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Anthony Genge’s Prayer for Hydrogen for string quartet and hot-air balloon (2005) Lazaridis Theatre, Perimeter Institute - October 21, 2005 Featuring:
Summary: While performing music composed by Anthony Genge before an audience in Lazaridis Theatre, a video will be viewed above the Penderecki String Quartet. Ironically, it is the Penderecki Quartet in the video, but seen in a previously recorded video taking flight in a hot-air balloon departing from the concert hall and floating above places of work and home. The ground and on-board cameras show many exhilarating views. Sounds from the flight will be mixed-in dimly from the video to the music heard live in the concert hall. Archival video footage of Einstein, Hindenburg flight, old crowd scenes, and Hydrogen Bomb explosions will be inter-cut in post-production. The entire work will be 18 minutes in length. Purpose: This music-video work will consider the way hydrogen has shaped civilization from its early use for balloon riding in 1793, to Albert Einstein’s kinetic theory of 1905, to the hydrogen bomb in 1953, and to the realities of hydrogen cars in 2005. A Prayer for Hydrogen will be contemplative, spiritual, and nostalgic. The balloon flight is also a physical metaphor for idealism, risk taking, spiritual elation and abandonment. As four people resigning to go wherever the wind blows, we allude to an important ideal in our music making together. A string quartet is best when its players let go of the ropes. A text referring to the history and metaphors stemming from this theme will be written in poetic form to be viewed intermittently at the bottom of the video (like subtitles). The text will serve as a prayer for hydrogen to bring peace and health for Mother Earth. History: The history of the hot-air balloon begins in Paris in 1783 with linen balloons and wood burned fire. Ten years later, Parisian physicist, Jacques Charles, flew the first balloon filled with hydrogen for a distance of 27 miles. Through the 19th century, balloons were used almost exclusively for military and scientific purposes. In 1900, the first hydrogen filled zeppelin made its first flight. By the turn of the century, ballooning became so popular that the International Aeronautical Federation (IAF) was organized to furnish international control in 1905. n 1905, Albert Einstein developed his theory of the relationship between mass and energy. His mathematical formula E=mc2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) sparked a flurry of molecular research, laying the foundation for splitting atoms and the hydrogen bomb. Meanwhile, in the aeronautical world, hydrogen continued to be used until the Germans’ “Hindeburg” zeppelin, filled with hydrogen, burst into flame at the end of its transatlantic flight in 1937. By this time, Einstein had moved to the USA at Hitler's rise to power. His 1939 letter to President Roosevelt outlining the military capabilities of developments in physics led to the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. His post-war fears of a nuclear arms race proved true. The first Soviet hydrogen bomb, successfully tested in 1953, was twenty times more powerful than the first atomic bomb. Since this time, scientists have also found peaceful applications of nuclear technology. Now 100 years since Einstein’s discoveries, we begin a new chapter with hydrogen. Hydrogen cars are the way of the future: no more smog-forming exhaust gases, no more carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, no more worries about diminishing oil supplies and rising prices. Program: The
EinsteinFest at the Perimeter Institute is focusing on contextualizing
the modern advances of science and culture within the 1905-2005 frame.
Bela Bartok’s First String Quartet (1907) and Arnold Schoenberg’s
Second String Quartet (1908) are landmark works in the early part of
this time-period and as such serve to establish a sense of beginning
to our remarkable century. Their influence throughout the century is
significant: Schoenberg’s Second Quartet transits to 12-tone style
in the last movement and Bartok’s First Quartet begins in a late
Romantic style and transits to an apotheosized folk-music style by the
conclusion. |