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Sophie Webber, cello
PLAY RECORDING
PROGRAM NOTES
Until the Sea is written for cello and electronic media. The only sound source material used in the electronic portion of the piece is recordings of the cello, played by cellist Sophie Webber. These recordings were then subjected to various computer generated processes. When starting to compose this piece my initial idea was to have the live cello play simple and somewhat folk-like melodies, while the tape portion (made of processed cello sounds) paints an abstract and other-worldly soundscape. This idea later evolved in diverse ways, yet exploring the relationship between the cello and this tape soundscape became a central element of the composition process: How can the cello be reflected upon itself, how can it be set against its own sonorous sub-conscious, what kind of metaphors might be evoked by such a relationship?
The piece was created and recorded in the Jacobs School of Music's Center for Electronic and Computer Music.
Until the Sea is dedicated to the memory of Joseph Dorfman (1940-2006), my first composition teacher. I feel that I will never stop being deeply inspired by his guidance, music and spirit.
Elizabeth Ashantiva, Soprano solo
Marianne Shifrin, Clarinet; Selena Adams, Horn; Timothy Abbott, Bassoon; Andrew Ling, Viola; Sophie Webber, Cello; Ashley Eidbo, Bass; Max Tholenaar-Maples, Percussion
Choir of Jacobs School of Music student musicians
Cinthia Alireti, Conductor
PLAY RECORDING
PROGRAM NOTES
Paul Celan (1920-1970) was in my view one of the greatest poets writing in the German language in the 20th century. Some of Celan's poetry is regarded by many as a reaction to the personal traumas and loss he experienced during the Second World War. The specific poem I chose to set to music, "Stretto" (1959), is considered by some to be his deepest journey "down memory lane," to confront these painful experiences. Personally, I find this kind of reading of the poem to be powerful, yet it seems to be only one of many possible readings. This long poem is highly abstract and rich with different images that add up to create a whole independent universe, the nature of which is dependent on the reader's imagination. One of the elements I found fascinating in this poem is the exploration of the relationship between language and reality: the power of language to create, but also to destroy; and ultimately the limitations of language as a means to truly reflect one's innermost memories and feelings.
The original poem's structure is inspired by the musical form of a fugue, as certain lines are echoed while new lines of text have already emerged. The title of the poem itself, "Stretto" (literally "to draw close") refers to the fugal technique of intensifying the contrapuntal density by overlapping motives upon themselves. When first approaching this text, the poem seemed to reveal itself as a huge system of loops, echoes and mirrors, endlessly reflecting upon itself. One of my objectives while composing this piece was to maintain at least some of these structural elements. The poem is not set in its entirety; instead, I focused only on a few sections from the poem and reorganized them in a structure that fits my own reading of the text.
The piece alternates between sections that focus on the soprano solo’s dialogue with an electronic media component (itself drawn from recordings of soprano Elizabeth Ashantiva), and sections that reveal a dialogue between the choir and the instrumental septet (as in the opening). Gradually, the boundaries between these different spatial layers blur.
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