Between Freedom and Determination: Marios Joannou Elia's Music for Guitar

Abstract

BETWEEN FREEDOM AND DETERMINATION: MARIOS JOANNOU ELIA’S MUSIC FOR GUITAR VERA GRUND ARIOS JOANNOU ELIA CALLS THIRTEEN WORKS of his oeuvre “music for guitar.” Five pieces are for solo instrumentation: In Between (1999), Ontologie Parallel (2001), Soliloquy (2002), Maneuver (2006), and Cursed (2008). The remainder consists of guitar duet (Ontologie Kubik, 2001), quartet (Apophis, 2001/08 and Staubzucker, 2007), or mixed instrumentation containing bowed, brass, and percussion instruments . His works for solo guitar can also be considered as chamber music in the manner of their construction.1 Elia’s style is typified by the use of differentiated sounds not only played in the conventional method but also through prepared instruments . Another characteristic is the complex rhythmical structure. His music is imbued with different timbres, leading to subtle expressions that surprise the listener with their dramatic effects. In this way, together with approaches regarding musical structure and extra-musical meanings, Elia’s music relates to ancient dramatic art-forms. Staubzucker (2007), a virtuoso piece for guitar quartet, uses not only the instrument but also the instrumentalists to simulate M 178 Perspectives of New Music percussion instruments. The composer creates myriad possibilities to provoke specific sounds by using non-usual playing techniques. The complexity of the score demands and challenges its performers to imitate the sounds of 23 percussion instruments. Additionally, the instrumentalists must create sounds with their own voices and bodies by clapping and by flipping or rubbing paper. These unconventional techniques provoke specific sounds, which create theatrical and musical expressivity. It is a piece which, undoubtedly, demands high concentration for its performance. The score hints at the composer’s purpose: “Since the happily failed meeting of Odysseus with the Sirens, all songs have ailed.”2 Powdered sugar (Ger.: Staubzucker) has a sweet taste, which is most often regarded as pleasurable. However, it can also be used in the production of highly explosive mixtures, which can bring catastrophe. Likewise, the Sirens—those beautiful creatures from Greek mythology, who played melodious songs to capture Odysseus—could become extremely dangerous, even fatal. Since the Sirens can be paralleled with powdered sugar in terms of their bipolar meaning (i.e., pleasure versus catastrophe , beauty versus death), the composer was led to give the specific title to the piece. In this guitar quartet, the guitar becomes “ill,” it is almost “destroyed,” for instead of being used in its “traditional” melodious way, it is treated as a percussion instrument. Actually, it is not the destiny of the Greek hero that attracts the composer but the means by which his literary creator, Homer, causes tension. Homer’s technique of using parallel plots, flashbacks, introductions , perspective, and narrator changes is the inspiration for Elia, who declares: “Like powdered sugar (Staubzucker) that can be used for a highly explosive alloy the sound of the guitars bursts like the ‘diseased’ songs from the sirens.”3 The piece was commissioned in memory of Wolfgang Roscher, the late dean of the Mozarteum University, and was premiered in Salzburg ’s Solitär Concert Hall in 2007. It has received over a hundred performances around Europe, South America, and the United States and was described in a review by Classical Guitar Magazine as a piece “the performance of which one is not likely to forget.”4 The Miscelanea Guitar Quartet Salzburg won several international competitions performing Staubzucker in 2008: the Competition for Contemporary Music in Salzburg, the Chamber Music Competition in Thessaloniki, and the International Guitar Competition “Luys Milan” in Valencia. Apophis is also for guitar quartet and references the Egyptian god of darkness and chaos. The constitutive musical device consists of imitations or imitations-in-pretense. Lyric parts using flageolets are disturbed Between Freedom and Determination 179 by violent unison parts. The morbid character of the piece is defined by the emphatic use of the chromatic interval. It commences in a homophonic way with two duets in rhythmic accord. The highest degree of polyphonic part-writing is focused on the middle of the piece, symbolizing the chaos which the ancient Egyptian goddess Apophis represents. Apophis, originally composed for clarinet quartet in 2001, was recommissioned for guitar by the Miscelanea Guitar Quartet and premiered at the Aula Magna Rectorado of the Carlos III...