Rhapsoidia

In this work, Grech embarks on a musical search for the roots of life, the ultimate source of all that is. He conducts this universal search using an individual search for his Mediterranean roots. The quintessentially Mediterranean qualities of timelessness and the harmonization of human activity with the rhythms of nature are evoked by Grech‘s use of two Greek folk tunes based on two pentatonic scales, on which the whole composition is constructed. The work is pervaded by the mysterious whirling sound of this five-note scale and by an infinite silence from which the sound, suggestive of the principle of life, quietly emerges and to which it quietly returns. Throughout the work, Grech emphasizes the return of the scale to its point of initial departure, reiterating the minor second interval from the principal note to convey the sense of silence and infinity as the source of everything that comes into being. The steadfast use of this cellular element gives the work an internal linearity and continuity, which allows Grech to weave together the three sections of the work each representative of one of the three phases of life (i.e. birth, death and re-birth) and thus to convey the cyclical nature of life, the perpetual emergence and return to its cosmic source. This mystical meaning is given a poetic enrichment by the names of the first two sections of the work, which follow the titles of the Greek folk tunes from which the musical elements are drawn, namely ‘Méra mérose’ (the title of the first section representative of birth, translated as ‘The day has dawned’) and ‘Efike ’ya stá ‘gónia’ (the title of the second section representative of death, translated as ‘He is gone, may his grandchildren prosper’). As life passes into manifestation and back to the original silence, a short third section named ‘Tha xanaximerósi’ (‘It will dawn again’) heralds the future rebirth of life and the beginning of a new cycle of life.

Instrumentation: Piano