Mystic Saints premieres at UCLA

Published: Thursday, February 26, 1998

Thursday, February 26, 1998

MUSIC: Commissioned by the Vatican, installment is second in series of four

By Michael Gillette

Daily Bruin Contributor

For orchestral composer and UCLA alumnus Christopher Caliendo, tonight will be a very special homecoming.

The UCLA Philharmonic will perform a program of his works, collectively titled "The Mystic Saints: A Musical Drama" at Schoenberg Hall, and Caliendo, who received his Master of Arts here in 1989, will attend.

Tonight's audience is the first to have a chance to experience this long-evolving work at its midway point.

The program began with a commission from the Vatican (the first ever offered to an American) for an orchestral work with text. Allowed to choose the source of his work through independent research, Caliendo adapted the poetry of 16th century Spanish mystic poetess St. Teresa of Avila.

"I looked through the Mystic Saints, with whom I already had a familiarity," Caliendo says, "and I settled on Teresa. Her poetry, we know, has never been held in high regard by scholars because it is seen as not rigidly logical. But I found that her (lack of precise formula) rendered her work more candid and human and that those qualities allowed it to fit with the music I sought to compose."

The piece itself premiered in Italy in 1992 at the "Encounters of Sacred Contemporary Music" festival in Italy before an audience that included Caliendo's own parents and countless high officers of the Catholic church. He speaks with both eloquence and awe when recalling that day.

"One can only imagine the state of mind one is in," Caliendo says. "It was truly one of those moments where you could imagine leaving the world in a state of rapture. It sounds inhuman to say. But it comes from this feeling of having accomplished so much."

A second Vatican commission followed the next year, and Caliendo turned again to the Mystical Saints, choosing this time the work of St. John of the Cross. According to Caliendo, however, internal politics at the festival prevented the work from appearing as scheduled, which makes tonight's performance at Schoenberg a world premiere.

Caliendo has further plans for the Mystic Saints project, which is already seven years in the making. He intends to turn next to the Franciscan monks and write programs based on the works of St. Francis and St. Claire. Caliendo sees in these religious authors kindred spirits, saying that the "constant devotion and concentration" with which he approaches his art is similar to the fervor of the saints' spiritual pursuits.

Caliendo's projected destination for the four-act program of the Mystical Saints is Broadway. And if serious sacred compositions on the Great White Way seem like an anomaly, this does not deter their composer in the least. Instead, Caliendo voices excitement about the technical possibilities a large scale theatrical show offers. Lighting effects and holograms, he says, can "edify the music" and enhance the spiritual experience of the program.

In this way, Caliendo eschews what he sees as the more regimenting and stultifying effects that modernism has placed on music specifically and art in general. For his inspiration he reaches back to the romantic period, which he describes as "a time of an incredible outpouring of human emotion."

"From that time," Caliendo says, "came the music of Beethoven, Mendelsshon and Chopin, and the literature of Dostoevsky and Victor Hugo. These are the men I consider my peers. My music hearkens back to that time, and I try to convey to the audience that feeling."

MUSIC: The Mystic Saints: A Musical Drama premieres tonight at 8 p.m. in Schoenberg Hall. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $10 for students with ID. Call (310) 825-4761.