Symphony No. 4 for String Orchestra
Malek Jandali composed his Fourth Symphony in 2020 inspired by the idea of writing for strings only. “I was especially interested in trying to obtain all the colors of the orchestra using a palette of instruments that on the surface seem to present a similar timbre.” His equally important aim was to continue his quest to “preserve and present the rich Arabic musical heritage.”
The work—in D, not minor nor major, simply in D—unfolds in three movements, much like symphonies of the eighteenth century before four movements became standard. Here the scherzo is “missing,” but Jandali ingeniously weaves scherzo elements into Movements II and III.
The first movement features a full sonata form in which, says Jandali, “I had thoughts about war and how it feels—war in the city.” He represents machine gun fire in the initial violin repetitions and the siren of an air raid in a subsequent two-note motive. “The changes of mood,” he says, “are meant to create the strange feeling on the edge of absurd—life so familiar and normal but with war and death so very close.”
Jandali uses all manner of inventive means to achieve his variety of colors, one of which is to present his main theme in a particular kind of unison amid the interjections of “gun fire”—that is, the violas play smoothly while the cellos play the same notes but accented, sometimes joined by the violins. This kind of unison, now called heterophony, dates back centuries both in folk and classical traditions. This theme stems from an old wasla (cycle of vocal or instrumental movements) in the maqām (mode) “Iraq” from the muwashah (poetic/musical form) “Tala Layli” (My Everlasting Night) by the father of Syrian musical theater, Abu Khalil Al-Qabbani (1835–1902).
Another type of contrast that Jandali uses to great effect is that of solo versus sectional playing. His second theme—derived from an old bashraf (instrumental form) by an unknown composer that was preserved in Syria—enters as a beautiful violin solo.
The development section is remarkable for its wealth of different textures—imitative entries, countermelodies, contrary motion flourishes, and intriguing harmonic juxtapositions—and the recapitulation employs imaginative rescoring that suggests we have come too far on this journey to simply repeat the opening. The ending, with its ethereal upper layer and its underlying rocking pulls at the heartstrings for its illusion of calm.
The second movement plays the role of a slow movement, though its lyrical moments are constantly interrupted by angry interjections and restless figures. It begins with fragments of a theme from an old Andalusian nawba from Tunisia. At the midpoint, after a series of high trills, Jandali had in mind the image of a leader saying something and the people repeating the last words. After an intense buildup with the first violins piercing the atmosphere in incredibly high register, a section of fascinating contrast ensues when under high sustained tones of three solo instruments, the section violins play a ticking pizzicato (plucking), suggesting the ticking of time, as in the Sixth Symphony.
The rollicking third movement plays a role similar to those of Borodin and Bartók in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when they incorporated folk themes infused with their own sensibilities to create a whirlwind finale. There are contrasting quiet passages as well as boisterous ones, such as the many intricate solos for violin, viola, and cello. As in the first movement, Jandali infuses a sense of the absurd with creative distortions of his materials. A supreme example occurs at the end, when after an intense buildup all motion stops, and a quiet oasis appears only to be banished by the return of the frenetic dance. The main theme was inspired by two old Syrian melodies, the first a samā’i (instrumental form) in the maqām “rast” by Iskandar Shalfun (1877–1934) and the second one from “Bashraf Yetkah” (“Yegâh Peşrev”) by Ottoman composer Osman Bey (1816–1885).
Symphony No. 4 was recorded by the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by Marin Alsop, in the ORF-Funkhaus Wien on March 3, 2021. In an extended series of recording sessions, they brilliantly brought to life several of Jandali’s symphonic works, which Alsop describes not only as “inspiring” but “very, very challenging.” Of the “very tricky” Fourth Symphony, she praised the players saying, “As they got into it, I saw them starting to move and, you know, it was almost as if it was a freeing experience for them.” Alsop concluded describing Jandali as “a wonderfully gifted artist and a superb composer…his music is intensely passionate, eminently approachable, and filled with sophisticated surprises…music making of the highest caliber.”