The vampire bat stumbles through the eerie blue darkness, walking on its strange umbrella-like arms like the Landstriders in The Dark Crystal. It drags itself next to a tin of cow blood and begins lapping it like milk. And then the cameraman says, Perfect – stay right there and start talking.
I’m at the Philadelphia Zoo to shoot a video about my symphonic work Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, a concerto for orchestra in the guise of a bestiary of mythological creatures. This month the amazing Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in three concerts here and a one at Carnegie Hall, and someone had the brilliant idea to bring me to the zoo to examine the closest relatives to the creatures depicted in the symphony.
Anthology brings to life the dark fantasy of Jorge-Luis Borges, a master of magical realism and narrative puzzles. Through eleven interlocking movements, the piece showcases different sections and soloists with the vividness of Russian ballet scores, a major inspiration for the piece. Written for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2015, the piece was the culmination of a 20-year fascination with the prospect of mythological creatures animated in imaginative and theatrical ways.
I first came across Borges’ slim volume while a student of comparative literature at Columbia College. With his unique mix of dry scientific description and fantastic elements, the Argentine writer has often drawn me into compositional What If’s. Turning through pages that include nymphs, sirens, gryphons, and several creatures of his own creation, I found myself asking What if this was a concerto for orchestra?
Created by Bela Bartok, the ‘concerto for orchestra’ is an ingenious symphonic form. Instead of showcasing just one instrument as in the standard concerto, why not feature everyone? It’s like the finale of a Broadway musical, where everyone pops up for a moment. I embraced the concept of a mythological bestiary as the perfect vehicle for a concerto for orchestra. The basic compositional challenge was to create highly vivid themes associated with each instrument and creature, ones that would be so memorable that I could reprise them all at the ‘witching hour’ at the very end and have the listener recognize each one.
Creating memorable ideas is not a strong suit of contemporary music. The process-based focus of serialism and minimalism favors textures and surfaces, not melodies. That focus was an understandable move away from the traditional melody-and-accompaniment approach, but like all new things it became old at some point. In both the symphonic realm and now in opera, I look to create ‘craveable’ material that grabs you and won’t let go.
To make the themes even more vivid, I hard-wired dramatic elements to many of the them. The Sprite, for example, comes with the bracing new element of symphonic choreography. The tune hops from music stand to music stand, even bouncing offstage. For a few years, I’ve looked at the violins and wondered whether I could shoot music across them, stand by stand. I imagined a motif spinning from the concertmaster outwards, something like a miniature relay race at high speeds. Sit in the balcony and you can watch patterns zig-zag across the string section like lighting.
Another creature, the serpentine A Bao A Qu, is conjured by a reptilian tune in the double reeds that is a palindrome. Borges describes a creature that slithers up a tower; gloriously molts at the top; then slides back down – and I wanted this movement to mimic that mirrored life cycle. I spent a vast amount of time searching for material that could be perceptively reversible on both the micro and the macro level. So there are miniature cells that work in both directions, but also big interruptions that return in the reverse. There is a ridiculous gong that announces the creature that, in the end, swooshes backwards.
Other creatures include a flying lion (the Gryphon, illustrated by brass and a vicious array of 13 timpani) and a creature that is an island (the Zaratan, which consumes the entire orchestra like a musical black hole). The lyrical core of the piece is inhabited by the Sirens, those beautiful creatures who lure sailors to their deaths. Using the offstage violins, I passed a melody between them that lures each of the onstage strings, soloist by soloist. The movement climaxes with a tapestry of a dozen soloists undulating among each other.
This week I’ve been in awe watching Yannick bring this piece to life. Like Riccardo Muti who premiered the work, Yannick is equally at home in the opera house. Having the skills of a ‘musical dramatist’ well serves this piece, which is as Technicolor a symphonic experience I’ve ever created. Having worked together on Alternative Energy a few years ago in Philly and now looking ahead to a new opera at The Met, Yannick and I are learning a lot about the way we approach musical theatrics together. The Carnegie performance marks the New York premiere of this piece, my largest work to date – my own special zoo.