On the blue shore of silence - duo for 'cello and piano - 2007
duration 24 minutes
1 Allegretto - Whether my bark went down at sea
2 Cold, bitter - Tu m'oublies
3 Jittery - Two butterflies
4 Saturated, sultry - Des roses sur la mer
"Let us look for secret things somewhere in the world,
on the blue shore of silence or where the storm has passed like a train..." [Pablo Neruda]
The title is from a poem of Pablo Neruda, also the collection from which it comes. I was unaware of the latter when I wrote the piece, remaining so even after I found and used this quotation. I then bought the volume - how strange to find the first poem of the set to be called El Mar - Sea, and the second Nace - born ~ Seabourne... my name! Some things were just meant to be!
The work takes material from four of my songs, recomposed afresh, rather in the manner of Mahler's symphonic reinvestigations of his Knaben Wunderhorn set.
The songs chosen all refer to the sea, though it is not the central image in any of them. In the first (from September, Just Septembers) questions are posed about 'my bark' (ship) - did it fail? - reach foreign climes? - and so forth. The material is unsettled with a certain seriousness, even slightly sternly so. In the second (from Sappho Songs) bitterness and longing are intertwined as the faithless lover is rebuked, the mirror of the waters acting as metaphor. Two butterflies skit in somewhat jittery manner over the sea in the third (from The Garden in the Brain) - this movement is entirely pizzicato for the 'cello. Finally the saturated, sultry atmosphere of Sappho/Renée Vivien returns (from Sappho Songs) with a dream of roses on the sea at evening.
This work has since been played by dear friends Orsolya Vági with Sayaka Kubota in Budapest's Óbudai Társaskör (2008), and Olga Shutko with Miroslav Dragan in the Philarmonic Hall, Lviv (2011).
PLEASE READ: THIS IS NOT A PUBLIC DOMAIN WORK. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED. PRINTED COPIES ARE FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES ONLY
 |
Performance from Óbudai Társaskör Budapest, Hungary (May 2008)
1. Whether my bark went down at Sea.... |
  |
Performance from the Philharmonic Hall in Lviv, Ukraine (October 2011) as part of the Kontrasts Festival
1. Whether my bark went down at Sea.... |
On the blue shore of silence - 4th movement: Des roses sur la mer
Video of première by Lars Hoefs and Miriam Braga at the Rio 'Cello Festival 2007
(sound quality only modest..)
If you have arrived at this page from a search engine (e.g. Google) and cannot see the menu system, please click here.
