for orchestra (2021)
12 minutes
Instrumentation
3*223* / 4331 / timp / 3 perc / strings
1 Piccolo, 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets in B♭, 2 Bassoons, 1 Contrabassoon
4 Horns in F, 3 Trumpets in C (1st also optional Piccolo Trumpet), 2 Tenor Trombones, 1 Bass Trombone, 1 Tuba
1 Timpani player
3 Percussion players: Bass Drum (very large, resonant and deep), Wind Gong (not too small, approximately 55/22”), Vibraphone, Tambourine (rather high pitched but resonant), pair of Cymbals (large and resonant), Tubular bells, Tam-tam (approximately 120cm/48”), Crotales (two octaves), China Cymbal (suspended), Glockenspiel, pair of Cymbals (small and very responsive), Small Triangle (very high and delicate), Snare Drum (elegant sound)
Strings (Double Basses: most, if not all, must have low extension)
Description
The title Elysium reflects Moussa’s fascination with ancient Greek and Classical sources. Also known by the epithet “the Elysian Fields,” Elysium refers to a paradisiacal realm, distinct from the Underworld in Greek mythology, that offered a blissful afterlife to heroes and those favored by the gods. Its idyllic promise is described by Homer and Hesiod and echoes through the epics of Virgil and Dante down to the present — even occurring in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (in his setting of Schiller’s description of Joy as “daughter of Elysium”).
Moussa, however, insists on steering clear of any Romantic idealization of the Hellenic world. He particularly admires the work of the pre-Socratic philosophers (most of which survives only in fragmentary form), and singles out a text on the afterlife by Empedocles, a remarkable fifth-century BCE pioneer of natural philosophy who lived in what today is Sicily. Moussa notes that he interprets Empedocles’s image of Elysium “as the ultimate reward for an ethical life” — a reward no longer limited to an elite of god-favored heroes — as “a metaphor for a beautiful life, for a life well-lived on this planet.”
From Empedocles’s large-scale poem known as Purifications, which treats religious and ethical topics, Moussa cites this fragment, in which Elysium is envisioned as a final escape from the cycle of reincarnation:
εἰς δὲ τέλος μάντεις τε καὶ ὑμνοπόλοι καὶ ἰητροὶ
καὶ πρόμοι ἀνθρώποισιν ἐπιχθονίοισι πέλονται,
ἔνθεν ἀναβλαστοῦσι θεοὶ τιμῇσι φέριστοι.
ἀθανάτοις ἄλλοισιν ὁμέστιοι, αὐτοτράπεζοι,
ἐόντες, ἀνδρείων ἀχέων ἀπόκληροι, ἀτειρεῖς.
But, at the last, they appear among mortal men as prophets, songwriters, physicians, and princes; and thence they rise up as gods exalted in honor, sharing the hearth of the other gods and the same table, free from human woes, safe from destiny, and incapable of hurt.
— Thomas May
Recording
Commission
Jointly commissioned by Wiener Philharmoniker, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Festival de Lanaudière, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
First performance
September 18, 2021
Barcelona, Spain Basílica de la Sagrada Família
Vienna Philharmonic
Christian Thielemann, conductor
Pairing suggestions
Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben; Tod und Verklärung; Also sprach Zarathustra
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 9
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Wolfgang A. Mozart: Requiem
Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique”
Anton Bruckner: Symphonies
Access
Available for hire.
Contact Nicolas Farmer: nicolas.farmer(a)samymoussa.com