Richard Charlton: Threnody For Chernobyl (1986) - Allegro Molto; Adagio

Abstract

"Richard Charlton's title makes an allusion to Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1961). Charlton clearly intends an ironic comparison between the events which occurred at Hiroshima and at Chernobyl. The Penderecki work is an enormously disquieting lamentation for the victims of an intentional holocaust. Whereas Penderecki presents us with a handbook of unconventional sounds and techniques, Charlton retreats behind the academic arras of a serial theme, generally employed with striking simplicity. The twelve note theme employs the following row: E, G, F,A, A sharp,F sharp,C, D, B, G sharp, C sharp, D sharp. After stating the row a number of times at the outset, backwards as well as forwards, he embarks on a free use of the material. While Penderecki's Threnody and Stravinsky's Threni lead us to expect grieving on a massive scale and barely suppressed hysteria, Charlton's guitar variation is sad, reflective (almost wistful) and generally domestic in tone. The composer employs effects such as hannonics, drumming on the strings and playing on the bridge and behind the nut. But these sounds in no way dominate the music. This very restraint is the work's most moving aspect. If composers in the 1960s thought they could affect the world's politics with musical temper tantrums, the reaction of composers in the 1980s to unsavoury world events is more likely to be a communal shrug of the shoulders before retiring to their studios to write a set of variations for solo guitar. However, if Richard Charlton's Threnody for Chernobyl is not exactly bristling with moral indignation it does, at least, take a realistic stance on the question of the artist's ability to change anything. The benedictory natural harmonics at the work's conclusion ('Like Church Bells' writes the composer in the score) are eloquent in their sad implacability and remind us of Wilfred Owen's statement that 'All a poet can do today is warn'." -- Andrew Ford