Minnesota Orchestra's premiere of 'Prometheus' brings tortured mythological figure to life

"The story of Prometheus has many different versions," Minnesota Orchestra clarinetist Tim Zavadil explains, "but the basic starting elements are the same. Prometheus steals fire from the gods and gives it to the humans. As a result of this act, the gods punish Prometheus by chaining him to a rock and sending an eagle to feed on his liver. The liver regenerates itself every night, and the cycle repeats the next day. It is at this point where the stories diverge, as some versions end heroically and others have a darker ending."

The new work that he'll be performing this weekend at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis explores the darker side of the story.

Writers and composers have been inspired by Prometheus for generations. Indeed, this weekend's program kicks off with the overture to Beethoven's ballet The Creatures of Prometheus.

Beethoven focused on the lighter, nobler elements of the story, but author Franz Kafka came of age in a different world, and his interpretation was affected accordingly.

In Kafka's chilling nine-sentence short story "Prometheus," written at the height of the conflagration that was World War I, Kafka recounts four elements of the myth. Crucially, this darker, more ambiguous retelling is the one that composer Geoffrey Gordon gravitated toward when writing a concerto based on the legend.

"I think it's important to know the paragraph topics of the Kafka essay in order to better understand the mood Geoffrey depicts in each movement of the piece," Zavadil says.

(Happily, the Kafka version is reproduced in the program notes for curious online listeners.)

Gordon's Prometheus takes musical snapshots of four aspects of the story: Prometheus being chained to a rock as punishment for his betrayal of the gods, eagles mercilessly torturing him, the slow forgetting of his betrayal, and finally, weariness at the whole seemingly pointless affair. In the end, what remains is, in Kafka's words, "the inexplicable mass of rock." Recreational, repetitive violence has failed to provide catharsis.

Gordon brings this shocking, then numbing narrative to life in specific ways. The falling interval of the second represents that eternally torturous, inexplicable rock. Other orchestral instruments, including staccato trumpets, represent the eagles and mercurial gods. And Prometheus himself is represented by the solo instrument, the bass clarinet.

Why choose a bass clarinet for Prometheus? It's actually a surprisingly fitting, if underused, choice for a solo concerto instrument.

As Zavadil points out, "It really is its own voice. There is usually only one in the orchestra."

Add to that a huge range of pitch (three and a half octaves) and dynamics ("whispering soft to screaming loud!" Zavadil promises), and it's an instrument perfectly positioned to express the emotional extremes of the Prometheus story.

This weekend's performance of Prometheus will be the North American premiere; as is becoming more and more common, the cost of the commission was split between several orchestras. Although he was born in the United States, Gordon spends a lot of time in Britain, so he initially approached the Philharmonia Orchestra, which was the first to sign on to the project. He then contacted the bass clarinetist at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, who put him in touch with Zavadil. The Minnesota Orchestra jumped on the bandwagon and secured Zavadil as soloist. A third orchestra, the Malmo Symphony Orchestra in Sweden, rounded out the trio of commissioners.

Zavadil started playing clarinet in the fourth grade, "but I really wanted to play the saxophone," he says. One day when "poking around" in a basement band room at school, he found a bass clarinet and was immediately intrigued by its aesthetic similarities to the saxophone.

"Mr. Chandler, the band director, let me bring it home that night, and I messed around with it for hours. I loved it. I really didn't play the bass clarinet again until college, but that experience influenced both my passion for the bass clarinet, and for multiple woodwind instruments, in general."

The passion for musical adaptability that he discovered in the band room would serve him well. Zavadil joined the Minnesota Orchestra in 2007 as clarinetist and bass clarinetist.

This week he's excited not only to give the North American premiere of Prometheus but also to give the bass clarinet its well-deserved moment in the spotlight.

"I look forward to giving our audiences the opportunity to hear how versatile and expressive this instrument can be," he says.

Tickets and program information can be found at the Minnesota Orchestra's event page.