The title, Glossolalie,
is the plural form of Glossolalia, the Greek word meaning the gift of speaking
with tongues. The reference is to the Feast of Pentecost, when “suddenly there
came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind... and there appeared...
cloven tongues like as of fire” and the Apostles were suddenly able to speak in
many languages. This describes the key episode in the history of Christianity
when Christianity became a world religion.
Glossolalie is
a work in a single movement. Out of the quietly flickering textures of the
beginning it builds to a savage climax, where the different sections of the
orchestra seem to be hurling themselves against each other. At the end, the
music dies away to a mysterious tolling of the bells over a distant pulsing. The
work is composed in the dodecaphonic technique and based on a single series.
The work was awarded the Main and Special Prizes at the Third
International Composers' Competition Kazimierz
Serocki, Poland; among the jury members there were Krzysztof Penderecki
(chairman), Gunter Schuller, François-Bernard Mâche, and Zygmund Krauze. The premiere
of the work took place in 1990 at the festival Warsaw Autumn, the performers were the Baltic Philharmonic Chamber
Ensemble conducted by Paweł Przytocki.
Oleksandr Shchetynsky
© 2000 by Oleksandr Shchetynsky