repose after the drama of the opening. Cerchia features the strings in imitative statements of a consoling arched melody that carries atonal baggage from the previous movement, but the alien tones melt away into a pandiatonic version of A major that emphasizes the rest and recuperation of this movement, interestingly marked “Langsam” (German for “slow”). The vibraphone, harp, and flute unfurl a spacious, Aaron-Copland-like melody with huge leaps that is one of my favorite spots of the entire symphony, a masterpiece of orchestration that would make Mahler proud. But the texture thickens with a potpourri of hemiolas on even more levels than in the first movement that lead into a nervous, sinister energy that abandons the havens of A major as agitated versions of the opening motive are reshaped and transformed in character. Ominous tone clusters darken the mood, but the music finds its way back to A major. A new element also comes into play: the tritones of the opening movement have transformed themselves into quintal chords featuring perfect 5ths without tritones – a comforting gesture. A marvelous climax of volume and rhythm leads us back to the earlier motive of nervous energy. The opening lyrical lines re-emerge, but the music is again losing its vitality and yields to the timpani’s “heartbeat” – stated, alas, in the ugly, foreboding tritones from the first movement. As the composer states, the second movement “flat-lines” with naked octaves in the violins, indicating the death of the patient.
How will the “resurrection” take place? In possibly a nod to the finale of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Cerchia begins with a chorale so whispered, so quiet, it seems that the air molecules are barely being stirred (the incredibly soft dynamics of Peter Tchiakovsky’s 6th Symphony’s opening movement come to mind). A “heartbeat” appears in the percussion, introducing the jig rhythm that will become the heartbeat of this rollicking finale as all heaven breaks loose. Cerchia then adds cross rhythms one at a time until the music yields to the aggressive and lively rhythms featured in the opening movement. But they are swept away in a final onslaught to the heavenly jig that fills the symphony and the hall with truly abundant life once again – or maybe for the very first time.
Cerchia has accomplished many things in this epochal work. In an era that despairs of new symphonies, he has created a work that honors the long symphonic tradition back to Franz Joseph Haydn. In the languages of modernism, he has created an impassioned work that smashes through the barriers of academia, unlike some of the symphonies of Copland’s contemporaries I have heard recently. And, possibly most importantly, he has created a fresh statement of ultimate optimism, so badly needed in a world preoccupied by wars, plagues, and death. In short, he has laughed at death in this celebration of life.
- Please note: this symphony has not yet been performed
- To hear a MIDI presentation of this new work you are invited to view the Listening Room of Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers, Sunday, July 17, 2022, video. The first movement begins at 7:05, the second at 29:13, and the finale at 47:51. The video link is: (9) CFAMC Listening Room #9 Rick Cerchia Symphony No 2 – YouTube.
[1] https://www.theworldofgustavmahler.org/s2e1.html. Accessed July 14, 2022
[2] Job 19:25-27
[3] Mozart: The Last Three Symphonies | Hi-Fi News (hifinews.com). Accessed July 14, 2022
[4] Richard Cerchia, quoted by William Vollinger, Email of July 10, 2022, announcing “CFAMC Listening Page 213”