scored for string orchestra (6,5,4,3,2)

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duration 12 minutes 

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As a composer, there are many directions one can take. One can, from a modernist point of view, continue building upon tradition — adding to it, delving deeper, pushing further. One can also reject it, as many avant-gardists have done. Or one can recycle, quote, and reawaken compositional principles from the past — as the postmodernists did.

 

That last approach has long been associated with the word classical. But what does that actually mean? There is Classical Antiquity, upon which the Renaissance built in the visual arts. The music of that time, however, remained elusive — not something that could be reused. When Neoclassicism appeared in architecture, the music of that same period suddenly acquired the name Classicism.

 

In music, Neoclassicism truly began to flourish with Debussy (Hommage à Rameau), Ravel (Le Tombeau de Couperin), and Stravinsky (Pulcinella). Yet perhaps Mendelssohn was the first, when after the rediscovery of Bach’s Passions, he began writing preludes and fugues again — not really Neoclassical, but rather Neo-Baroque. And Stravinsky’s Pulcinella may be considered the very emblem of Neoclassicism, but it is in fact based on Pergolesi — Baroque music, after all.

 

Today, in the twenty-first century, the word has acquired a new meaning. The Neoclassicism of our time is connected to works such as Max Richter’s The Four Seasons Recomposed: a reinterpretation of the past built upon the pulsating patterns of Minimal Music. The term no longer refers to a stylistic period, but to an attitude — a new form of “classical music” within a world overflowing with contemporary genres.

 

This music shares with the historical classical tradition mainly its acoustic nature, its physical presence, yet its internal logic is now more influenced by minimalism and pop. It fits within an era where classical music is associated with calm and deceleration — a counterbalance to the hectic rhythm of modern life. At least, those parts of the tradition that serve as models for what is today called “Neoclassical.”

 

In general, my own work stands closer to the rich tradition of historical classical music. Still, I could not resist taking this so-called twenty-first-century Neoclassicism as a subject worthy of examination.

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The Way of Longing - a Romantic Way

The Way of the Pattern - a Minimal Way

The Way of Grace - a Ravelian Way

The Way of the Pattern II - a Richterian Way

The Way of Jubilation - a Baroque Way

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