Astar T&A – Creative Duo

Taja Astar, 2023
Text: Anna Astar
Durata: 10:00 min

About the piece
All the Power and Glory is an antiwar piece. In it, we reflect on things that are common and potentially uniting for people on Earth, and why they always choose to be divided and hostile to each other, in fact, even using these common things, such as longing for creativity and the transcendental, to justify the aggression they channel towards each other. 
The accompaniment to the song is built on numerous original motives that are composed in different folk traditions. They intertwine to create an organic flow, where the shoots of creativity from various times, continents and peoples co-exist in perfect harmony. This “song of countless voices” is the eternal, universal language that might have been the treasure, cherished by all, and the ground for mutual understanding.
The title of the piece refers to the New Testament (Luke 4:6), to the Jesus’ temptation by Satan. While the text in general, as the idea behind the piece, is secular, it metaphorically blames people for claiming authority over the world that existed long before them. For blindly pursuing dominance over their peers through war and violence. For choosing the fleeting “glory” – paid by endless suffering and death – instead of a sustainable and flourishing co-existence.
The work is intertextual on many layers. So, it does not only make multiple references to folk music, but also two of the authors’ own pieces that are, in turn, reflections on fundamental topics. One of them is a plaintive lament, tragically inspired by the war in Ukraine.

all the power and glory
you have sought
since your hordes were roving
in the woods of your nascent world
 
from the beginning of time
you've been feeding the earth 
your pains and your joys
wherever you set your foot
a song of countless voices grows
voices as longing as yours
up to the sky it ascends
from the seeds of tears as sharp as yours
from the seeds of sweat as hot as yours
straight to your heart it speaks
and still you seek
all the power and glory elsewhere
 
all the power and glory
you write with your whips
on the naked shoulders
with the blood that's as red as yours
 
all the power and glory
you inscribe on the swords
that you raise to bury
in the bodies as soft as yours
 
a song of countless voices grows
straight to your heart it speaks
and still you seek
all the power and glory elsewhere

Taja Astar, 2022, 2024
Durata: ~ 8:30

About the piece
This piece is an exploration into new ways of uniting poetry and music. The work correlates with the topics dealt with in a villanelle by Anna Astar, and strives to reflect in the composition structure this traditional poetry form characterized by a complex pattern of rhyming and refrains. 
The concept of the piece plays also with the imagery of the poem, where the checkered flag, with its combination of black and white colors, is perceived both as a symbol of victory in racing and as the checkerboard where a game of chess is being played.
The musical texture of the toccata is based on two motifs, one of which is played on the black keys, the other on the white keys, with the hands alternating, when one hand touches rather only the black or the white keys.
The piano part might be played as written or improvised live.

The Checkered Flag by Anna Astar
 
It's sport: you're playing white, I'm playing black
and always seem to move one step behind.
The game's about who takes the checkered flag.
 
We race across the board and down the track.
Fate on piano sets the tempo high,
his right hand playing white, left playing black.
 
Two lines now clash, now kiss, now throttle back.
Hands changed, this time it's I who's playing white,
but I don't care about the checkered flag.
 
I move and watch the patterns interact,
their smart confusion capturing my mind - 
all mixed: who's playing white, who's playing black…
 
And suddenly, our ways that zig and zag
from light to night, then back, get justified
and fill the matrix of the checkered flag.
 
And you, my darling. When you start to lag,
I slow my pace, to tango by your side.
You'll see: one playing white, the other black,
it takes us both to weave the checkered flag.

Taja Astar, 2020
Durata: ~ 7:30

About the piece
I find it most fascinating how different forms and works of art interact and intertwine together, giving birth to new inspiration and new works of art, bringing on the momentum of creativity, when words and images become music, and music becomes words, images and music again, and so perpetually.
My personal way to composition went through four major experiences, all of which were operatic performances - from different times and different places. It is remarkable that the four operas - Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin and Don Carlos - were all based on literary works: a verse novel and three plays. In this journey, which I shared with my wife Anna, there was a special moment of musical elation that Anna tried to express in a poem. And now it is very symbolic for me to bring the words back into music, and dedicate my first complete symphonic score to the memory of that single moment and to Peter Mattei, whose voice singing Rodrigo (Zurich Opera, Dec 2016) was at the heart of that unique experience. 
Taking the first impulse from that point, I try to absorb it in my composition and go beyond, to a more general experience of touching art. For me, a contact with art is always an emotional disturbance, an act of intrusion, sometimes violent, sometimes sedative, annoying, intoxicating or ecstatic. It can give you a feeling of joy mixed with pain, a nearly religious sense of awe, or a merry dizziness, as though you have been dancing with elves in the forest. All these sensations I have tried to convey in this short piece of music.

Perpetuum Mementum by Anna Astar

I was awake, I had a dream, as though an angel
sang to me
a voice from ever glacial heights, or from
where earth is hot, all seemed to fade
time closed the eyes and 
heeded too
entranced
with seconds
oozing
numbly down, down
drowning in the air like gleamy crystals
echoing the sound
revolving round, round in an insufferable dance
 
I was in daze
my feet forgot the ground
I felt the pulse invade
my chest, my womb, my all too worldly mind
pierce through the skin with
effervescent light and 
tear the veins
engulfing me in
rapture to the 
edge of
delirious agony
 
awed
anguishing
ashamed of being so human
why couldn't I dissolve...

Taja Astar, 2022
Durata: ~ 10:30

About the piece
The piece is an orchestra suite based on the material for my future opera that strives to marry a cosmic odyssey with an inverted story of Don Juan, and thus builds a bridge between remote epochs and cultures. Part II, Adagio sbronzato ("Hangover adagio"), and Part III, Scherzo volgare, contain references to the Mozart and Da Ponte’s opera intricately interwoven into the musical fabric, and I invite the listeners to decipher them. The stylistically contrasting Part I, Allegro epico, is in a way a parody on the genre of so called “epic music.” It plays with melodic lines written on the following lyrics by my wife Anna Astar:

Where in the universe does time land
when it drifts away from us?..
Maybe there's a place where all ways end 
and all ends wait... But what then?
We are made of stars…

Taja Astar, 2023
Text: Anna Astar
Durata: ~ 17:00

About the piece
I grew up, thinking that war is the most terrible thing that can happen in the world. My mother told me how, during World War II, she, as a kid of four, stayed at home together with her two sisters, 2 and 6, when their mother left for work. The children, constantly hungry and cold, would try to entertain themselves with talk and play, and at the time of air-raids, they started to sing as loud as possible to try and drown out the terrifying  sounds of the siren and of the bombs falling down. They could not go to the shelter because their mother locked them up, thinking that home was somehow safer for the kids, and there was no one to leave them with. Scariest of all was when one of them said, “ What if our mama gets killed…” Then, all three of them began crying hysterically.

The world has never really existed without military conflicts, but the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022 felt for me somehow as the beginning of a frightening new era. The horrible events in Israel last October have put yet another bloody conflict on the timeline of our history. Children in Ukraine, in Israel, in Gaza are listening, once again, like all those decades before, to the sounds of shooting, shelling, and bombing. Once again, children witness scenes and images that no one should ever see. Once again, children lose their parents and get experiences that no one should ever get. Yet another generation is growing up with the word “enemy” on their lips, perpetuating the cursed circle of xenophobia and violence.

The piece is a collaborative work with my wife and librettist Anna Astar, and is an abridged version of what is planned to become a mono-opera. In “Home Alone,” we contemplate on war, as it might be seen through the eyes of the innocent ones. To write the text, Anna turned to my mother’s stories, as well as to the war diaries of Ukrainian children, and other published diaries and memoirs of those who were children during a wartime: in England, in Denmark, in Germany, in Bosnia and Herzegovina… The resulting libretto draws upon the imagery and the scenes recurring in these pieces of memory. At the heart of the narration is a child’s voice that struggles to fight the feelings of fear, hunger, and loneliness. It is a young child of six or seven, who has been left alone in an empty house, when an air-raid starts.

The music of the piece is intentionally simplistic and mostly tonal, to support the aesthetics of children’s music. With a child as the narrator, the work is, both in the text and music, somehow referencing other compositions written from this perspective, such as Mussorgsky’s song cycle “The Nursery” and Bernstein’s “I Hate Music.” But while alluding to the sub-genre in a certain way, the piece also challenges it. In such compositions, the adult author/composer tends to recreate an innocent and mostly idealistic world of childhood. While sympathizing with the child narrator, the author/composer does not usually see the child as much more than a cute talking doll that is occasionally capable of coming up with surprisingly fresh and deep thoughts amid the otherwise nonsense wordiness. “Home Alone” is putting the child narrator, both textually and musically, into dire circumstances of war and hunger, making the child face and contemplate a far-from-idealistic world of killing and dying. Here, the protagonist also remains a simple child, whose mind always tries to find a way of escape, but this figure does not invite a condescending laughter from the performer or the listener. The title, “Home Alone,” obviously, is a reference to the famous film franchise – an allusion, juxtaposing the self-indulging world of consumerism and entertainment with the life of terror and need that some children are forced to live in.
 

VOCAL TEXT (by Anna Astar)

The house is so big when mama's gone.
She went to the shop, left me alone.
She said, be brave, behave yourself,
I go to the shop, to get some bread.
Now you're the big boss when I am gone.
And if you get afraid, just sing that song.
 
Sunny day, sunny joy!
Take your cap and run outside!
Little girls and little boys, sing a-la and sing a-lai!
 
But I am not afraid! I am not a little kiddie,
and soon I'll grow even bigger!
Last night, I dreamed a birthday cake.
It was big as a mountain, wide as a lake!
Mama will come back soon,
hope she'll bring some bread…
Maybe, we will go for a walk in the park.
There are yellow flowers on the trees,
they are sweet, sweet like sweets,
so nice to eat!
The leaves are not as good,
the bark is even worse!
It's bitter and hard. To eat the bark,
I guess, one should be a horse!
 
The horse has a funny voice!
It is a little like the siren, but funny.
I don't fear horses. 
I don't fear anymore
any monsters under the bed,
any bogeys behind the bathrooms door...
I'm too big for that!
 Hope she will bring some bread…
But I am not afraid!

Only that thing called an "air-raid"...
 
Mama says the enemies
throw bombs from the sky,
big bombs from the sky.

But that old lady we met once, 
she said it is God, he punishes us
for the sins we did.
I think, God's got giant elephant feet.
He stomps them hard on the ground,
so everything shakes beneath.
He speaks in squeaks, he speaks in howls, 
he speaks in angry hiss…
I know, he kills... even kids.
Only the naughty kids, that is… or not?
What if he wants to punish me?
 
Sunny day, sunny joy!
Take your cap and run outside!
Little girls and little boys...
 
Where is my mama? What if mama... 
What if my mama... gets killed?
 
Dear God, dear God! You are great, you are kind!
Please, please, dear God, do not let mama die!
Let my mama come back,
let my mama come back!
When you tread on the ground,
please, don't step on her, I beg!
 
If mama was at home, we'd go 
to the shelter down the road.
Before, I would go to the shelter on my own,
but now, I am not let out alone.
They say, children get caught and eaten.
Does it mean that kids are also made of meat, then?
Like cows, like pigs, like lambs,
like dogs, like cats… like rats…
Now mama locks me when she leaves.
She says she can find me here, at least...
 
Dear God, dear God! You are great, you are kind!
Please, please, dear God, do not let me die!

Taja Astar, 2022
Durata: ~ 5:300

About the piece
This piece is trying to convey the feeling of fear, strained nerves and emotional suspension to the edge of panic that people can experience in a situation of anxiety and uncertainty, like the one we have been facing during the ongoing corona pandemic. In the beginning of the pandemic, I, like many other people, found myself completely ungrounded and unbalanced emotionally and felt as though everything had lost any meaning and continuity, as though life was just a rope bridge, the end of which you cannot see and which can break down any second without warning. 
The work’s title refers to the poem by Anna Astar 

A Bridge Suspended
by Anna Astar

I thought a road. 
An open end, an open sky - 
above and everywhere.
Now I find I'm on a bridge
suspended in the air.

A bridge, 
a tight entanglement of knots 
that sway, sway, sway
A one-way lane 
from where I'm not
to where I'm not again.

Taja Astar, 2019, 2024
Durata: ~ 4:30

About the piece
The piece is a gleeful fanfare, full of joy and hope. It celebrates the holiday that is universal and cheerful for most people on Earth, regardless any differences. The composition fits perfectly as an opening or closing piece for a seasonal concert.
The work is an orchestra arrangement of the choir piece New Year Is Coming Around from 2019 by Taja Astar, so some melodies in the orchestration “sing” the following wishful words by Anna Astar:

New Year is coming around!
New Year is coming around!
He is turning to me, 
he is turning to me his face!
I so want to see him, 
so want to see him smile!
All the way down the line, 
 through the days,
through the nights,
I so want him, 
so want him to be,
so want him to be kind
to you and me!
New Year is coming around,
New Year is coming around!
May he be kind and smile!

Taja Astar, 2022, 2024
Durata: ~ 10:00

About the piece
The piece is my reaction to the social turbulence that we witness in the world right now: the ongoing terrible wars, the corrosion of political systems and demolishing of democracies, people’s seemingly ebbing ability for empathy and common sense – globally… The list can be continued.
The music is built around the imagery found in the poem by my wife Anna Astar, which was the inspiration for the piece. The waves of crises in the changing world. The sea waves, drowning people in their attempt to escape. The walls, physical and symbolic, behind which people try to separate themselves. The crumbling of these walls…

See also Bridges Crumbled in Choral Works

Bridges Crumbled by Anna Astar
 
You crumble bridges, you take the stones
You crumble bridges, to build up walls
In vain
In vain, you're building walls from these stones
All walls are destined to fall
What looks like rock is made of sand
No wall forever will stand
The wave
It is the wave of time that erodes 
The soil from under your toes
No wall can ever stand tall for long
The splash of arms perishing in the waves
The splash of oars willing to get
Away
Can we really get away?
This boat is the only boat we own
You never know who is next to drown
The world is changing again
What looked like rock is made of sand
The only hope is an open hand
For us all