'Marthiya' was composed between January and March 2005. The title refers to a
form of Arabic and Persian elegiac poetry. Although it originated in the pre-Islamic
period, the Marthiya later focused exclusively on the martyrdom of the Imam
Hossein at Kerbala, Iraq, in the 13th century. While my piece lacks any such
specific programme, its atmosphere of mourning is not unrelated to the devastation
wreaked on Iraq since 2003, and on the wider carnage inflicted upon the Arab
and Islamic world by the West over the last century.
Like so much of my music, 'Marthiya' begins with the elaboration of a rigid
structure that is progressively weakened and ultimately dismantled. In this
case the structure is based harmonically on the augmented triad (with its conscious
echoes of late Liszt), and on recurrent rhythmic and dynamic cells (including
silences, more important here than in most of my recent work). At first exclusively
homophonic, the textures loosen to allow melodic fragments of a keening nature.
Later still, a fortissimo unison pizzicato chord introduces a more mobile passage
leading to a violent climax. In the final phase, all attempts to re-establish
the original "stability" are defeated. 
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