Program notes for “A Collective Landscape

Audio versions of the notes accompany each entry.

“Homesickness” by Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru (1923-2023)

Emahoy was an Ethiopian nun and musician who spent her life in Ethiopia, Europe, and Jerusalem. In her final decades, she lived in exile in Jerusalem because of political strife in Ethiopia. She lived her entire life geographically and culturally displaced, but anchored herself through her religion and music. “Homesickness” could literally be about missing her homeland, but could also be about longing for the idea of home. Emahoy studied classical music, but her music is in a world that’s distinctly her own and also somehow familiar and comforting to the listener.

A selection from Preludes, Op. 28, by Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Preludes are short, improvisatory, introductory pieces. It could be a prelude to a church service, something that sets the tone for the occasion, or it could be a prelude to a larger piece of musical work. Chopin took this form and instead treated it as a full musical work in its own right. Each prelude is very short, some of them only 30 seconds long, but each inhabits its own world and expresses something of the human experience. I was inspired by how Chaz’s songs are not very long, but each has a very distinct story or specific emotion it is trying to express. 

To my surprise, Chopin wrote these pieces while living in a rented room in a monastery. It’s a great coincidence that I had programmed the Preludes alongside Emahoy, who wrote most of her music in monasteries.

A selection from Preludes, Book 1 by Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Debussy followed Chopin’s footsteps and wrote his own sets of preludes. These are more like fully realized paintings in their own right. 

The first one, “Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps in the snow),” transports us to winter time on the plains, walking alone in a harsh blizzard. The opening figure persists throughout the whole piece, and Debussy explicits instructs the performer: “The rhythm must have the sonic quality of a bleak, frozen landscape in the background.” There is a lamenting song over this figure, and near the end Debussy says to play it “Like a tender and sad regret.”

The second one, “Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest (What the west wind saw),” is inspired by a fairy tale by the Danish author Hans Christian Anderson, who wrote stories like The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid. The west wind is a minor character in the story, but he’s a very wild and whimsical character. And, to my great surprise, the story describes his adventures in which he saw a buffalo. I think we can assume that he traveled to the Lakota nation.

“Vers la flamme” by Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)

This work titled “Towards the flame” is pure ritual - there’s no real melody to speak of, just an incessant repetition of a two-note motive, building and building in energy until the end. Scriabin believed music was above reason and rationality, music was a way to reach higher states of consciousness, and that it had the power to affect the universe. He also believed the earth would face an apocalyptic end, engulfed into flames, hence the title of this piece. I also hear the work as an ecstatic, feverish dance.