In the Fire of Conflict (2008)
Christos Hatzis
PUBLISHER: Promethean Editions Limited
RECORDINGS: Woman Runs with Wolves, Beverley Johnston (Centrediscs)
RANGE: 5.0 octaves
DURATION: 10:15
MOVEMENTS: two movements
- Rescue Me
- I Call Your Name
TYPE OF ACCOMPANIMENT: Fixed
MUSICAL OVERVIEW: While the marimba is active throughout the work, the rapper's performance on the tape is to be treated as the soloist. The work opens on crotales with an extended rhythmic passage. The marimba constantly weaves around the rapper, the melody often influenced by the spoken text. Both movements are rhythmically active, span the entire range of the instrument, and require fortissimo and louder playing in the upper register of the marimba. A matched set of medium or medium-hard mallets, preferably heavy, are recommended.
ACCOMPANIMENT OVERVIEW: Synthesized and sampled sounds including performance of a rapper. The tape contains contemporary sounds using modern processing techniques. The work requires synchronicity throughout. Surround sound tracks are included in addition to stereo tracks.
TECHNIQUE OVERVIEW: SI, SIA, DV, and DL. The interval within the mallets of a hand ranges between a second and sixth. The writing does not require fast interval changes. The hands remain close together for most of the work. The writing does not require great independence between the hands. There are no large leaps.
COMPOSER'S NOTE: The following text by Christos Hatzis was taken from his website:
I was becoming very concerned with the rise of gun violence in recent years in Toronto, my home city, but also with the constant rise of violence around the world in either organized conflicts, such as war, or spontaneous eruptions, exacerbated no doubt by food shortages, global warming and demographic explosion particularly in areas where daily survival is most difficult, and by the diminishing hope among the majority of people alive today that our current way of life can continue in its present form indefinitely.
Although my own spiritual focus has always been on the incoming Aquarian eon, expected to be an eon of peace and spiritual enlightenment, I am also aware of the fact that we are still in the closing years of the Piscean age, the age of enantiodromia or conflict according to Carl Jung; that things will get worse before they get better…much worse; that there will come a time soon when our faith in God will be the only life vest that will protect us from drowning spiritually in the vast sea of hopelessness that surrounds us already. This is the story I wanted to tell through this work, but I wanted to say it not from the vantage point of spiritual certainty, but from the impenetrable darkness of someone struggling to stay afloat amidst this sea of hopelessness.