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The GENESIS: a Symphonic Work and Analysis Andrews University Digital Commons @ Andrews University Faculty Publications 2017 The GENESIS: A Symphonic Work and Analysis Max Keller Andrews University, maxk@andrews.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/pubs Part of the Composition Commons Recommended Citation Keller, Max, "The GENESIS: A Symphonic Work and Analysis" (2017). Faculty Publications. 1522. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/pubs/1522 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contact repository@andrews.edu. Catalyst ISSN 2408-137X, Volume 15, No. 1, 2017 The GENESIS: A Symphonic Work and Analysis Max Keller Abstract The biblical account of creation found in the Book of Genesis is known to billions around the world through its proclamation by multiple religions and numerous denominations. As such it is embedded in many cultures, especially that of the Western civilization and art. This article contains all but two of the movements, three and six, of Max Keller’s analysis of his multi-movement symphonic work The Genesis. The work sought to be a musical expression of the creation narrative found in the Book of Genesis, with direct correlations to the original Hebrew text. As such, the analysis takes an in-depth look into the relationship between the composition itself and the text, with specific attention given to the translations of the original Hebrew into English to better understand the reasoning behind the interpretative choices made by the composer and how they are applied musically. Key words: Genesis, creation, exegesis, composition, music analysis Literature Review Some of the earliest accounts of Genesis’ story of creation can be found in poetry of the Bible in the book of Psalms. “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” (Psalms 33:6) According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, God is the creator of the universe and as such “Creation became a key-point in the faith of Israel…” (Luz, 2010). Christians trace their history and faith through the Israelites’ writings up until the birth of Jesus. Two of the gospel writers, Matthew and Luke, take particular time to establish Jesus’ genealogy within the history of the Jewish nation and ultimately the world. The account given by Luke begins with Jesus and works backwards to the first man, Adam, and then ultimately God the Creator (Allen, 2015). Coming out of the same tradition, followers of Jesus, Christians, hold creation as a foundational tenant of their faith. As such, the book of Genesis has been the source of inspiration for many great works of Western art. In 1512 Michelangelo completed his commission from Pope Julius II, the frescoes covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. “The Sistine Chapel holds a central place in Christendom as the private chapel of the pope and the site of the papal conclave, where the College of Cardinals gathers to elect new popes. Thanks to Michelangelo… however, the chapel’s significance extends to all who have been inspired by the originality and power of his vision—both directly and indirectly, through its influence on subsequent artists and the iconography of world culture.” (Katz, 2009). The epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton was first published in 1667. When considered today “Paradise Lost is not just the greatest epic poem ever written in the English language, it is also one of the greatest epic poems in the wider European Tradition.” (Reisner, 2011, p. 151). The poem goes much beyond the creation of the world to include war in heaven and the fall of mankind described in the Book of Genesis after the creation story with its final climax being the telling of the plan of redemption to Adam before he and Eve are cast out of the Garden of Eden (Milton, 1667). While Paradise Lost is the most well-known and influential work, there are many others that deal with the biblical creation. Many such works also focus on the fall of mankind, perhaps due to the drama of a perfect world being corrupted. However, the 20th century poem The Creation by the American poet James Weldon Johnson published in 1922 does not delve into any areas other than the creation of the world (Johnson, 1922). Instead, it ends with the creation of man thereby making that the culminating climax of the work which much more in alignment with the first chapter of Genesis. Perhaps the seminal work in regards to biblical creation in the classical repertoire is Haydn’s oratorio The Creation, which had its public premier in 1799. Not completely unique in its language, 32 Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost was a reference for the libretto of Haydn’s work (Edwards, 1891). “In The Creation we see the greatest composer of the time, at the very height of his powers, gathering all his resources to tackle the central mystery of our existence. It was a supreme moment in musical history.” (Temperley, 1991, p. 8). In the 20th century, a collaborative work headed by film composer Nathaniel Shilkret depicted not only creation, but many of the other stories in Genesis up to the fall of Babel. The work entitled Genesis Suite was completed in 1945 and included seven composers. In order by movement they were Arnold Schoenberg Prelude – Earth was without form, Nathaniel Shilkret Creation, Alexandre Tansman Adam and Eve, Darius Milhaud Cain and Abel, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco The Flood ("Noah's Ark"), Ernst Toch The Covenant ("The Rainbow"), and Igor Stravinsky Babel. This work covers much more than just the creation and finishes with the scattering of mankind after the tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11. A more recent large-scale work depicting the creation is the ballet The Creation of the World by the Russian film composer Andrei Petrov in 1968. “The Creation of the World shows Petrov to be a kind of tongue-in-cheek faux-naif with its grotesque and effervescent mixture of folk, jazz, and the nursery.” (Snook, n.d.). The ballet is based on and named after the cartoon cycle of the same name by the French painter and cartoonist François Lejeune who worked under the pseudonym Jean Effel. Throughout the pantheon that is Western music, the amount of large-scale orchestral works depicting the biblical account of creation are not as numerous as would perhaps be expected of a subject matter that has been and is still exceedingly culturally influential. However in addition to the creation found in the Book of Genesis, the Bible as a source of inspiration is extremely prevalent in Western classical and contemporary music as can be attested to by oratorios such as Handel’s Messiah, Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and John Adam’s El Niño, the ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the song cycle Four Serious Songs by Brahms, and Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 entitled Jeremiah not to mention the expansive abundance found in the areas of sacred choral and solo vocal works. Methodology The Genesis is a programmatic symphonic work composed by Max Keller in 2016 that depicts the creation of the heavens and the earth as described in the biblical book of Genesis. The scoring is set for 2 Flutes, Oboe, English Horn, 2 Clarinets in B¨, 2 Bassoon, 4 Horns in F, 2 Trumpets in B¨, 2 Trombones, Bass Trombone, Tuba, 4 Timpani, 3 Percussion, Harp, Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello and Bass. Due to length restrictions, this article does not include movements three and six from The Genesis or their analysis. However, it does follow the format of the complete paper which is divided into two main sections, the methodology which addresses the texts considered and pre-compositional thoughts, and the analysis, which seeks to display those thoughts in the music. Both sections are organized in seven smaller sections coinciding with each of the seven movements of the work. However, the movements themselves are set according to the days of creation described in the Book of Genesis. Each day of the creation, while containing unique traits and formations, fits sequentially into an overarching narrative, and was also viewed in a teleological fashion with the completion of all the Earth and its living inhabitants as the goal. Essentially the analysis will view the entire creation week as being contained within a timeline that depicts order and aesthetic beauty formed out of nothing as well as chaos. 33 Movement 1. Tohu (Confusion) 1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day (KJV, Genesis 1:1-5) To be able to describe how musically this scene could be depicted, the description of the state of the earth must be examined. Starting in verse two the Earth is described as being “without form, and ṯō-hū). According to Strong (1890), this word carries) ת ֹ֙הוֹּ֙֙ void.” The words “without form” come from with it multiple meanings: formlessness, confusion, unreality, and emptiness (h. 8414). Emptiness ḇō·hū) and simply means) וָב ֹ֔ הּו would coincide with the next description, void, which comes from emptiness (Strong, 1890, h.
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