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BATTLE FROM A DISTANCE – VIRTUAL PREMIERE
Added: (Wed Jan 19 2005)
Battle From A Distance, a perceptive symphonic poem for a large orchestra by Slovak-Canadian composer Peter Breiner, was recorded in November 2004 by the Slovak Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the composer. The composition is available for its premiere listening at http://battle.sympho.ca where you can also find, by public demand, the recently recorded brand new arrangement of widely discussed U.S. national anthem. Breiner worked extensively in the last couple of years on arranging the world’s national anthems. Subsequently, Battle From A Distance was inspired by the U.S. national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.
“I WAS SURPRISED AND OVERWHELMED by the reaction to my arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner that was played at this year’s summer Olympics in Athens. It was quite heartwarming to read all the comments. It was also somewhat of a surprise to find out that people were able to read “between the lines” of that arrangement.
This made me think about the power of music. I was watching the scuffle between the blues and the reds about the meaning of my arrangement – whether it is “intentionally subdued to soften the picture of America as a world’s bully” or simply “new and creative”.
Then I read what a descendant of Francis Scott Key said:
“ … considering the words, when the anthem, this particular version, comes to the most violent lines of text," And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air...”, this particular arrangement has the strings playing this high melody very softly....a most feminine and ethereal quality. The first reaction I had was that it was incorrect as an interpretation of the text. But then, going with the feeling which the strings evoke, it is as if we are beholding the bombing across the harbor...at a distance...and through a haze of smoke. I find this contrast, between the bombardment and the image created in sound, to be quite wonderful and unique.”
and the words of Kile Smith, Composer and Curator of Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music in Philadelphia:
“Peter Breiner has done what all good arrangers do, in that he has fashioned music to force the words upon us in a new way. The hitch that caught my breath the first time I heard this, when I thought about the violent words under those almost-teetering strings...well, I should say that those strings made me think about the words again, which is what good arranging will do. This piece makes you stop, and it whispers in your ear, ‘Attention must be paid.’”
I also realized that there was a reason why, out of 400 anthems, the Star Spangled Banner was the first one that I chose to arrange. I have been fascinated by America since a very young age. Not its politics, but the spirit of the country and its achievements has been always inspiring to me. It does not matter who the president is, nobody could obliterate George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein or Art Tatum, all great people in all walks of life and all cherished friends I have there.
I am not happy to see, hear and read the world judging contemporary America, suddenly as if nothing was good there. Could we forget politics for a while and think about all the good, beautiful and meaningful things that originate in this nation? The U.S. bashing has become very monotonous. I am not happy to see all the battles fought by and in America as well as I am unhappy to see a great many of my friends being involved in those battles one way or the other.
One morning, I woke up with a piece of music in my head. It was about those battles that I had been watching from a distance, in a similar way as Francis Scott Key may have watched in Baltimore. It is a story of people struggling for principles, values and beliefs, against all odds, against all politics, against all differences. In part, it could have been inspired by the discussion about the Olympic arrangement of the American anthem. It is in fact a sort of inverse variations on The Star Spangled Banner. One might call it a battle of anthems - from a distance. Listen.”
Peter Breiner (1957) is known as a composer, conductor, pianist and arranger. He studied composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (former Czechoslovakia) with Prof. Alexander Moyzes, one of the most significant figures in modern Slovak music. Peter Breiner has lived in Toronto, Canada since 1992. For a comprehensive catalogue of Peter Breiner’s own compositions and/or his arrangements including almost 1,000 symphonic arrangements, folk and pop songs as well as complete world’s national anthems, visit http://catalog.sympho.ca or http://passcatalog.sympho.ca .
One of the world's most recorded musicians, with over 120 CDs in the last 10 years (more than 1.5 million CDs sold) Breiner has conducted, often doubling as a pianist, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra National de Lille, France, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Mozart Orchestra, the Polish Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra, the Hungarian State Radio Orchestra, the Nicolaus Esterhazy Orchestra Budapest, the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Capella Istropolitana, to mention just a few.
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