Schtúpak the fish
Paul Desenne
About this work:
Premiered by Aaron Wunsch/piano, Jennifer Curtis/violin, Nicholas Mann, viola, Sunny Yang, cello at Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont, July 2009
PROGRAM NOTES
Stchúpak, the fish (2009)
"The fish" is a nickname for a character who is slipping away from the grasp of something terrible, who is forced to swim like a fish in many waters, not to run from his obligations but to stand by his beliefs and save his life. He is the individual in collective tragedies, faced with the absurdities of history. Chronologically, we could place him in Central Europe in the first half of the 20th century, but he was in danger long before that, in many other places and times, and he still swims today, escaping from pogroms, fascist mobs, militarization, totalitarian states, and the hunger that goes with them. He lives in a wagon or a tent; he rides an old bicycle with a little sack on his shoulder, his violin wrapped in some old trousers; he is rained on; he plays by the campfire. He boards a ship and leaves Europe before destruction, reaching a port in America - North or South is the same at this point of community fragmentation. He continues playing, in good humor - there’s no looking back when you're running - but now it’s a tango... and where did his friends and family end up?
This piece is a musical tale of flight and dispersion. I conceived it as an homage to those anonymous musicians who escaped with their instruments and nothing else, like my two great-great-grandfathers on my mother's side, two good friends, two fiddlers who left Bohemia together in the 1860s and landed near Chicago. One of them traded his violin for a clarinet and their duo continued... who knows how they survived? But a hard life clinging to music in America was probably better than death in some imperial madness in Mittel-Europe! Their descendants intermarried and some of their music was passed down.
What I composed here is imaginary. The piece refers to several ethnic sources but doesn't quote any in particular, and escapes all of them ultimately. Music can be a timeless link between past and future, moving backwards or forwards in time warps, offering a place we can revisit with new ideas and meanings, a place where we can build a story without too many explanations or sad details. To me, this piece is a silent movie - music in black and white. A silent movie that could be shown at a fair near the trailers and tents of an old circus. It's a nostalgic adventure with a great flight into the unknown; a gypsy-rock dance, an odd tango.
A girlfriend I once had mentioned her ancestors as we were visiting her native Haifa in Israel: "In Ukraine, my family name was Stchúpak - a type of fish." I never forgot the name of that slippery one who swam away before it was too late. The ones who stayed are all gone. Swim, swim!
Paul Desenne, June 2009
Version: Piano Quartet
Year composed: 2009
Duration: 00:12:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Piano Quartet or Quintet
Instrumentation: