“Svyatogor’s Quest” had been conceived as a reflection of Svyatogor’s life, but is not a program composition. Svyatogor was a legendary Slavic semi-god and knight of gigantic proportions; his life full of journeys in search of truth. He had two incarnations: one Pagan and the other Christian. In both of these he was a knight sent from God (or the gods) to find truth and honour in places where it was absent. Thus he was a knight of the soul and of the mind, not of physical forces.
The theme of the variations reflects his giant stride, and the giant stride of his horse. The variations each offer a new perspective of the same musical idea, each concentrating on different parts of the theme. The culmination occurs at bar 372 (roughly 17:30).
Each variation can be seen as a comment on the last and a prediction of the next. The variations also have a non-variation based inner development. The form of variations is typical for the Slavic people. Many folk songs are in this form, both with ostinato and without. I have chosen a non-ostinato form, as it offers more freedom.
Svyatogor was a semi-god (The book of Veles, The book of Kolyada), the grandson of Svarog (King of the heavens), so the music is of epic proportions, and has a mystical sound. The musical language is typical of my work, although it is more polyphonic than most of my compositions. The musical language is of a natural tone with many North-Eastern Slavic modes used throughout. We also hear trihords, a form of harmonic composition and development, which comes from an aural and spectral analysis of Russian church bells. They are different to Western bells both in shape and in method of preparation. Western bells are tuned after being cast. Russian bells are left as they are, and are given a more complex shape and tone. This allows them to achieve not one note but 3-5, plus many overtones, which create the timbre.
I have also tried to portray the world within which Svyatogor lived. In Slavic mythology there have been two worlds, and at the end of the first world most of the gods died. Svyatogor lived through both of these, so he has lived through many contrasting regimes. At the beginning we hear a dark and cold world in which only gods and heroes live. The sun is yet to be born and ordinary people live. He witnesses the birth of the sun and the creation of the great rivers and lakes. He searches for his wife, and finds her in an enchanted sleep on a rock. He sees the death of the gods, and witnesses his fatherland become Christian. He dies after meeting a much younger hero, Ilya Muromets. With him for a short time, he wonders the dark pine forests of Northeast Russia. He sees a coffin lying open and offers Ilya to try it. It is far too big for him. He tries it himself, and it shuts, never to open again despite Ilya’s great efforts. Through a small hole, he breaths on Ilya transferring his great power and tells Ilya to continue his search for truth and honour in the name of the Fatherland. This is how the once greatest of heroes met his end. This is how a glorious life ends.
We know of Svyatogor by many sources. The most accessible and numerous of these are the Bi’lini’.- tales told from mouth to mouth in the far Northeast of Russia, written down in the 19th century. This is a folk form. We can also refer to the Book of Veles, a book written in the 8th century in Novgorod by Yagaylo Gan, a Vedic priest, who sensing the onset of Christianity wrote down all his knowledge of mythology and tradition onto wooden desks. The source that is the most concentrated is the book of Alkanost, part of the book of Kolyada, a collection of all the Slavic tales. Similar books with similar names occur in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Serbia and we also see parallels in many other Aryan legends. There is an obvious parallel in Siegfried (Sigurð), Heracles, and even Väinämöinen who is from the mythology of a non-Aryan people, so it is clear that all people share a common pre-culture.
The role of the ensemble in this composition is that of a single unit, musically commenting on each other, rather like a folk choir would. The polyphony is often of a simple and folkloric nature, each voice slightly modifying the other. This is typical of Slavic vocal folk music.