august 18th, 1936.... (death of a gypsy boy)

for narrator, female voice and chamber ensemble, text by Amy Leverenz

Man as a helpless creature with no will of his own in a society characterized by egoistical power politics is one of the composer René Staar's favourite themes. Such events past and present influenced the composer's work especially during his five years in Geneva (1981-86).Works such as "Just an Accident? A Requiem for Anton Webern and Other Victims of the Absurd" (Text: Alan Levy; written between 1982-1985 and awarded with Vienna's Ernst Krenek Prize) or the string quartet "Vanished Dreams" (1993) would not have been possible without the numerous ideas and preparatory works from his Geneva period.

Interest in the life and work of Federico Garcia Lorca (FGL), the spanish author murdered in Granada in 1936, dating from this time, also led to the project of a work about the death of the writer. The composer was reminded of this former project when encouraged to submit projects in relation to FGL to a music festivsl. His renewed work on this material, however, extended the project into a plan to write a work about the spanish civil war in the form of a diary in which August 18th became just one of many entries. The american librettist Amy Leverenz agreed to take part in this project and wrote the text to "18th August". The resulting piece is thus one page of a 'work in progress' that the composer intends to continue in due course.

As with all recent works from the pen of the composer, the work is written according to a method of composition which Staar describes as 'chord realignment theory'. This is an harmonic theory in which the intervals within a chord are continually reorganised, interchanged, juxtaposed, transposed and inverted. In the widest sense the method recalls serial techniques with the difference that this is an harmonic rather than a linear method of composition. Latterly the composer has also employed his "Generative Chord Computer Program" (GCCP) developed together with Gottfried Hinker.

Several years ago the composer's interest in flamenco rhythmns resulted in the composition of his "Minotaurus Ballet". Many of the rhythmic structures developed then have found their way into this new work. The composer's intention was to create a work incorporating both tonally and rhythmically a 'spanish touch'. The piece consists of several parts; an initial prelude for the seven-strong instrumental ensemble in which three diverse, contrasting harmonic-rhythmic thematic elements are interwoven in counterpoint. There follows an account of the death of FGL above a musical structure based on flamenco rhythmns before the work concludes with FGL's poem 'Sorpressa'.