THE SILENT OCEAN | MALEK JANDALI
Symphonic Poem for Orchestra
Jandali’s symphonic poem The Silent Ocean premiered to a rapt audience and critical raves on July 15, 2017, performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, commissioner of the work, led by Marin Alsop. She also conducted the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere recording of The Silent Ocean on January 25 and 27, 2023. She described the work as “an evocative and emotional journey for musicians and audience members. In this piece, Jandali captures the struggle, trauma, and triumph of our misplaced brothers and sisters through the voice of a child. It is a beautiful and important message.”
The composer provided the following background for the premiere: “The Silent Ocean tells the story of a small Syrian child escaping the horrors of war on a tiny boat in a vast ocean. She could not take any of her belongings when she was forced to leave her home in Aleppo, not a favorite toy or a book, but she did have a tune that her grandfather used to sing to her at bedtime every night.
“This musical journey is built upon an ancient Syrian melody from the Samā’I Hijaz Kar by Nadim Al Darwish (1926–1988). The opening scene is of the night landscape of rolling waves; there is a slight wind so it isn’t completely calm. The piano joins the orchestra as the moon peeks out from behind the clouds. Then we hear a haunting voice singing—it could be a hallucination or angel calling to her or even the echo of her own voice. The little girl in the boat begins feeling dizzy and loses consciousnesses, and we feel her heartbeat in the timpani; she is lonely and scared.
“Halfway through her journey, the orchestra changes the mood through a major theme that transports us to a scene of a happy life, whether she is remembering her old life or imagining a new one. But through it all, there is a feeling that it is all just an illusion. Our brave heroine awakens as the boat squeaks and shudders, and the ocean becomes even more wild and stormy. Finally, a giant wave crashes the boat where the orchestra surges in a huge climax of Arabic scales, and our little girl is lost in the darkness of the deep. The ocean then calms as if nothing happened, and we are left alone with a shattered silence.
“The little girl is now an angel, her spirit watching over those she has left behind. The moon reappears from behind the clouds and stares indifferently at the deadly beauty of the ocean. The solo cello emerges from the waves of the orchestra with melancholic fragments of the theme, in memory of her long journey to eternal peace. The short cadenza resembles her short life in which she had hoped to live in peace, rather than rest in peace.
“Today, Aleppo, the oldest inhabited city in the world, is resisting the most tragic destruction of its culture and history that are so significant, not only to the Syrian people, but to all of humanity. These include not only the invention of the alphabet and music notation but scientific breakthroughs that impacted and changed the course of mankind. Even while I was dropping my notes on paper to write this work, bombs and rockets were being dropped on the cities and people of Syria.
“As an American composer and musician with a mission, it is my duty to preserve and present this rich heritage of my beloved homeland, at the moment that humanity is witnessing a modern-day holocaust and the eradication of the cradle of civilization. Despite the feeling of loss, tonight’s world premiere of The Silent Oceanis a beacon of hope that we are united in our shared human values through a meaningful symphony for peace in the world.
Now, years after the premiere, The Silent Ocean is as heart-wrenching and pertinent as ever.
—©Jane Vial Jaffe; with Malek Jandali