Günter Bialas - Introitus - Exodus

Introitus - Exodus, for orchestra and organ (1976)

Edgar Krapp, organ

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Rafael Kubelik

When traditional labels for musical forms and genres are applied to 20th-century compositions they most often summon up a broad panoply of meanings. Much can be learned of the work in question by examining these meanings. Was the composer seeking reassurance from the past for his novel idioms? Did he feel compelled by his neo-classical leanings to take recourse in history? Or, as in the present work, did he wish to conjure up an aura of archaism and ritual? Bialas himself addressed this matter in a brief introduction: "First of all, 'Introitus' and 'Exodus' mean exactly what the words imply when translated iiterally: entrance and exit. We are familiar with the introit as the beginning of the mass. In Greek tragedy, exodus refers to the departure of the chorus. Both of these are rituals, and it is this idea of ritual which I wish to kindle in the listener".

The "entrance", a plastic sound introduced by an initial unison figure in the strings, brass and bassoons, is fully in keeping with Bialas's distinctive approach to music. It is no accident that this figure, an ascending whole-step with an upbeat flavour, is a prototypical incipit formula in liturgical psalmody. Hence it forms a clear link with plainsong (the "introit" as a genre never left the confines of Gregorian chant) and points to the semantic background of the work. In a sense, it announces the opening of a secular mass, a ritual pertaining to human life and death generally. However, as Bialas himself explains, the entrance is not without its difficulties: "Entrance means overcoming resistance: each advance provokes a reaction".

The "Interludium" is a rhapsody, its free form and improvisatory manner conforming to the traditional genre of this name. The composer has described its musical function as "to extend the development of the material, to prepare new material, to separate the movements, and to give the soloist an opportunity for self-expression". Unexpectedly, the primary turns into the intermediate: life is revealed as an "interlude" between birth and death.

The difficult entrance is followed by an implacable descend: "Even where the word 'Exodus' bears no relation to its familiar meaning in the like-named book or film (namelv explosion) every exit involves the application of force". This forced exit is immediately evident in the figures which open the third section. Now the progress of the piece is dominated by constantly descending figures driven by timpani rolls and mark-like drumbeats, distantly reminiscent of the Baroque rhetorical figure 'katabasis'.

In bar 19 there begins a large-scale crescendo of apocalyptic proportions over a march rhythms. New material and figures are added layer by layer, creating an impression of wild lamentation. Following a climax and consequent collapse, a gradual process of disintegration sets in. All that remains are the ostinato elements, which were always present as a permanent background and which ultimately, from bar 156, draw all of the figures into the maelstrom of a "marche funèbre" leading to the original starting pitch "a". In a manner of speaking, this pitch forms the soul of the work. As Bialas wrote: "The piece also concludes with this pitch, and we hear it reverberating in the small timpani in a long after the other instruments have fallen silent" .

Referring to the difference between his work and Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration", Bialas shed revealing light on his own intensions: whereas Strauss seeks to depict an individual destiny, however transcendant at the end, Bialas's aim in "Introitus - Exodus" is to show Life itself in its primordial, archaic conditions: entrance, consummation and exit (whatever that exit may mean) can clearly be traced in the piece, even if it has no programme which one must know and follow. Hence the progress of the music in absolute terms has an unprogrammatic exterior meaning, and turns Bialas's musical language into a vital and profound experience. --Siegfried Mauser

Art by Jonathan Ryan