Parénéze - Svatopluk Havelka
Parénéze (Greek for recommendation, admonition or encouragement), a five-part composition for soprano, percussions, and piano based on the Greek version of the epistles written in 1993 is the first of a number of pieces typical of Havelka’s late style. Typically of this phase, the music revolves mainly around the melodics. Havelka’s extensive melodic phrases with characteristic melismatic progressions take diversely structured shapes, and underline the dominant role melodics plays throughout the piece, affecting also the remaining elements of the author’s musical speech.
The much simplified harmony stands in a subordinate position to melody, often recurring to tonal principles, but at the same time sustaining such features typical of older compositions as parallel progressions in higher registers giving rise to mixtures with the melodic line. The influence of the previous phases of Havelka’s compositional development is palpable in his unusual sensitivity for the timbre potential of individual instruments, his ever-surprising auditory imagination, and his remarkable capability of finding ingenious ways of rhythmical phrasing. In Parénéze, Havelka introduces a unique mode of musical thinking that places the work beyond stylistic classification. He succeeded in merging what had appeared to be obsolete compositional principles with an original and – especially as far as the aspect of timbre is concerned – an altogether contemporary conception that resulted in an organic and convincing piece. The composition was premiered in March 1994 as part of the Percussion Plus concert cycle.
Other compositions by Svatopluk Havelka published in Czech Radio:
Agapé
Hymnos
Symphony no. 1
The Signs of Times