Zoltán Kovács: Symphony No. 1, based on the legend of Saint Agnes

I must confess that before contemporary-music concerts I always watch the audience with a touch of apprehension, only to be reassured by how many are willing to take the ‘risk’, trusting that as seasoned, experienced listeners they can find their way through contemporary music too. This is especially so when that music is written not in a wholly foreign language, but draws on the collective memory, giving the audience the chance to recognise it. Zoltán Kovács calls his work, inspired by the legend of Saint Agnes, a symphony — a term we meet ever more rarely in contemporary music. On the one hand, composers wish to avoid the listener approaching the work with expectations drawn from classical symphonies; on the other, if they mean to write something accessible to the public, they try to give the audience some point of reference, perhaps a hint of a programme.

Kovács’s work is a singular blend of the two: we can approach it with the expectations we are used to bringing to classical symphonies, and at the same time he gives all four movements titles, acknowledging that the work is bound to a famous legend. This way of titling the movements calls to mind Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, where the individual titles tend to express emotions and sketch a narrative. Beethoven comes close to programme music with the storm in the fourth movement of his Sixth Symphony; and the final movement of Kovács’s symphony is, in certain respects, programme music too — though it can only be fully grasped with knowledge of the legend. Even so, this work is primarily a symphonic composition, a musical process rather than an illustration of events.

What makes the first three movements special is their exceptionally rich musical vocabulary, which lets us recognise countless elements of our collective memory. While we may in good conscience describe these three movements as a pure musical process, we cannot fail to notice that Kovács expresses himself through an extremely diverse vocabulary and unmistakable gestures, which set off a wealth of associations and recognitions. We may take this as the composer’s intention, or as a natural, personal manifestation of collective memory. The plot itself is a well-known and extremely interesting story that has survived in many forms: the legend of Saint Agnes.

Saint Agnes1 died a martyr’s death shortly after the rise of Christianity, in the early 300s, during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian.2 Agnes is one of Christianity’s most prominent figures, one who devoted her life to Christian virtue rather than to the world. According to the Legenda aurea,3 she was a young, beautiful girl with whom the prefect’s son fell in love and whom he asked to marry. Agnes politely refused, replying that she could not marry, for she was the bride of Christ. As the court could not turn her from her vow, she was sentenced to death. Since Roman law forbade the execution of virgins, it was decided that she should first be defiled. Stripped naked, she was dragged to the wine cellar to be raped. At that moment miracles occurred: the girl’s hair grew until it covered her body and saved her from humiliation. The soldiers who meant to rape her went blind.

When the prefect’s son tried to force her, an evil spirit strangled him — but Agnes’s prayer brought him back to life, whereupon she was declared a witch and they sought to burn her at the stake. Yet the fire would not consume her, and so a soldier stabbed her — or, in another version of the legend, beheaded her. It is not a pleasant story; but then no story of martyrdom is. And yet the memory of Saint Agnes is among the purest, most sublime manifestations of the power of Christian faith. ¹ Saint Agnes: we have no certain information about her origins or her life. According to tradition she was born around 291, the child of a Roman noble family that had converted to Christianity. She died a martyr’s death on 21 January 305, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

² The Emperor Diocletian (reigned 284–305) ordered the bloodiest persecution of Christians in the history of the Roman Empire. Under his successor, the Emperor Constantine I, Christianity had already become the most widespread religion in the empire, and in 313 Christians were granted freedom of worship. ³ Legenda aurea: a collection by the Dominican friar Jacobus de Voragine (1228–1298) setting out legends of the saints in connection with the church feasts. It became the best-known and most popular book of the Middle Ages. The first movement is a portrait of Agnes, opening with a beautiful melody. A marvellous resonance fills the orchestra; the exquisite tune is played on the oboe and echoed by the horn.

The second statement of this two-bar melody, closely resembling the first, suggests a folk-song structure — and in music a folk-song structure always stands for human purity and simplicity. What seems to be the continuation into the third line, however, holds a surprise: the much-expanded material develops into an ascending sequence, the musical idea repeated again and again, each time from a higher note. The increasingly agitated ascent finally breaks off, unfinished.