El-khoury: Orchestral Works

Description

Bechara El-Khoury (b. 1957)Orchestral Works Bechara El-Khoury was born in Beirut in 1957 and started hismusical studies in the Lebanon, before moving in 1979 to Paris to complete histraining with Pierre-Petit, then Director of the Ecole Normale de Musique. Bythe time he decided to settle in the French capital, he already had a dualreputation as the composer of some hundred works written between 1969 and 1978,and as a poet, with several collections published from 1971 onwards, inaddition to his intensive activity as a pianist, conductor, chorus-master, andas a writer of articles in the press. An important concert of El- Khoury'sworks was given in Paris on 9 December 1983 by the Orchestre Colonne underPierre Dervaux with the collaboration of the pianist Abdel Rahman El-Bacha, aspart of the celebration of the centenary of Khalil Gibran. Several of the worksincluded here had their world premi?¿re on this occasion, the Symphonic PoemNo. 1: Lebanon in Flames, the Requiem: For the Lebanese Martyrs in theWar, the Symphonic Picture: The Gods of the Earth and the SymphonicSuite: Night and the Fool. In 1987 El-Khoury took out French citizenship.His works have been played by distinguished orchestras, including the London SymphonyOrchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra,the Paris Orchestre Colonne, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Orchestre Symphonique Fran?ºais, and others.Pierre-Petit wrote about the composer: 'Bechara El- Khoury'smusic is deeply rooted in the soil of his own country but his solid knowledgeof western technique allows him to attempt with success the delicate amalgamationof oriental sensibility with the language of Europe. The harmonic proceduresthat he uses certainly emanate from the grand classical tradition, but he hasan individual style that ensures the constant presence of this magic andbewitching Orient from which he comes, without falling into false showiness or cheapcolouring. Without doubt he is one of those very rare beings who knows how toreconcile the irreconcilable, without ever deviating from a line of conductthat leads him irresistibly from the shores of romanticism towards the mostcontemporary modes of expression.'El-Khoury brings back to the music of today the expressionof personal feeling, of passion and of emotion. In an interview with BrunoSerrou he said: 'I am an enthusiast for freedom and accept no sectarianism. Iwrite as I feel, while taking into account the evolution of the world. I refuseto break with the past, which for me is a stimulus, an asset. Music ought to bethe reflection of human feelings and a universal language'. Sensible to thebeauties as well as the miseries of the world, the composer realises one of hisdeepest convictions 'to put into music human nature and its passions'. Thepredominance of the narrative aspect in his works is at the origin of hispreference for free form, proceeding rhapsodically in a succession of contrastedsections, subject to t