Symphony No. 9 ‘Mythos’ (2017)
(for orchestra)

Erkki Sven Tüür’s Symphony No 9 was commissioned for the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia. The importance of this aspect for an instrumental drama that represents the very essence of music might be non-existent, had the composer himself not titled it “Mythos” – myth. This, and also the number of the symphony, which since Beethoven has come to mean the most comprehensive expression – if not a summary – of an artist’s creed, packs the symphony with semantic connotations even before listening to it.

Tüür’s Symphony No 9 is a story of creation par excellence. This is hinted at by the fifths we hear already at the beginning of the symphony – intervals the composer has never before used as such an essential structural element of his compositions. The fifth, as we know, is the most consonant interval that can occur between two different pitches. In that sense, the unison, i.e. the prime and/or octave are not intervals – they do not occur between two different pitch classes. Therefore, the fifth may semantically be regarded also as the most ancient phenomenon – something that occurs in the initial process of a single sound “breaking into” a harmony. 

Because of this feature, in Western music the fifth – without any additions so far – often denotes something neutral, undefined, a primordial chaos, from which the individual and the defined must spring from. The usage of this “pre-thematic” material enables us to link Tüür’s composition to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as well as to Mahler’s 1st Symphony. Similarly to Beethoven and Mahler, an individual consciousness arises from this “primordial chaos” in the beginning of Tüür’s composition. However, unlike Beethoven’s imperative or Mahler’s vigorous main theme, Tüür observes the world from a pure and angelic standpoint – as if through an innocent child’s eyes, with anticipation and wonder. Similarly to Beethoven, the “main theme” of Tüür’s symphony is also made up of fifths and fourths, i.e. intervals that started the entire musical process. On the one hand, it says that man is made of the same material as nature. However, as the material expressing individual consciousness can be heard in a high register, it also defines man’s “place” as primordially “high”, i.e. as spiritual or as an “ascended” form of nature. 

One may say that the formation of individual consciousness in the symphony is the moment when “one” becomes “two”, i.e. where the initially inseparable whole breaks down into the witness and the witnessed, the subject and the object, etc. This division automatically entails multiplicity: since this moment the “primordial chaos” is replaced by many clearly identifiable melodies with gradually increasing individuality. This metamorphosis concludes the exposition that describes existence before falling into sin. Such a comparison is justified by the beginning of the symphony’s main part, where the already familiar “main theme” that represents consciousness has been transferred to a low register. By bringing together the extreme opposites of the theme, the music seems to say that although man was made in heaven, he equally belongs to the abyss from which he must struggle out again. In a way, this is also emphasised by the tuba that performs the “main theme” – as a “tangible” and “clumsy” instrument it contradicts the free and effortless movement of the high strings that performed the “main theme” before. Also, the “main theme” is now restrained by the resistance of matter: the tuba’s every effort to conquer new heights is accompanied by the descending cascades of woodwinds, seemingly erasing these efforts. Meanwhile, these descending cascades are not external powers, but largely the result of the musical inertia brought about by the ascending passages of the tuba.

The development of the music transforms something that was initially expressed as individual into something societal: at one point, the tuba soloist loses its importance as an initiator of new musical developments, handing the role over to the brass section and later to other sections. The mentioned counter-effect also amplifies, expressed in the extremely slow and glidingly descending layer of the French horn and later also of other brass instruments. The more intensely the strings are pursuing heights, the more fatal if not diabolical is the contradicting layer of descending sounds, portraying the fall into sin (or the downfall of the Occident?) as a true catastrophe of cosmic proportions.

Typically of Tüür, in this piece the initially antagonistic structural layers switch places: at the end of the described development, the (high) strings start descending and the brasses ascending. The ascent of the latter seems to be obstructed by an invisible glass ceiling. The frustration born from this “obstruction” is expressed in the growth of rhythmical intensity, which, in its fragmentation, threatens to transform into the initial “primordial chaos”. But only for moment, as after a brief deceleration, the development of the composition tears away from the amorphous musical mass and enters a new round of development – the “finale” of the symphony, which might not be perceived as such due to the smooth transition. In a way, we have now entered the modern society. The components of musical structure become extremely exact, but at the same time, the hierarchy of the musical events that characterised the previous sections seems to have disappeared. The hierarchical flatness and equality of all musical events cause even greater fragmentation, but also a temporal compactness: the processes that took a long time to develop in the previous sections of the symphony, now occur within a moment. This is now a completely “human” world, with the sacral completely erased from it. As such, the “finale” does not represent an expected positive solution but rather a final phase in the development/downfall of mankind. At one point, this “crazy vehicle” crashes into the wall. This is followed by a frozen stillness that revives the memory of the ascending fifths, i.e. the innocence with which the individual consciousness used to view the world.
Here, one has to agree with Joonas Hellerma  who says that Tüür’s musical narratives could be described as stories akin to the Old Testament – stories where absolution is at best replaced with the possibility of it. The 9th Symphony is no exception: it may be viewed as a paraphrase of Beethoven’s 9th insofar that it springs from the same foundations. In every other sense, it moves in the opposite direction, serving as a warning of the potential collapse that awaits man rather than as a message of joy. Mainly, though, the symphony seems to pose a question about responsibility, which in the context of this composition means an unwillingness to admit our own “celestial” origin and act according to it: every developmental phase that follows draws away from the initial material, the “primordial chaos” and the “main theme” that grew from it. This is accompanied by the increasing external individualisation and internal emptiness of the deforming material. Therefore, the symphony may also be viewed in the context of the collective or national “guilt”, if by the latter we mean forsaking the responsibilities mentioned above.

Kerri Kotta
Translation: Pirjo Jonas