On the occasion of a new edition . . .
In The Circle in the Square performance project, one of
the primary problems addressed is the fragmentation of
poetry and music. In the view explored here, poetry and
music form a kind of necessary unity—that is to say that
they cannot survive let alone flourish without one another.
Yet only a cursory look at contemporary practice reveals
that poetry and music exist in largely separate worlds,
rarely crossing borders or showing any kind of what I
suppose academics might call interdisciplinary interest.
Poets in the English speaking world publish their work in
written form, largely for other poets. And New Music
composers in both Europe and America publish their work
by means of recordings, and, in a remarkably parallel way,
largely for other composers or new music specialists.
Given the tremendous difficulty of understanding the
origins of this kind of cultural fragmentation, which is so
characteristic of Western culture at present, I think it is
best to be simple and direct in one’s approach. By this I
mean: Place both poetry and music under one roof, so to
speak, like two parties of a loving relationship who have
somehow become estranged from one another, and simply
make sure they stay there. In other words: Do poetry; Do
music—and then—do them always together. In concerts;
in presentations of every description; and in one’s own
work as an artist. The key thing is that they remain
together, and that along the way, we become aware of I
would argue not so much new ways of unifying them, but
rather new ways of looking at their shared, common
source.
It is in this spirit that I’ve undertaken the composition of a
number of new song cycles. The Winter Songs for
mezzo-soprano and solo violin is the first of these.
The Texts
I’ve selected five very contrasting texts for the cycle. They
are all pieces I’ve lived together with for many years,
either having performed them myself or, in the case of Rilke,
have translated, or used with student performers.
The theme of winter has not so much to do with any
particular content, although that is there, too, but more
with a certain quality of space. As someone who has lived
almost at treeline in the mountains for so many years, I
have developed a certain love of “the nothingness” that
comes with the cold and snow in the northern latitudes.
One becomes somehow more intensely aware of things,
both good and bad, by their absence. Color attenuated to
almost an entirely white and granite gray world; smooth
white slopes where once their was a noisy road. But in the
depth of this winter silence, one also remembers, re—
collects as it were the world about oneself, as well as the
world one has experienced. And some- times, that, of
course, has to do with grief and suffering. That is why it
seemed natural to me to begin the cycle with a brooding
and magnificent poem from the German poet Rainer
Maria Rilke’s uncollected work, Exposed on the
mountains of the heart. Composed during some of the
darkest days of World War I, when Rilke saw the Europe
around him that he knew so well utterly destroying itself,
the voice of this poem calls out to the world about loss
with tremendous passion. It is a voice which, I hope, will
also take flight in the present era with song.
I: [Exposed on the mountains of the heart ]
Exposed on the mountains of the heart.
See, how small there,
see: the last hamlet of words, and higher,
and yet so small,
a last
homestead of feeling. Do you recognize it?
Exposed on the mountains of the heart. Rocky earth
under the hands. But something will
flower here;
out of the mute abyss
flowers an unknowing herb in song.
But the knowing? Ah, that you began
to understand
and are silent now,
exposed on the mountains of the heart.
Yet many an awareness still whole wanders there,
many a self-confident mountain animal
passes through and remains. And that great protected bird
circles about the peaks of pure denial. But
unprotected, here on the mountains of the heart.
Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. from the German by Cliff Crego)
Purchase student edition of the score at:
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/winter-songs/14329034
View intro and online version of score at
http://cs-music.com/voice/intro_winter-songs.html
Downlaod free pdf of larger performance edition of score at:
http://cs-music.com/voice/pdfs/download_winter-songs.pdf