Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
by Simeon Solomon (1863)
I.
Síomón Solomon's
The Atonement of Lesley Ann (2020) - a theatrical ghost-cum-love story
(based on actual events) - continues to haunt my imagination ... [1]
After reading and re-reading the script (kindly given to me by the author) over the Christmas and New Year period, it has suddenly triggered thoughts of Stockhausen's seminal work Gesang der Jünglinge (1955-56) [2], which, like Solomon's play, features the voice of a child which it seamlessly integrates with electronic sounds, creating a new (and rather terrifying) listening experience.
It's possible that Solomon was hoping to create something similar with his use of music and audio effects including police sirens, radio static, and the howling wind of Saddleworth Moor. However, without attending a performance of the work one cannot say how successful he is in this.
II.
Gesang der Jünglinge is based on mytho-biblical events described in the Book of Daniel [3], wherein the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar throws three young Jews - Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego [4] - into a super-heated furnace after they refuse to bow down to a giant golden statue made in his image.
Miraculously, they are unharmed and are heard singing praises to God who has sent an angel to protect them from the flames, transforming their intense heat into a cool dawn breeze [5]. Naturally astounded by what he has witnessed, Nebuchadnezzar commands his people to henceforth worship Yahweh, God of the Jews, and he appoints the three holy youths to high office.
III.
According to Michel Tournier, it was Gesang der Jünglinge that he repeatedly listened to whilst writing Le Roi des aulnes (1970) [6] - not Schubert's Erlkönig (1815) as many might imagine - and he explains that his novel and Stockhausen's composition share a similar terrible logic that requires the sacrifice (or murder) of small children and the presence of an ogre ...
If you listen to Gesang der Jünglinge, says Tournier, what is most striking is that only pre-pubescent voices can be heard and that the joyful and triumphant end of the Bible story is of no interest whatsoever to Stockhausen:
"He keeps only the sound of crystalline voices rising out of the torture of the flames. Bodies tortured in the fire are represented by voices tortured in a thousand ways by sophisticated electronic devices. Voices? In fact there is only one voice, electronically multiplied by repeated recording overdubbed upon itself; the child sings in chorus with himself. Children, torture from which there is no escape, a single voice overdubbed upon itself - in all these ways Stockhausen's piece resembles The Erl-King." [7]
And in these ways also both the above works feel strangely present in The Atonement of Lesley Ann ...
Notes
[1] For an earlier post written on this work by Síomón Solomon, please click here. And for further thoughts, click here.
[2] Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge ('Song of the Youths') brought together the two (previously opposing) worlds of German elektronische Musik and the French musique concrète. Those who wish to listen to the astonishing result, can click here.
[3] See the Book of Daniel, 3: click here for the King James Version of the story or here for the New International Version.
It is generally accepted amongst modern scholars that the Book of Daniel originated as a
collection of stories among the Jewish community in Babylon and
Mesopotamia in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods (5th to 3rd
centuries BCE), expanded by the visions of chapters 7-12 in the
Maccabean era (mid-2nd century). It is also agreed that
Daniel is a legendary rather than a purely historical figure.
[4] These are the Babylonian (or Chaldean) names that the three Jewish children were given; their original Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
[5] In Christian interpretations of this story, the angel is in fact Jesus and he is depicted in icongraphy with a cross upon his halo. The story thus has great significance for members of the Christian faith.
[6] Michel Tournier, Le Roi des aulnes (Éditions Gallimard, 1970). Translated into English as The Erl-King, by Barbara Bray, (Atlantic Books, 2014).
[7] Michel Tournier, The Wind Spirit, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, (Collins, 1989), pp. 104-05. Note, I have slightly modified the translation from the original French text, Le vent Paraclet, (Éditions Gallimard, 1977).
