Bechara El-Khoury (b. 1957)
Orchestral Works
Bechara El-Khoury was born in Beirut in 1957 and started his
musical studies in the Lebanon, before moving in 1979 to Paris to complete his
training with Pierre-Petit, then Director of the Ecole Normale de Musique. By
the time he decided to settle in the French capital, he already had a dual
reputation as the composer of some hundred works written between 1969 and 1978,
and as a poet, with several collections published from 1971 onwards, in
addition to his intensive activity as a pianist, conductor, chorus-master, and
as a writer of articles in the press. An important concert of El- Khoury's
works was given in Paris on 9 December 1983 by the Orchestre Colonne under
Pierre Dervaux with the collaboration of the pianist Abdel Rahman El-Bacha, as
part of the celebration of the centenary of Khalil Gibran. Several of the works
included here had their world première on this occasion, the Symphonic Poem
No. 1: Lebanon in Flames, the Requiem: For the Lebanese Martyrs in the
War, the Symphonic Picture: The Gods of the Earth and the Symphonic
Suite: Night and the Fool. In 1987 El-Khoury took out French citizenship.
His works have been played by distinguished orchestras, including the London Symphony
Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra,
the Paris Orchestre Colonne, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Orchestre Symphonique Français, and others.
Pierre-Petit wrote about the composer: 'Bechara El- Khoury's
music is deeply rooted in the soil of his own country but his solid knowledge
of western technique allows him to attempt with success the delicate amalgamation
of oriental sensibility with the language of Europe. The harmonic procedures
that he uses certainly emanate from the grand classical tradition, but he has
an individual style that ensures the constant presence of this magic and
bewitching Orient from which he comes, without falling into false showiness or cheap
colouring. Without doubt he is one of those very rare beings who knows how to
reconcile the irreconcilable, without ever deviating from a line of conduct
that leads him irresistibly from the shores of romanticism towards the most
contemporary modes of expression.'
El-Khoury brings back to the music of today the expression
of personal feeling, of passion and of emotion. In an interview with Bruno
Serrou he said: 'I am an enthusiast for freedom and accept no sectarianism. I
write as I feel, while taking into account the evolution of the world. I refuse
to break with the past, which for me is a stimulus, an asset. Music ought to be
the reflection of human feelings and a universal language'. Sensible to the
beauties as well as the miseries of the world, the composer realises one of his
deepest convictions 'to put into music human nature and its passions'. The
predominance of the narrative aspect in his works is at the origin of his
preference for free form, proceeding rhapsodically in a succession of contrasted
sections, subject to the development of poetic feeling. Even when he tackles
traditional abstract forms such as the sonata, he never uses pre-established patterns
foreign to the vital impulse of his creative imagination. Up to his Op. 23 the
technical means he uses remain faithful to the idea of tonality, not to a traditional
tonality, based on the evolutionary idea of a progress amid a series of
modulations, but rather of a tonality conceived as a point of reference, a
fixed pole.
Image symphonique, Op. 26, ushers in a new phase, tonally freer and bolder, that has its fuller
development in the Méditation poétique for violin and orchestra (Naxos 8.557692). The character of the composer is directed towards greater concision, and tends
to contrast, as they develop, emotional states with greater rapidity. The
orchestration, always richly worked, gives an impression of wide spaces by
using the main sections of the orchestra in groups, clearly as against lighter
textures that favour rather writing for solo instrumental sounds. In the latter
the composer's taste for instruments that give romantic colour, such as the
clarinet or the horn, is apparent.
The Danse, Op. 9, with the subtitle Danse des aigles
(Dance of the Eagles) is surely one of El- Khoury's most brilliant and
extravert pieces. Composed in 1980, this miniature, with its rich
orchestration, its melismas in oriental colouring, and the wild character of its
rhythms, is in the direct tradition of Russian or Armenian musicians such as
Khachaturian. This work fully deserves to be placed alongside the most famous and
most spectacular symphonic dances of the twentieth century.
Dedicated to Pierre Dervaux, the Image symphonique, Op. 26, subtitled Les Dieux de
la terre (The Gods
of the Earth), originates in a poem by Khalil Gibran. This score, composed in
1982, tends to use free chromaticism, recalling in a way the language of Penderecki's
most recent works. Except in the extreme parts of the work, the composer seems
to abandon here the long dreamy periods that characterized his earlier compositions.
On the contrary he operates by touches and quickly contrasts dense orchestral
textures with others that are lighter, sometimes solo, symbolizing visions that
clash against one another to a faster rhythm. The surprising final bars,
entrusted only to the brass, are like a Wagnerian reminiscence.
The Suite symphonique, Op. 29, 'La nuit et
le fou' (Night and
the Fool) was written in Paris in 1982. Like the Image symphonique, 'La
nuit et le fou' was inspired by a poem of Khalil Gibran. The two movements
are strongly unified by the use of related thematic material. Remarkable in its
concision, the opening Lento soon exploits the impressionistic touches
of the woodwind, a lyrical clarinet theme, a frenzied rhythmic idea, evoking,
in a way, Messiaen, and later a solemn brass chorale. The Misterioso starts
atonally. Here the clarinet theme from the first movement permeates the whole piece
in various guises. The tense atmosphere is barely illuminated towards the end
by a long phrase from the upper strings, which marks, through its diatonic character,
a serener contrast. The end of the work is starker in character.
The second piece in the trilogy inspired by the tragedy of Lebanon, Requiem, Op. 18, dedicated to the 'Lebanese martyrs of the war', was written in Beirut in December 1980. The tonality of B flat minor gives the work its funereal and
tragic character. The introduction, one of the darkest passages by El-Khoury,
brings a phrase full of threatening and mournful chromaticism on the lower
strings, trombones and tuba, while the entry of the horns and trumpets, over
the scattered outbursts from the bass drum, is stamped with solemnity. The
funeral lament begins when a tonic pedal of B flat is heard from the lower
strings and timpani. The principal theme, exceptionally long and the source of
a number of later motifs, is then stated by violins and violas. The work then
develops in a succession of episodes with feelings that are sometimes violent
and dramatic, symbolizing the struggle against despair, and sometimes reserved
and turned inwards, marking resignation before the inescapable. Shortly before
the end, a final eruption of revolt, marked Patetico, in 5/4 metre,
reveals a rich polyphonic conception in chromatic and orchestral writing that suggests
Scriabin. The work ends with a return of the funeral procession and the
principal theme.
The Poème symphonique No. 1, Op. 14, composed in Beirut in July 1980, with the subtitle Le Liban en flammes (Lebanon in Flames), is inspired by a poem by El-Khoury, written in the middle of the war,
in 1976. It is the first panel of the triptych devoted to the dramatic events
of the war in Lebanon.* The work reflects the composer's feelings of suffering
as an individual facing the human folly that war and destruction brings.
Centred on the tonality of C minor, the traditional key of dramatic expression,
it unfolds in free form, in paragraphs broadly developed, and exhibits
contrasted feelings stamped with sadness, revolt, melancholy and tenderness.
The work makes use of themes decorated with melismas in oriental style and dance
rhythms that are as it were evocations in the present of a past that has gone
for ever.
The Poème for Orchestra, Op. 2, with the subtitle Le
Regard du Christ, composed in Paris in 1979, at the age of 22 and dedicated
to his parents, is the earliest orchestral work kept by the composer as part of
his official catalogue of compositions. In this work El- Khoury wants to
translate something of the mystical inspiration suggested by the look of Christ
over life here below. Written in the dark tonality of B minor, this score
already shows the characteristics of later works, glittering orchestration, and
free form based on expressively contrasting episodes.
Gérald Hugon
English version
by Keith Anderson
* The
symphony Les Ruines de Beyrouth (The Ruins of Beirut) of 1985 is the
third panel of this triptych (Naxos 8.557043).
