Gea, Bringer of Life
The following link refers to the registration of our composition:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1I4M5BvjZNavG7hEHPerWYe3F_mkJr4bk
(performers: Andrea Papillo - piano; Emanuele Lupano - piano. Recording made in room 35 of the Antonio Vivaldi Conservatory of Alessandria)
A) Let's give Gustav a hand.
Listening to Holst's music, we had the feeling that something was missing. However, how can we say that the work of our beloved composer is incomplete? Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Neptune…each planet has its own movement, its own melody, what else could be added? At that point we realized that to the Earth, an extraordinary and unique planet, at least among those that orbit around the Sun, a precious casket in which the Solar System jealously guards the great treasure of life, Holst has not dedicated even a couple of notes. We therefore decided to complete Holst's work ourselves, by writing a movement dedicated to the Earth.
B) The title.
Keeping the common element in the name of all the movements, whereby each planet is the bearer of something, we thought that the most suitable title for a composition dedicated to the Earth was "Gea, Bringer of Life". Gea, in ancient Greek "Γῆ", for Greek mythology represented the divine strength of the Earth. Mother of many children, including Uranus (the sky), Pontus (the sea) and the twelve Titans, in turn progenitors of the Olympian gods, she was considered the very origin of life: for this very reason we thought of defining her "Bearer of Life".
C) Themes and inspiration.
By composing "Gea, Bringer of Life" we imagined moving physically within a primordial scenario at the time of the birth of the Solar System and the planets that are part of it, similar to the one immortalized in the famous image entitled "Pale blue dot" taken by Voyager 1 spacecraft traveling well beyond the orbit of Neptune 6 billion kilometers from Earth. The music we have written is a sound narration of this space-time journey and reflects the sensations and emotions that its idea arouses in us. From the immensity of sidereal space, empty, mysterious and wonderful, we have approached the great cloud of dust and gas that would have given rise to the Solar System. We stopped to watch, as this vortex of dust began to rotate on itself and become incandescent, so much as to finally generate the heart of our Solar System, the Sun, and with the remaining material, the planets with their satellites and asteroids. Then, in the depths of the Solar System, we saw a small luminous dot, bare and indefinite, unknown, from which we certainly can't expect much.
Slowly, we reached this small planet, and with great surprise we discovered it to be stormy, plagued by violent storms, thunder, lightning and volcanic eruptions, moved by heavy rains and blizzards. It was our Earth, at the origins of its formation. But just as the sun comes after every storm, after those storms there came a glimmer of light, from which, in a unique and unrepeatable way, as in no other place in the entire cosmos - as far as we know up to now about the Universe, despite the hope that is not really so it will never die - like a ray of sunshine that pierces the clouds, like a flower that survives a forest fire, with transcendental force of creation, from the deepest darkness, life itself is born.
D) Structure.
To musically describe all this, we have written three themes, which alternate without a specific compositional scheme. This is why we speak of a "fantasy".
The tonality of the system is G major, but in the introduction, with which we wanted to convey the sensation of the vastness of space and of the cloud of dust, unknown and obscure, from which the Solar System and the Earth itself will be born, there is no a clear confirmation of the tonality: "empty" chords are used, without the third, which identifies the minor or major mode, and the G pentatonic scale, which really makes this melody seem suspended in space. The music we usually listen to is defined as "tonal" as the different notes present in the scale (more generically called "degrees") are defined by well-defined intervals, depending on which we can speak of major or minor tonalities. The former generally give a feeling of joy and pleasantness, the latter sound more gloomy and melancholy to our ears. The pentatonic scales, on the other hand, both for the sounds that characterize them and for the way they are used, do not convey a feeling of pure joy, let alone an overly intrusive melancholy: for this reason we have used the G pentatonic scale in the introduction part , leaving the listener in an emotionally very undefined and, precisely, suspended situation. The introduction continues in the key of E flat, this time with the introduction of two sounds that are new to the listener's ear: the augmented fifth and the major third, which approach the key of E flat major but still make us perceive a some harmonic suspension. The tension builds, culminating as the bass (the lowest voice played by the piano) moves to A,
Chromatically we move to the dominant of G major and finally the exposition of the first theme opens, the "Theme of Life", in G major - characterized by both complete and incomplete chords, which therefore maintain the suspended atmosphere of the introduction. We would like to point out a particularity: in the introduction, harmonically speaking, we move from G to E flat and then to A. These three notes, in the Anglo-Saxon wording, which use the letters of the alphabet from A to G , to name the notes respectively from La to Sol, form the word “GEA”. In this we were inspired by the great JS Bach, who inserts, in various of his compositions, the theme "BACH", which uses the notes B flat, A, C, B natural (since the latter is indicated with the letter H in the German wording).
We are getting closer to the Earth and we see its contours better and better: the planet itself is coming to life from the same incandescent magma that constitutes it. The Theme of Life is reproposed and elaborated, this time with a softer and more melancholic atmosphere. The transition to the key of E flat is used this time as a modulating passage to D minor, the key of the second theme.
The second theme, the "Rain Theme", is in ternary time and recalls the storms and storms that scourge the Earth after its formation: starting from a few light notes, the theme repeats itself, in a crescendo that leads to image of the most violent and destructive storms. The performer who does not play the theme intervenes by playing strongly dissonant chords, in particular E augmented and G diminished, taken in unison or arpeggiated: they symbolize thunder and lightning, irregular, frightening and powerful, which pierce the sky in the grip of a storm, illuminating it.
The storm calms down, and the key of G major returns, with the exposition of the third and last theme, the “Tema del Vento”. It is a wind intended both as an atmospheric phenomenon and metaphorically as a symbol of change and novelty, of evolution. The sensation of the wind is conveyed by a totally new and more energetic rhythm dynamism, through the use of the rhythmic figure of the quintuplets. The Theme of the Wind alternates between the keys of G major and E flat major. The two performers exchange the role of performing the theme, and alternately play melodic phrases that enrich the harmony and create the sensation of the unstoppable movement of the wind, of the dynamism of the evolving planet, shaped by the forces of nature. Reached the peak of the intensity of the Theme of the Wind, the Theme of Life reappears. Life was born, on the small and insignificant dot that came from the void of the cosmos that we call Earth. The tonality of G major is reconfirmed, and “Gea, Portatrice di Vita” concludes, with a last mention of the Theme of Life.
E) Instrumentation and orchestration.
The movement is written for two pianos. However, this is not a composition in which the two pianos always play together, following the same pace and the same intensity - both expressive and dynamic. There are times when a player is silent, such as in the introduction, where the dynamics are so delicate and the melody whispered, that the sound of two pianos would be too full. In other moments, such as in the Theme of the Rain or in the Theme of the Wind, the performers interact: while the former plays the "main" thematic part, supported by a now richer and now more sparse harmony, depending on the expressive choices, the other helps to accentuate the color of each of the themes by playing melodies rhythmically and harmonically in agreement or in complete contrast with the theme.