Symphony No. 3 (Hurricane)
Carson Kievman
About this work:
he third symphony (of Carson Kievman) was written in 1993-95, the years following Hurricane Andrew's devastating course though South Florida. Though clearly inspired by the composer's experience of living within its path of destruction, the work is as contemplative as it is dramatic or descriptive. Rather than depicting the random-ness or dissonance of an actual storm, the tone is translated through the more complex -- and poetical -- responses of the individual. The three-part structure is in fact a highly developed exploration of internal thoughts and feelings: anticipating, absorbing and finally adjusting to forces that lie beyond our control. While the hurricane imagery is apparent, the human dimension of the work might reflect any threat of powerful or violent confrontation.
The first movement expresses a heightened sense of both danger and beauty, evoking not simply fear but also an intoxicating excitement. The stillness of the atmosphere is charged with an impending destiny, enhanced by sforzando accents and by tremolos in the strings. The music builds in intensity and timbral complexity until coalescing in a climax of syncopation, which fades to silence. A passage of strange beauty and lyricism is then announced by the flutes, complimented by oboe and clarinet, and is marked by a resonance in the strings. The lyric impulse suggests the allure of the new sensations, despite the possibility of catastrophe on the horizon.
The storm advances in waves of energy, offset by residuals of calm. With each ascent, the strings swirl gently upward in long crescendos, only to fall back upon new surges of foreboding. A rolling rhythmic figure, as a hypnotic background element, becomes more compelling as the music builds. The strings play offbeat rhythmic figures, accentuated by pizzicato, with resounding echoes in the flutes. The rhythmic formation--like-patterns of gathering clouds or motion softly taper off to a placid but deceptive clam, ending with brass chords that foreshadow the final movement.
The violent second movement begins attaca, without warning, as a dominating theme marches through in the trumpets and timpani. The thematic material is deconstructed, as if obscured by debris, in a series of ascending orchestral flourishes: maniacal alarms that accelerate to frenzy. The theme is picked up urgently by the strings, then slows and gradually builds into a majestic restatement by the full orchestra, before quieting to a deep and unsettling lull.
Within the calm of the center (the eye of the storm), the theme begins to reconstruct in an extremely long accelerando: the rising pairs and series of notes are propelled by woodwind flourishes and punctuated by sharp orchestral and percussive accents. After a tense pause, the individual instruments cohere in a powerful re-gathering of energies and a completely restated theme. The violence of the confrontation steadily recedes into the distance. Yet just as it seems to have faded, it resurges with an exhilarating sweep of force, as if the inevitability and beauty of natural forces must be accepted and embraced. In the wake of this overwhelming power, at the edge of a powerful uplift of horns, the music suddenly ends.
The third movement is a meditation on the aftermath of devastation, shaped and colored by a dialogue between orchestra and timpani: questions softly posed on the transitory nature of man, answered only by nightmarish echoes of violence. The aftershock opens with hesitant entreaties by horns, strings, tubular bells, vibraphone, and harp, creating an air of unreality and dislocation. The contemplative tone is disturbed by repeated 16th notes beginning in the trumpets and is shadowed by the rumbling of timpani and by tremolos in the winds--somber reminders of the windstorm. The prominence of the timpani, whose role includes all twelve pitches and requires a constant re-adjustment of tunings, conveys the deep and resilient nature of psychological trauma.
As the timpani's reverberations fade into silence, others timidly assert a renewed lyricism, fragments reminiscent of the first movement, anticipating a return to beauty after the loss of innocence. The timpani, whose blustering strength recalls the shear power of the confrontation, fades to a muted pulse again. The remainder of the piece is haunted by thunderous resurgences of the timpani and echoes of the gong, rising like traumatic memories to spar with the softer elements of strings and winds. Yet by the end, the emotional battering of percussion is countered by an equally powerful rejoinder of the brass. The horns build together as the strings, which opened the symphony, suggesting that a new level of harmony, is a last achieved: resilient, mature, and indomitable. The symphony ends with the wind section playing a serine, unearthly chord. Liner Notes by Mark David Needle
Year composed: 1995
Duration: 00:31:38
Ensemble type: Orchestra:Unknown
Instrumentation: 1 Piccolo, 2 Flute, 2 Oboe, 1 English Horn, 2 Clarinet, 1 Bass Clarinet, 2 Bassoon, 1 Contrabassoon, 4 Horn in F, 3 Trumpet, 3 Trombone, 1 Tuba, 3 Percussion (General), 1 Strings (General), 1 Harp