Around twenty major twentieth-century works are known to combine music with coloured light. One is Sofia Gubaidulina’s “Hallelujah”, a seven-part cycle for mixed choir, symphony orchestra, organ and solo treble, composed in 1990. Its score includes a separate part for coloured light, although the composer also permits performances without it. The first light-music production took place in New York in 1994.
Gubaidulina’s concept draws on the physics of white light separating into the colours of the spectrum. She treated this process as an analogy for the creator’s self-sacrifice for creation and for Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Each of the eleven colours in the lighting part has a symbolic role. Their sequence and interaction follow the work’s philosophical programme, turning the piece into a drama with eleven “colour characters”.
Prometheus gave the first Russian light-music performance of “Hallelujah” at its Kazan studio on 11 December 1996, using a recording of the music. “Prometheus-3” served as the lighting instrument and projected colour across a large screen. In the sixth section, the team supplemented Gubaidulina’s lighting score with moving abstract forms and selected slides. Audience responses identified this passage as the most powerful part of the production.
A second production followed on 28 March 1998. This time, the lighting part accompanied a video of a concert performance. A large television placed near the bottom of the projection screen created the impression that live performers shared the space with the colour composition.
Published in Kazan magazine, no. 8, 2001. Author: M. Tsvetkov.
