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The Eternal Recurrence (Die Ewige Wiederkehr)
Conductor's score and parts on hire
978-0-19-361425-3
01 March 2001
Price: Available on request
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A bi-lingual setting of a text by Nietzsche for soprano solo and orchestra Forces or CategorySoprano & full orchestraDuration20 minutesDifficultyModerately difficult to DifficultOrchestration3 fl (II&III+picc), ob, ca, cl, bcl, bn, cbn, 4 hn, 2 tpt, 3 tbn, tba, perc (cym, BD, SD), strProgramme
NotesThe Eternal Recurrence is a setting of texts from Nietzsches Also Sprach Zarathustra. Rather like the familiar objects in still lifes, the music uses everyday musical gestures to produce something feverish and brilliant.
The Eternal Recurrence is an ancient idea that everything that happens is part of an endlessly repeating cycle or sequence of events. Nietzsche wrote that when the heavenly bodies are in the same constellation, the same events must also be repeated on earth, down to every small particular, so that every time the stars stand in a certain relation to each other, a Stoic will form a alliance with an Epicurean and murder Caesar, and when they reach another position Columbus will again discover
America.
Nietzsche felt that whoever is able to affirm life even on this supposition will have the strength to endure and flourish in the aftermath of all disillusionment. He wrote What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you: This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence even this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside-down again and again, and you with it,
speck of dust! If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and everything, Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more? would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight.
© Gerald Barry
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
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Gerald Barry (b.1952) Gerald Barry was born in Ireland in 1952 and studied composition with Stockhausen and Kagel. He first came to public attention in 1979 with his radical ensemble works __________ and 'Ø.
Barry's music has been performed at the Warsaw Autumn, Musik Triennale Köln, Musica Viva, Festival Présences, Huddersfield and St Denis Festivals, the ISCM and many others. His music has been recorded on the NMC, Largo, Black Box, Marco Polo and Challenge labels.More on Gerald Barry from The Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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