FL: What readings and inspirations, apart from the research of Polish archaeologists and epigraphers, of course, helped you to work on the piece?
PL: I used A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography by Egon Wellesz. It is a very interesting and inspiring reading material, but finding music cells that I considered suitable was not easy – I quoted them only to a small extent. Then I refer to the Gregorian chant, or more precisely, quote three singings from the Palm Sunday liturgy. In my opinion, they very well fit into the Byzantine melodics, are not separate, have the common background. Another inspiration came from traditions preserved on the Holy Mountain of Athos. In one of the parts of the 8th Symphony, I use a semantron, an instrument that is not used in the Western European culture, it can only be found in Orthodox Church monasteries. Monks on the Mountain of Athos use semantrons – very big or smaller, portable – to call for prayer.
I definitely do not refer to African music, as this would be a gross abuse and misunderstanding of what Christianity was in Sudan, in the kingdom of Makuria. Perhaps, it is better to talk about this culture as a Nubian one, more Greek and Christian than African. It is a completely different way of singing, different rhythms, a different sphere of sounds. Banganarti was an African Częstochowa, a great pilgrimage sanctuary, which was visited even by pilgrims from Europe. The walls are covered with signatures of pilgrims, including one inscription in Latin.
FL: Not all inscriptions were preserved to our times, significant parts of them are missing. Has this influenced your music?
PL: Yes, in some parts the defects were quite numerous, and in my opinion, I should not omit them. In Agata Deptuła’s work, they were represented by three dashes in square brackets – [- - -] – something we cannot see. For me, these missing parts became a kind of a form-creating element. Each part of the Symphony includes a special theme, later instrumented, that represents a defect – there are no lyrics, no singing, but still includes a specific layer of sounds. It creates a form of each part of the work. I wanted to create narration that reflects capturing of a certain train of thoughts. Those themes are short, consisting of one or two bars, and their tempo is slightly different.
In consequence, the Symphony may be received by the audience in a slightly different way, I used a completely different type of musical narration. Will this work? We will see later. I did not want to be a slave to the system. It is one of the elements of musical symbolism, rhetorical figures – I like to apply such solutions. I used them, for example, in Via Crucis, also a work focusing on Lent, but perceived from a completely different angle. I searched for elements that may create the form and offer a listener some food for thought. Definitely, those short sections, a kind of a brief stop, are very specific.
FL: Have you considered performance of the 8th Symphony in countries associated with the Orthodox Church culture?
PL: The culture of the Orthodox Church is rather hermetic. Some people may not like the very instrumental layer of my Symphony. It is multi-voice, multi-layered, and vocal as well as instrumental music. Both in the chorale, and in particular, in Greek and Byzantine music, we deal with monody.
In my opinion, I do not refer directly to the music of the Orthodox Church. I also do not try to create music that could be played in Banganarti in the past. Even if I attempted that, I would never succeed. The Byzantine music is rather poor in terms of sounds and rhythms. It could prove tedious to the listener. I decided to use a large executive apparatus, and divide certain parts allocating them to two choirs.
I think that when considered as a testimony to a specific culture, my work is more European than Eastern. I wanted to look at early Christianity, through texts, but presented with a new musical language. Fortunately, I am not an avant-garde composer; therefore, I think that the 8th Symphony has a chance to be deeply understood. If I were an avant-garde representative, I could use those texts as a pretext for experiments. But I am exceptionally far from that. I did not want and did not have to cross any border.