Violine (The song of Anna O.)

The song of Anna O. (2005) portrays the psychological world of this patient of Josef Breuer in a trance-like work for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble. When the Ensemble Aleph of Paris announced a call for scores for the 4th International Forum for Young Composers, I had fresh memories of the years I spent studying at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (with Kurt Schwertsik, Leopold Hager, Ingomar Rainer, etc.). This fact, along with my scientific interest in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and my artistic enthusiasm for algorithmic composition, led me to conceive my work The song of Anna O., which was selected for the aforementioned forum within the frame of a creation residency I was invited to.

Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), known as Anna O., was treated with cathartic therapy by Josef Breuer (1842–1925), the physician who wrote Studies on Hysteria with Sigmund Freud during the foundation of psychoanalysis. Through a play of opposites, my work The song of Anna O. depicts her dual state of consciousness (she suffered from hallucinations, paralysis, speech disorders, etc.) and her interaction with Dr. Breuer. In this piece, within the field of classical music and by combining the tradition of the Second Viennese School with elements of algorithmic composition, the attributes of musical tones evoke a hallucination-like state through a highly intense continuum, which is always similar but different and includes improvised sections.

In Studies on Hysteria, the text I quoted in my work The song of Anna O., Breuer writes: “She [Anna O.] fell into a state of daydreaming and saw, how [...] a black snake approached the sick man, to bite him. [...] She [...] was like paralyzed; [...] the fingers [of her right arm] turned into small snakes with skulls [...]. When this faded away, she wanted to pray in her fear, but every language failed, [...] until she finally found an English nursery rhyme and could now also think and pray in that language. // The whistle of the locomotive, which brought the expected physician, broke the spell.” [Josef Breuer, “Beobachtung I. Frl. Anna 0 . . . (Breuer),” in Studien Über Hysterie (Leipzig und Wien: Franz Deuticke, 1895), 30 (translation mine).]

My work The song of Anna O. was selected by the Ensemble Aleph of Paris for the 4th International Forum for Young Composers (Culture 2000 programme of the European Commission). After being rehearsed by the Ensemble Aleph and presented at Hellerau – European Centre for the Arts (Germany), my piece was premiered by this group on 6 September 2006, during the Gaudeamus Music Week, at the Bimhuis – Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands). Dedicated to the Ensemble Aleph, this work has also been programmed at other festivals like Festival MANCA (France), Time of Music (Finland), etc. and performed in cities such as Paris, Nice, Carcassonne (France), Dresden (Germany), Viitasaari (Finland), etc. The song of Anna O. was included on the CD 4e Forum International des Jeunes Compositeurs (2006), performed and released by the Ensemble Aleph in France.

Dr. Jan Emanuel Abras, Ph.D. (born 1 February 1975 in Stockholm, Sweden)

www.janemanuelabras.com