Eva's Klage at TivoliVredenburg: Lera Auerbach takes on the smothered female voice

The Russian Lera Auerbach (1973) does not shy away from big challenges. And that is an understatement. Most recently, she made a big impression with her cycle Goetia 72: in umbra lucis. She composed this setting of the names of 72 demons for the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the string quartet Quatuor Danel. A CD of 72 Angels: in splendore lucis, in which she paired the 72 sung angel names with the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet.

Her music often has a spiritual slant. Besides the aforementioned full-length choral cycles, she composed such imposing works as Dialogues on Stabat Mater (2005); the large-scale Requiem: Ode to Peace (2012) and the forty-minute Violin Concerto De profundis (2015).

Unworldly sound

Regularly, Auerbach spices up her music with electronic instruments like the theremin and the ondes martenot. Both were developed in the 1920s. They produce an unearthly sound midway between a human voice, a singing saw and a violin. Ideal, therefore, for giving musical form to her often esoteric themes.

In 2011, Auerbach made her debut in the Friday Series with 'regular' instruments. The Radio Chamber Orchestra then played her Serenade for a Melancholic Sea for violin, piano, cello and string orchestra. Co-commissioned by the AVROTROS Friday Concert, she composed a new piece in 2019, Evas Klage. This will experience its 28 February Dutch premiere with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by brand-new chief Karina Canellakis. Already the night before, they preview in the series Pieces of Tomorrow.

Plaintive howl

Also in Evas Klage is a major role for the ondes martenot. After a powerful entry by the orchestra, a plaintive soft howl sounds, like the weeping of a desperate spirit. The anguished descending and ascending lines of the ondes martenot run as a thread through the piece. You automatically associate these with the voice of Eve, lamenting her fate. Periodically, the orchestra tries to silence the fragile wailing with furious bursts of brass and percussion.

The sometimes almost violent atmosphere is explained by the subtitle: O Blumen, die niemals blühen werden. Auerbach quotes this verse from Paradise Lost by John Milton in German, as the first performance took place in Vienna. For Auerbach, this phrase symbolises the oppression of women over the centuries. Indeed, rarely, if ever, were they given the opportunity to develop their talents: their voices were stifled.

Snippets of early music

Also in Evas Klage the ondes martenot as Evas' voice regularly threatens to go head over heels. But at the end, her singing ascends to heaven, leaving the orchestra orphaned on earth. Incidentally, it is not all doom and gloom, as Auerbach weaves snatches of early music through her score. Both come from Henry Purcell.

Fairly early on we hear a reference to his witty song What can we poor females do? To which an answer comes in the form of the familiar Music for a While. The message: ah, the females can have fun with music. - For a while then.

The ethereal finale leaves no doubt that this Eva does not intend to make only 'music for a while'. Gloriously she overcomes the resistances, judging by the constantly rising melodic line at the end. 'Perhaps the answer is to get up and stay above it all,' Auerbach writes of this. 'Thus we retain a glimpse of lost paradise, like the inner light of childhood when the world was still undefined and everything was possible.'

Paradise lost recovered

Eve unflinchingly frees herself from her understated place 'in umbra lucis' - in the shadow of light. She self-consciously chooses a place 'in splendore lucis' - in bright light. Thus, she reclaims the lost paradise.

Reviews following the world premiere in October 2019 were unanimously laudatory. 'The play has a motivic richness that is both intellectually and sensually accessible,' wrote the Wiener Zeitung. I can only agree with this wholeheartedly.