Author's comment
Arabesque Overnight – author's comment
Artur Banaszkiewicz
Poem for alto saxophone and string orchestra
A young man from the Western civilization – maybe a musician, a saxophonist – steeped with the aura of Charlie Parker’s bebop music, arrives for one night at the harbor of one of the Arabic lands, for instance Dubai. Therefore, we can hear onomatopoeic sounds of audio sphere – the sounds of waves, twittering seagulls or ship horns, as well as the sounds of a pulsating city – beeping cars, the sound of an ambulance with the famous Doppler effect, even the adhan by a muezzin from a nearby mosque. Our hero is accompanied by the musical reminiscences that are related to journeys, for instance “Harbour Lights”, “La Mer”, “Around the World” or “Sentimental Journey”.
Suddenly, the exotic, typical Arabic melody, intonated by violin solo resembling the well-known Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, arises. This melody enchants our hero. It is up to a listener, whether to treat this “Scheherazade” as an impersonated Arabic beauty that infatuated our hero with her loveliness or his tremendous delight in the culture of Orient that he has not experienced so far.
Our “Scheherazade” allures the newcomer with her beauty and lure. They engage in a dialogue, but our saxophonist speaks in his own, blues language and she communicates in the Arabic scale. However, they soon reach a common understanding where language does not play a decisive role and where, surrounded by the sounds of an evening celebration, they indulge in mystic, maybe even erotic, delight until they lose consciousness.
When our hero regains his consciousness, he realizes that he is alone, only accompanied by the aura of a mysterious, oriental and starry night. This is where the musical quote from Symphony No. 3 Op 27, <em>The Song of the Night</em> by Karol Szymanowski (1882 - 1937) is introduced, with adhans audible in the background. The mood of our character and the headache that might appear are understandable. The latter is expressed with descending, strident semitone cluster blocks. The solo cadence of the saxophone begins. It is a great dilemma and our indecisive hero is playing the Arabic and blues passages alternately, interrupting them with the standards and bebop improvisation that we have already experienced. He is unable to make this momentous and decisive choice: whether to return on the ship or not. In the climax of this dramatic internal monologue, the sound of the violin occurs unexpectedly. In a moment, however, the nagging sounds of the city waking to see a new day, as well as the melodies of sea, gulls and, appallingly enough, the siren of the ship signalizing its departure, are heard.
The final interpretation of who or what is left by our hero is up to you. Is he coming back to the Western civilization? Or maybe, fascinated with the Orient, he is staying by the side of his “Scheherazade”…?