| Jaime Zenamon's "Demian", for solo guitar inspired by Herman Hesse's "Demian" Dos Mundos (Two Realms) Demian is about a boy, Emil Sinclair, becoming a man in the beginning of the 20th century. It starts when he is ten. He sees two worlds – the safe, sacred, happy home of his parents – and the world rest of the world with all its intrigues, temptations, and evils. Two realms. Zemanon’s suite starts with Dos Mundos – a bucolic melody that explodes outward with energy. The section has a lot of references to the Bach Cello suite, and to the compositions of Leo Brouwer. In the center it takes a darker, more fearful tone – but then it returns back to its bucolic melody – like Emil Sinclair going back to his parents home. The Sign of Cain Max Demian is a central figure – who saves Emil from the evil bully Krommer, and introduces Emil to the notion that stories that adults teach us can be understood in different ways. Max sees the story of Cain and Abel in a different light – he thinks that Cain didn’t get a “sign” on his head after killing his brother - that he always had a special intelligence and strength and people were disturbed by this and said – “he and his children are bold and cunning – they are different”. Zenamon’s Sign of Cain has the notation “Violently”. Musically it has a long slow melody accompanied by a driving violent arpeggio. The last part then looks ahead to the evil theme of the next section - Krommer. Krommer In Krommer Zenamon has written the musical parallel to the insidiousness of evil men like Krommer. They start off commanding authority in a small way – a small threat. Then they be come stronger and more insistent – slowly building, building, building to a crescendo of evil. Abraxas Another theme of the book Demian centers around the story of the ancient god Abraxas – a bird struggles to break free of its egg – it must destroy the egg in order to have new life – then it flies – it flies to the god Abraxas – the god of two realms. The music is in three sections – a first section struggling to find a theme – violent shakings – then a beautiful Zenamon arpeggio is like a bird in flight into the open sky – and finally the evil theme of Cain reappears and ends with a violent cadence. Eva Eva (Eve) is Max Demian’s mother in the story, and she becomes a mentor and spiritual mother to Emil. Zenamon’s Eva is full of love and empathy and peaceful serenity. Pistorius Pistorius is another mentor to Emil Sinclair – a Church musician who loves to lock himself in the Church and play wild, struggling music on the organ. Emil finds this out and seeks him out to find out more about this man and music. Pistorius is a man of intelligence, philosophy and religion. Zenamon has made a fugue that struggles chromatically, builds heroicly, rushes emotionally into arepeggios and then abruptly becomes calm and quiet. The Beginning of the End At the end of the story Emil Sinclair goes off to World War, is wounded and comes back home to another “new world”. Zenamon’s last section has the ugly volleys of war, the sad cries of the original bucolic melody of Dos Mundos, and a tormented ending with whimpering and the tolling of bells. |
| William Simcoe Classical Guitarist |
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