PROGRAM NOTES by Michael Schelle
Resilience (2014)
MICHAEL SCHELLE
BORN January 22, 1950 in Philadelphia
Dedicated to my father, Lt. George W. Schelle (1915-2004), a first generation American and a naval officer in the Pacific Theatre 1941-45, Resilience is a dramatic three-movement work honoring the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The nervous, restless music of Movement 1, Dachaulieder, is inspired by a brief motive from the opening of a string quartet by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), one of the very first Jewish composers to become known throughout the world. Movement 2, Rising Sun, Fallen Sky, a fusion of American and Japanese musical traditions, embraces the restless ground campaigns of Okinawa, lwo Jima, etc., and the mysterious atmosphere and wasteland landscapes of Japan after the bomb. Following a brief revisiting/revision of the anxious, explosive materials from Dachaulieder, Movement 3, Blast of Silence, collapses into an extended, emotionally-charged ‘prayer for peace’ that eventually dissolves into thin air.
Although I never realized it until recently, Resilience had been over fifteen years in the making. First, the little Mendelssohn tune fragment of Movement 1 comes from a piece I heard performed a few years ago by a Chicagoarea string quartet whose personnel included Joshua DeVries, the cello soloist for whom Resilience was written. Also, I have visited Hiroshima twice over the past few years—an emotionally paralyzing experience—and have traveled the streets of Tokyo, trying to imagine the devastating fire-bombings of the 1940s.
However, after my father’s death in 2004, I realized I knew quite a lot about the Pacific Theatre of World War II but was under-educated regarding Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Stalin, Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. I immediately embarked on an extended, in-depth self-study of all things European Theatre, an absorbing obsession that continues today. In recent years I have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, the Jewish ghettos of Warsaw and Krakow, and the site of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. On an interior wall of one of the barracks in Dachau was a small plaque: a brief, simple, painful song/melody (words in German) written by an anonymous prisoner. I took a photograph of this remarkable, heartbreaking artifact, knowing that someday, somewhere, I would incorporate it into my music. Near the end of the Dachaulieder movement that haunting little tune—now extended, harmonized, orchestrated and “distributed” across the orchestra and the soloists—emerges out of the chaos for a brief “reality-check” reflection into the tragic past.
A personal note: my Dad never spoke of the war unless we asked him and, even then, the information was minimal. He was an optimistic, generous man, a brilliant man—my hero, my role model, a gentle giant (all 6’8″ of him) who took care of his family (and four kids), was an AMAX Corporation executive in Manhattan, and a Little League coach.
Resilience was a consortium commission from multiple orchestras including the Dayton Philharmonic, the Nashville Symphony, the Fort Smith (AK) Symphony, and the South Shore Orchestra of Chicago. The work was premiered in September 2015 by the Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra, John Jeter, Music Director and Conductor. The premiere performance soloists were Alaina Rea, viola, and Joshua DeVries, violin.
The work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons, 4 horns, trombone, bass trombone, timpani, 2 percussion, harp, solo viola, solo cello, and strings. The duration is about thirty minutes.
