In an ironic and serendipitous twist of fate, after having written a post on three fundamental characteristics of Russian music I found myself disregarding almost every single one of those when listening to the work "Cassandra" for large ensemble by the Ukrainian-Russian contemporary composer Vladimir Tarnopolsky. Composed in 1991, consequently the same year the USSR dissolved under the weight of its own hubris, this destructuralized piece of orchestral literature grapples with the idea of formlessness which results in its own form. The piece does not have any recognizable melody or harmonic signature, one of the tenants associated with "musical Russianness" as delineated by many Scholars, nor does the rhythm ever take on a stable characteristic. Instead, temporal periodization is used to create its structure, the work's long-range design being an elongated mezza di voce form.
The work points to a possible feature of contemporary Russian music literature that has become relatively common, that being a proclivity towards ambiguity, esotericism, atmospherics, reduced adherence to traditional technical processes, along with allegorical and metaphorical usages of musical textures. Tarnopolsky's work also uses a wide variety of non-traditional, or at very least an uncategorizable, soundscapes which could be grouped under the neologistic title of "episodic symphonism" in its 24 minute run-time. The work conceives of tension and release, an element of the "symphonic style" as described by Asafiev, along with long-form motivic development (another tenant of musical Russianness) as paradigms rather than set constructs. As the piece goes on, the tonally liberated nature (as one can detect a tonal plan not related to typical notions of tonality) of the work starts to fall away as something shocking. Instead, you begin hearing the intricate movements and relationships in the instrumentation. It's a remarkable realization when you begin to dissociate from the supremacy of tonality and diatonic thinking that has captivated our composers throughout the ages, where deconstruction helps not only the composer but the listener escape the confines of the auditory binary. Melody becomes a curse and a poison.
The name of the gnashing, jarring, and yet simultaneously antagonizing and all-together irresolute work "Cassandra" comes from the could-be heroine from Greek mythology who, if only allowed, could have prevented the fall of Troy due to her oracular abilities but was blocked by Apollo because he was jealous of being deceived by her into the nature of her infatuation for the God of Love. In this way, the music personifies in excruciating detail the dreadful tale of jealousy and avoidable destruction that lies at the heart of the myth. A beautiful and virtuous woman, whose vestigial purity attracted everyone to her, who was undone by another and scorned by friend and foe, only for destruction to fall upon them in return. In this story, no one wins and every party is left to relish in their destituteness and contemptibility. As a result of Cassandra's unrequited devotion to the God who gave to her the ability to prophesize she is now referred to as the "messenger of misfortune," apropos to the world of 1991 no? I am most likely certain that the tintinnabulation at the end of the work, in the form of resonant church bells and hand-held sleigh bells, is to evoke the sardonic quality of Orthodox rituality. In the end, Cassandra fell and so too did Troy........or the USSR?
Comments