Petr Eben studied piano and organ from an early age but on the outbreak of the Second World War was expelled from school and later interned in the concentration camp at Buchenwald. After the war he took up musical studies again, entering the Prague Academy of Music in 1948. He later became a professor at Prague's Charles University. During the last four decades he has produced a large number of extremely varied works including song cycles, symphonic pieces, cantatas, and chamber music. His contribution to the organ repertoire is particularly significant: works include Laudes (1964), Faust (1980), two Organ Concertos and the cycle Job (1987).
These "Landscapes" are not musical snapshots of scenes from the Greek Islands, but a sequence of images from the Book of Revelation, in which St. John described the vision of the end of the world, which he experienced on the island of Patmos. These images are both solemn and dramatic, and ideally suited to "the tremendous potential in sound" which Eben found in this combination of instruments. There are three main movements (1, 3 and 5) separated by two shorter ones (2 and 4). In each of the larger movements, the percussion concentrates on one specific timbre: skins (drums) for the eagle, metallic bell sounds for the Temple, and wood (xylophone and temple-blocks) for the horses. |
i. And the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. The eagle inhabits a
harsh, alien landscape of mountains and rocks. At the end it seems to fly away to the distance.
ii. And round about the Throne were four and twenty elders, clothed in
white raiment. A brief, mysterious organ solo with a percussion interlude in the middle. Eben describes the first page as "a kind of wise sermon in a little hoarse voice."
iii. And the temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was in his
temple the ark of his testament. An air of stillness and solemnity surrounds the evocative central vision of the Temple, "a juxtaposition of colours between a mysterious dim twilight and a crystalline sparkling".
iv. And there was a rainbow about the throne, in sight like unto an
emerald. A picturesque scherzo for tinkling organ stops with bongos and bells, suggesting the patter of raindrops.
v. The finale unleashes the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in a tempestuous fantasia on the Dies Irae. Towards the end the organ intones a second plainsong theme, the Victimae Paschali from the liturgy of Easter, proclaiming the victory of life over death in a peal of Easter bells. |
