Malachi [2021] מלאכי
for soprano and 14 instrumentalists
Premiere (songs 1-6): October 2, 2021 at the MMR (Music Multimedia Room), CIRMMT, Montreal
Brittany Rae (soprano), Quentin Lauvray (amplification and sound design), Frédéric-Alexandre Michaud (conductor), McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME)
Duration: ~35 minutes
Precise instrumentation
Flute in C
Oboe / English horn
Clarinet in B-flat / bass clarinet
Bassoon / contrabassoon
—
Trumpet in C
Trombone
—
2 Percussionists:
1] crotales, suspended cymbal, medium-size ratchet, tubular bells, larg tom-tom, thunder sheet, whip
2] crotales, 3-octave vibraphone, vibraslap, large wood block, tubular bells, tam-tam, whip
1+2] (shared:) bass drum, castanets, share drum, seed pods (large, medium, small), triangle
Piano (accessories: two plastic cards, a thick rubber eraser, a superball mallet)
—
Soprano (amplified)
—
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Double bass (with C extension)
About the piece:
Malachi is a song cycle in one movement for amplified soprano and ensemble. It is a musical setting of eleven parts from the poem Malachi (in Hebrew: מלאכי) by Israeli poet Omri Livnat.
At the centre of Malachi‘s text, stands an enigmatic entity of the same name (“Malachi” also means “my angel” in Hebrew). At times, he is a lover; at others, a prophet or a god. The ambiguity, or “betweenness” regarding Malachi’s identity in Livnat’s poem is also a main theme in the musical piece, which explores the notion of betweenness in terms of form, orchestration, and energetic motion.
An important source of musical material in Malachi was the poet’s own voice. While not actually heard in the piece, Livnat’s voice was recorded and then analysed. The recorded voice’s harmonic content was translated to pitches, which finally serve as the entire piece’s harmonic infrastructure. Thus, a relationship is maintained between “the poet’s voice”—both his metaphorical and actual ones—and the composer’s interpretation of the poet’s work.
Malachi also draws on poetic imagery related to kinaesthetic movement and gestures that appears in Livnat’s poem. Six types of imagery are explored in depth across Malachi, and take the musical form of morphologies, or energetic envelopes. Each song of Malachi focuses on a single morphology, which corresponds to a motion or a gesture mentioned in that song’s text.
Brows the score: