View from Olympus (solo piano, solo percussion, orchestra)

The orchestral materials for this work can be hired from the composer. For enquiries go to Orchestral Hires

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Program Note

Steeped in Greek mythology and folk music this high energy double concerto for percussion, piano and orchestra is now presented in this new performance edition. Following a request from the commissioner, Dame Evelyn Glennie, a MIDI realisation of the orchestral parts of View From Olympus was created to enable performance by two musicians with audio playback. A digital download also contains various mixes for rehearsal purposes; an invaluable resource for those wishing to perform this concerto.

Commissioned by percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, View From Olympus has become one of my landmark works. This double concerto takes listeners on a journey through the world of Greek percussion styles and playing techniques.The first movement features an adapted transcription of improvised Greek violin music (by Stathis Koukoularis), the second movement is a tribute to my two children, and the third movement is a wild depiction of the legendary Mænads celebrating their god Dionysos with song, music and dance.

The world premiere of this version was given by Dame Evelyn Glennie (perc), and Philip Smith (piano), at Cadogan Hall in London during the 2015 BBC Proms. MIDI programming of Digital Orchestra by David Downes (funded by Creative New Zealand)

The Furies were avenging spirits of retributive justice whose task was to punish crimes outside the reach of human justice. Their names were Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone. This movement contains an adapted transcription of a fragment of improvised playing by one of my favourite Greek violinists, Stathis Koukoularis (it appears as a solo for violin about two minutes into the movement).

To Yelasto Paithi (The Smiling Child) is the closest I’ve come to expressing — in a way not possible with the spoken or written word — the feelings inspired by my precious children, Emanuel and Zoe. In this movement is also caught the summer I spent working on the concerto at my parents’ house just outside the village of Nea Michaniona – a house perched on a cliff which looks down on the Aegean and up to Mount Olympus

Draped in the skins of fawns, crowned with wreaths of ivy and carrying the thyrsos — a staff wound round with ivy leaves and topped with a pine cone — the Maenads roamed the mountains and woods, seeking to assimilate the potency of the beasts that dwelled there and celebrating their god Dionysos with song, music and dance. The human spirit demands Dionysiac ecstasy; to those who accept it, the experience offers spiritual power. For those who repress the natural force within themselves, or refuse it to others, it is transformed into destruction, both of the innocent and the guilty. When possessed by Dionysos, the Maenads became savage and brutal. They plunged into a frenzied dance, obtaining an intoxicating high and a mystical ecstasy that gave them unknown powers, making them the match of the bravest hero.

Forming an optional encore to the concerto is Fragment (percussion version), for vibraphone and piano.

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Composer Note

I'd planned to compose this piece while on a 6-month Sabbatical in Greece in the year 2000. During our time in Greece we christened our daughter Zoe, I attended the premiere of my saxophone concerto Omnifenix (performed by Michael Brecker) in Bologna, and experienced 50-degree summer days.

I would sit above my parents house in Michaniona and look out over the Aegean at Mt. Olympus. A memory that eventually produced the title for the work. Of those six months sabbatical I spent only one day on the piece, and actually composed it when I returned to New Zealand. But that one day composing was incredibly fruitful. I went to my sister's apartment in Thessaloniki (Tania had a piano) and worked out a harmonic progression that provides the architecture for the first movement. A symmetrical high-tension modal progression from a Greek-sounding F mode -> G lydian dominant -> A diminished -> B Lydian dominant - C# diminished - Eb lydian dominant - F 'greek' mode. When this structure was dressed in melodies, rhythms, textures, and dynamics it produced something very powerful, and the return to the final 'F' feels immense and inevitable.

The piece was composed for Evelyn Glennie who had asked for a double concerto to mark a certain anniversary of her long-time collaboration with pianist Philip Smith. I remember when I finished composing the piece and sent it off to Evelyn I thought this would be the piece that launched me on the international stage. Evelyn's response came in two parts - the first was 'thanks so much, it looks great' (which was a massively deflating moment for me), then 4 months later Evelyn wrote again saying it was an incredible piece and that she thought this was 'the' concerto.

I attended the premiere in 2002 at the Royal Gala concert of the Commonwelath Games in Manchester. The performance was conducted by Mark Elder with the Halle Orchestra. My family came from Greece and many Kiwis who were nearby also attended. I thought this was going to be it. It was a catastrophe, for reasons I can't go into here. It took me years to recover. In fact it was only when Marc Taddei decided to program the piece some 5 years later with the Christchurch Symphony (and soloists Lenny Sakofsky and Michael Houstoun), that I was able to let go of the feeling I'd written a dud. In Christchurch the audience were off their feet after the final note. An overwhelmingly passionate and impacting response to the work and the performance. That was the moment I was able to believe the piece was what I had always imagined it to be.

The second movement was created for there to always be a piece of music that my children would have, to know how I felt about them in case I passed away early. This movement expresses the feeling of the love I have for Emanuel and Zoe, in a way that words cannot.

The third movement is a reimagining of the last movement of the piano trio Island Songs. This movement went on to have a further reimagining in the Netherlands Blazers Ensemble Zeibekiko and then again in The New Zeibekiko with the Auckland Philharmonia.

We recorded the piece on Rattle Records with Pedro Carneiro, Michael Houstoun and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marc Taddei. The album (also called View from Olympus) won Best Classical Album of the Year at the NZ music Awards.

I've subsequently created a karaoke version of the concerto which Fabian Ziegler and Akvile Sileikaite included on the Modern Gods album.

Full Instrumentation

Piccolo
2 Flutes (Flute 2 doubling piccolo)
2 Oboes
2 Clarinets in Bb (Clarinet 1 doubling clarinet in Eb)
2 Bassoons

4 Horns in F
3 Trumpets in Bb
2 Trombones
1 Bass Trombone
Tuba

Timpani (4 drums)

Percussion 1 (1 or 2 players): triangle, snare drum, mark tree, glockenspiel, tubular bells, marimba (4.3-octave instrument), cow bell, vibraphone, cymbals (splash, medium crash, china crash), bass drum, tambourine (mounted and played with sticks), 3 high tom toms (different pitches)

Percussion 2 (1 or 2 players): glockenspiel, triangle, tubular bells, cymbals (splash, medium crash, china crash), marimba (4.3-octave instrument), bass drum, tam-tam (large), finger cymbals (approximate pitch D6), vibraphone

Solo Percussion: vibraphone, marimba (5-octave instrument), simtak, dulcimer (santouri), bass steel drums, wind chimes (2 or 3 sets), bell tree, mark tree, triangle, finger cymbals, drum station (4 octobans, 4 tom toms, cymbals (trash, splash, medium crash, china crash and a cluster of smallest-possible splash cymbals), hi-hat)

Harp

Solo Piano (should be amplified)

Violin i
Violin ii
Viola
Cello
Double Bass

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Resources

Score

View From Olympus Official Playlist

Recording

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