De Donde Vienes
A chat with a friend reminded me of a piece of music that awakened some parts of me that were hungry for it thirty years ago. This is George Crumb's "Ancient Voices of Children." For one thing, the score itself is a beautiful work of art. And one piece in particular, "Dance of the Sacred Life Cycle," blew me away for it's circular score and it's meaning as well.
The song is in the first 4 minutes of the video. This particular recording, with Jan DeGaetani as the voice of the mother, is the one I heard on my stepdads record player so long ago. It expressed something real about life that I couldn't articulate.
I don't know if I can now, but it will be fun to explore.
For one thing, listening to the music while following along with the score is a thrilling experience. I never thought someone could write music this way. It made so much sense. It is not musical score, it is an incantation. It is a bringing through into the material world of something that is normally invisible.
We need one more thing: an english translation of the text. It's from a play written by Frederico Garcia Lorca in 1934. From Wikipedia, "the play tells the story of a childless woman living in Spain." It's also a tragedy.
Jan DeGaetani is the singer, and the child is a boy who, cleverly, is singing from offstage to indicate his position yet in the womb.
Child: ‘From heights that are icy cold.’
Yerma: What do you need, my love?
‘The warm feel of your robe.’
Let branches stir in the light
and fountains leap in the air!
Yerma: A dog barks in the yard,
a breeze sings in the trees.
The ox lows for the herdsman
and the moon ruffles my hair.
What do you wish, child, far away?
‘The white hills of your breast’
Let branches stir in the light
and fountains leap in the air!
Yerma: I can only say yes, my child.
I’ll be broken and torn for you.
What a grief it is to me now,
your first cradle, this womb!
When, my child, will you come?
‘When it smells of jasmine, your flesh.’
Let branches stir in the light
and fountains leap in the air!