Metamorphosis - František Chaun
František Chaun in his symphonic trilogy created orchestral parallels to Kafka’s novel trilogy: The Metamorphosis (Proměna), The Trial (Proces) and The Castle (Zámek). The compositions were written in reversed order to Kafka’s novels: the first piece, The Castle, was finished in 1965 and eventually became the second part of the trilogy. In 1967 Chaun completed The Trial, the final part of the trilogy as it stands now.
Chaun, originally a pharmacist, was a versatile artist and a spontaneous creative soul in the field of visual arts, literature, and music. In KafkaTrilogy,Chaun the composer is undoubtedly at his best. Both the first and the last parts are composed spontaneously, making free use of diverse methods of contemporary composition techniques with mutually contrastive passages put alongside each other. The structure of these two movements is thus analogical to a large extent, even though they both remain convincingly distinctive.
The middle part of the trilogy, The Castle (originally entitled The Story ofGeodesist K.), is, on the contrary, based on serial material that has been processed using rational operations. Its form is also different: it resembles the shape of an uninterrupted convex arch. Starting quietly in deep gloomy registers, it gradually gains in dynamic and expressive force. It might be a depiction of the ghostly castle, judging by the downright atonal music chained up in sound passages of alternating forte and piano dynamics and an underlying static inner nature. Or it may evoke a sight quite as ghostly: that of a funeral procession marching in on the listener’s senses. Just like in The Metamorphosis and The Trial, here also one is aware of a certain stabilising as well as separating element in the form of repeated short aggressive incursions of the percussions. The dramatic gradation of the first section is then followed by a gradual stifling of suspense with the final notes of the piece (just like the endings of both the remaining parts of the trilogy) leading into a conciliatory, resigned silence.
Other compositions by František Chaun published in Czech Radio:
Castle
Hommage a Dubuffet
Trial
Parts only for hire at nakladatelstvi@rozhlas.cz