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THE BARA’A (EVOLUTION) SYMPHONY

by DANIEL NAZARETH

A Synopsis

PART I: THE HUMAN ODYSSEY THROUGH TIME AND SPACE (ORCHESTRAL, approx. 17 min)

From the dark, deep recesses of outer space, we hear pianissimo a male (yang) motive in the brass. Exploding into a first Big Bang, it sets the Milky Way in motion to wisps of music from the Cosmic Dance in Part VI.

A second female (yin) motive appears, explodes into a second Big Bang, and sends the planet Earth rotating and revolving around the sun.

The three fundamental processes of creation: The Fibonacci Series, The Golden Measure and DNA help create and unravel life on Earth.

The main theme announces the Homo Sapiens Male in all his virility and invincibility. The secondary theme brings on the Homo Sapiens Female with her gentleness and compassion.

What ensues is a vivid conflict between the forces of good and evil in all mankind. Discoveries, inventions, social and cultural achievements vie against intolerance, warfare, unchecked materialism, religious fanaticisms. The negatives culminate in the 9/11 2001 tragedy, and in the financial meltdown of October 2008.

While the blue Planet Earth still stays its course, its Homo Sapiens Male and Female inhabitants now appear markedly sedate and tempered. They renew their unabashed belief in the audacity of hope for a far greater tomorrow.

PART II: AN ANCIENT SUFI PARABEL (BOY SOPRANO AND GIRL SOPRANO WITH ORCHESTRA approx. 5 min)

TEXT: DANIEL NAZARETH

Boy:

O’er hills and valleys high and low,

Rustling, rippling have I flowed,

But how the desert I should cross

To understand I’m at a loss.

Girl:

Let the burning fire in the sand

Envapour you to the wind at hand,

And over the desert you will float

Steady, secure, as in a boat.

Boy:

O’er hills and valleys high and low,

Rustling, rippling have I flowed,

As stream of water I was alive,

If I don’t flow I fear I’ll die.

Girl:

As dew, as rain you will survive,

To live again another life.

We all some day, some time must go,

To come again, to do some more.

Boy:

So let the fire in the sand,

Envapour me across the land.

And let the winds as high they soar,

Carry me to another shore.

Boy and Girl:

O’er hills and valleys high and low,

Rustling, rippling have we flowed,

Another shape, another shore,

We’ll live again, we know, we’re sure.

PART III: FOUR CREATION TRADITIONS (BARITONE, CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA, approx. 20 min)

TEXT: DANIEL NAZARETH

1) THE JUDEO CHRISTIAN TRADITION

In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth.

And the Earth was without form and bare,

And darkness reigned the depths of the abyss.

And God’s spirit moved upon the face of the water.

And God spoke: "Let there be light."

And there was light.

Day He called that which was bright,

The Darkness He called Night.

The next five days He made the sky,

The sun, the moon, the stars that fly.

The land with trees and birds and bees,

The seas with fish and whales and eels.

In His image He made a man and a woman.

He bade them: "Multiply and be fruitful".

Content with all He had created,

The seventh day God blessed, and He rested.

Praise the Lord! All you voices!

Glory to God in all eternity.

Amen. Amen.

2) THE MAYAN CREATION TRADITION

The Gods from their abode in heaven

Gazed down at an Earth, forlorn.

"No-one gives us thanks and praise,

We need to have a human race!"

The yellow God fashioned a man out of clay.

It dissolved in water and bent like hay.

The red God carved a man out of wood.

It could stand and float, but no fire withstood.

The black God suggested: "Let us use gold,

So our man be bright, shiny and bold."

Their man of gold survived water and fire,

But was hard and cold with no speech nor desire.

The fourth God used his fingers, that were colorless,

To make humans in his own likeness.

Human toil and kindness, worship and praise,

Made the Gods proud of the human race.

3) THE HINDU CREATION TRADITION

God Brahma, the Creator,

Set his eyes on Sarasvati.

She refused his attentions,

Her focus was the mind, not the body.

Amorous dreams, bursting their seams,

Brahma’s four heads feasted on her beauty.

He even assumed a fifth head,

To indulge his debauchery!

Sarasvati turned into a cow.

She hoped he wouldn’t find her now!

Brahma turned into a bull,

And the fields with cattle were full!

She turned into a mare,

He turned into a horse.

Whatever form she chose to escape,

His lust for her that form would take.

God Shiva, the Destroyer,

Was outraged at this behaviour.

He attacked Brahma, fuming red,

And tore off his lustful fifth head.

Brahma now cured of his wanton lust,

Sought a ritual Yagna his life to adjust.

Sarasvati agreed to become his wife.

Together, they lived a long and fruitful life.

4) THE GREEK CREATION TRADITION

Somewhere in the primordial web,

Black-winged Nyx laid a golden egg.

Aeons later, Eros did hatch,

As God of Love, to make a match.

Half his shell became Uranus, the Sky,

The other half, Gaia, the Earth.

Uranus would covet Gaia,

So a pantheon of Gods take birth.

Prometheus and Epimetheus by Zeus were sent,

Mortal life on Earth to invent:

Man and animal to create,

Each to give a gift innate.

Epimetheus squandered the gifts away,

Prometheus had nothing left for man but clay.

He gave man upright stance and stolen fire,

This arroused God Zeus to anger!

Pandora, a beautiful woman was made,

A box was given, ‘not to open’ was bade.

But the box she did open, spilling the weeds

Of disease, racism, envy, pain and greed.

uckily, just so humankind might cope,

The box also hid an audacity called hope!

PART IV: FIVE SCIENTIFIC EVOLUTION THEORIES (CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA approx. 11 min.) SUNG IN FUGUE TO A CANTUS FIRMUS BY

LEONARDO DA VINCI

TEXT: DANIEL NAZARETH

The miracle that we are,
let us try to fathom.
Knowing where we come from,
can enlighten where we go.

Here some thoughts:

from CHARLES DARWIN:
"Environmental pressures select mutations in a gene-pool.
This natural selection ensures the survival of the fittest."

HENRI BERGSON:
"The survival of a species is a creative, not mechanical process.
One creative mutation gets selected from several mutations."

LYNN MARGULIS:
"Through Endo-symbiosis pro-caryotic cells turn into eu-caryotic cells.
Life took over the globe not by combat, but by net-working!"

PITER KROPOTKIN:
"Mutual aid and not mutual struggle propels our multi species evolution.
All of our human ethics derive from this mutual aid principle."

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN:
"Our noo-sphere of collective consciousness crowns the bio and eco spheres.
With this repository of knowledge and wisdom we survive or we perish collectively."

RENE DESCARTES: "Cogito ergo sum!"

PART V: "IF LOVE BE AN OCEAN WITHOUT A SHORE,

THEREIN TO DROWN I YEARN EVERMORE"

(ORCHESTRAL, approx. 15 min)

This Adagio focuses on unrelenting Love, in the face of challenges and hurdles, being pivotal to all human existence and endeavor.

PART VI: TRANSCENDENTAL COSMIC DANCE (CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA, approx. 11 min)

TEXT: JALAL-UD DIN RUMI

After a few moments marveling at the sheer beauty of our Planet Earth, the Chorus intones:

"We came whirling out of nothingness,

scattering stars like dust.

The stars make a circle,

And in their midst we dance."

700 YEAR OLD EVOLUTION POETRY (IN ORIGINAL PHARSI) BY RUMI:

Rumi, Masnavi, III, 3901 - 3907

English translation: Coleman Barks

I dissolve as a mineral and become a plant.

I die as a plant and change into an animal.

From the animal I turn into a human being.

Why should I be afraid of another dying?

I shall leave this human form and enter spirit.

and I shall rise from the river-way of being,

Everything Perishes Except His Face,

to be changed into what has never been imagined:

not-being, a glorious emptiness, 'adam,

We shall become the music of We Are All Returning,

a communal death that is the spring

that wells up with the dark waters of the universe.

With each of the original 7 Rumi verses depicting the 7 stages of existence, the music transposes in chromatic ascendancy through the 7 steps of the diatonic C-Major scale, as it crescendos to a dazzling climax.