Chamber Music Anvil, Bass Drum, Crotales, Glockenspiel, Gong, Percussion, Suspen...(+)
Chamber Music Anvil, Bass
Drum, Crotales,
Glockenspiel, Gong,
Percussion, Suspended
Cymbal, Tam-tam,
Triangle, Tubular Bells,
Vibraphone, Violin
SKU: PR.114410790
Composed by Daniel Dorff.
Set of performance
scores. With Standard
notation. Composed 1993.
32+32 pages. Duration 13
minutes. Theodore Presser
Company #114-41079.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.114410790).
ISBN
9781491112687. UPC:
680160015580. 9 x 12
inches.
THREE
MYSTERIES OF NAGASAKI was
inspired by the eerie
darkness and ambiguous
bells of the oldest
Western church in Japan.
Dorff’s program
note describes
impressions of his visit
to Nagasaki while
withholding any
explanation of the three
movements. The 13-minute
work is a duo for violin
and one percussionist,
with an array of pitched
and unpitched ringing
metallic instruments plus
bass drum.
THREE
MYSTERIES OF NAGASAKI was
inspired by the ambiguous
bells of the oldest
Western church in
Japan.In an island nation
that used to thrive on
isolation from the rest
of the world, Nagasaki
has long been a
vulnerable exception.
From the 16th through
19th centuries, it was
Japan’s only
international port, open
to Portuguese and Dutch
traders. From this sole
crossroads, Christianity
(along with European
food, flowers, and
language) began flowing
into the otherwise
insular culture. The US
Navy’s presence in
the 1800s added to
Nagasaki being
Japan’s exposed
Achilles’ heel,
which may be why
Puccini’s Madama
Butterfly is set in this
city, with
Cho-Cho-San’s
vulnerability symbolizing
the risk of openness to
Western
influence.I’ve had
occasion to visit
Nagasaki, and have never
felt so haunted. Aside
from the unspeakable
atrocity of 1945 and the
lasting presence of that
horror, there also
remains a mysterious air
of not really being in
pure Japan, or in the
present day. Nowhere was
this more obvious than
within the ÅŒura
Basilica, the earliest
Christian church built in
Japan. Decades after
visiting the basilica, I
still recall its oddly
distorted and slowly
pealing bells, and
timeless incense floating
in relative darkness. The
mysterious bells have
stayed with me both for
their own sonority, and
as a subconscious
reminder of everything
Nagasaki is and
was.Composed for a
violinist-percussionist
couple who ended a
decades-long relationship
just as I completed the
work (and never
performing it), it was
originally called simply
THREE MYSTERIES; I
couldn’t make a
direct reference in the
title because it felt too
raw. Looking back years
later, the updated title
THREE MYSTERIES OF
NAGASAKI seems to ask
more questions than it
answers.