National Arts Centre Orchestra: Poema: 2. Terra Nova
Analekta

Under the assured guiding hand of its Music Director Alexander Shelley, the Ottawa-based National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) is breaking incredible ground with a visionary project oriented around the tone poems of Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Each album in the Poema series couples material by him with newly commissioned pieces by Canadian composers that are thematically complementary. Whereas the inaugural volume, Ad Astra, explores transcendence and the cosmos via Strauss's Don Juan and works by Kelly-Marie Murphy and Kevin Lau, the second, Terra Nova, focuses on more earthly matters by partnering Strauss's Nietzsche-inspired Also sprach Zarathustra (1896) with Ian Cusson's Murakami-drawn 1Q84: Sinfonietta Metamoderna, each a probing examination of human experience. Still to come in the series are recordings of Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks and Ein Heldenleben alongside new works by Alexina Louie and John Estacio. While each album is being released individually, Poema will also be issued as a box set when the project's completed.

The novelistic structure of Nietzsche's infamous fable afforded Strauss a tremendous template, much more so than the philosopher's aphoristic writings, and the content of the philosophical novel, from its concepts of the Übermensch, amor fati, and Eternal Recurrence, certainly gave the composer ample material with which to work. Of course, the triumphant theme, familiar to many for its inclusion in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), might be seen as heralding the imminent arrival of the Übermensch in all its self-determining and self-reliant glory; in Shelley's words, Strauss's “thunderous opening, with its majestic sunrise, has become a cultural emblem of humanity's striving for greatness.” Yet that iconic theme is merely one part of the work, which across thirty-four minutes mirrors the protagonist's journey of ascent, illumination, and transformation. Just as there are dramatic arcs between peaks and valleys in the text, so too are there symphonic contrasts in the musical work. Tensions emerge between order and stability in the early going and the sense of restlessness and unmooring that naturally accompanies the exploration of unknown territory.

The release booklet includes an in-depth program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley that clarifies the parallels between the book and music. It's noted, for example, that Strauss based his work on the prologue and eight of the text's eighty subsections, the latter presented in a slightly different order from the book to better suit the compositional arc. Musical motives associated with the book's core concepts appear within the piece. As rewarding as it is to identify connections between the two works, the tone poem amply rewards on its own terms when the transitions of experience explored in the text are identifiable, even when presented abstractly.

Delivered with fortissimo fury, the brass fanfare comes first to usher the work on its way. In the early going, passages of romantic splendour are given luscious voice by the NACO's strings, the mood serene and the tone harmonious, but disturbances gradually creep in to cast things into disarray and confusion. Turbulence and angst-ridden expressions suggest the pain that accompanies transformation, after which the next stage in Zarathustra's saga arrives. Contemplative calm temporarily reinstates stability until string melodies emblematic of Strauss's style imbue the music with optimism. Things quickly turn agitated, however, as dissonance seeps in and the music grows engulfing and fraught with drama. Darker tonalities and swirling strings portend another challenging ascent for a protagonist determined to reach the uppermost levels of which humanity's capable. Breathing in the fresh, soul-replenishing air of high lands, the view becomes panoramic and engenders feelings of gratitude and appreciation. Lyrical violin flourishes, joyful dance expressions, and sweeping full-orchestra climaxes convey this newly achieved condition of well-being. Through their sparkling performance, Shelley and company remind us that there is considerably more to the composer's Also sprach Zarathustra than its iconic brass fanfare.

Preceding the Strauss work is 1Q84: Sinfonietta Metamoderna, which the Collingwood, Ontario-based Cusson created as a counterpart and companion to the tone poem. To create the piece, Cusson, who's of Métis (Georgian Bay Métis Community) and French Canadian descent, drew on Haruki Murakami's celebrated novel, itself a text that, like Nietzsche's, explores multiple realities and the fracturing of identity. And as Strauss followed the trajectory of the philosopher's text, so too does Cusson follow Murakami's, though in his case a ten-minute treatment has been forged from a dreamlike novel exceeding 900 pages. Whereas one character, Zarathustra, is the animating force in the Nietzsche tome, two characters, Aomame and Tengo, are the ones driving the narrative in Murakami's. For anyone unfamiliar with the content of the novel, Cusson includes a synopsis in his contribution to the release booklet. Opening with a grand, tutti-like declamation, the work arrests the ear quickly before pivoting to tender and playful episodes featuring woodwinds and brass. Cusson utilizes the orchestra's resources in full in his wholly accessible evocation, which often replicates the dreamlike and fantastical qualities of the novel. While it does conclude on a note of Copland-esque affirmation, the work's not lacking in bluster or drama, as its more tumultuous passages show.

November 2025