Giacinto SCELSI (1905-1988)
Mantram, canto anonimo
transcr. Michael SVOBODA

Nicholas MOROZ (*1991)
Her still singing limbs

Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
from: Harawi
IV. Doundou tchil
transcr. Sebastiaan KEMNER

Koen KAPTIJN (*1976)
AIR

Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
from: Harawi
X. Amour oiseau d’étoile
transcr. Sebastiaan KEMNER

TRADITIONAL
El cant dels ocells
arr. William WINTERBOTTOM

Sebastiaan KEMNER, trombone
Andrea VASI, piano
Nicholas MOROZ, electronics

Bird songs and mantras share a non-semantic realm that extends beyond language and dates back to pre-recorded time. Both are often placed in a ritual setting and share certain structural properties, as well as a lack of absolute purpose. Even though language is sometimes introduced in mantras, the words lose their inherent meaning through the repetitive nature of the ritual in which the mantra is employed. And where bird songs are often compared to language and linked to different survival instincts within the ornithological kingdom, research has also shown that bird songs cannot be simply explained in functionalist, utilitarian, or pragmatic terms, and that birds often seem to sing simply because they like to. Olivier Messiaen recognised these common grounds when he described the call of the Song Thrush as “à la manière d’une incantation”. Messiaen famously translated bird songs to his compositions, thus exposing a connection to the ‘language’ of music, which shares the same ancient, inexplicably captivating realm with mantras and bird songs – all coming together in the ritual that is this concert.

In his song cycle Harawi, Messiaen retells the ancient myth of Tristan and Isolde in a predominantly surrealistic manner. He creates a visionary dream world where the essential mythical idea of transcendental love is explored. Messiaen also wrote the poetry for the songs, utilising mythical material from the Inca folklore, including phrases from the old Inca language Quechua. By weaving a foreign language into the French text, the songs attain a new and surprising dimension, which contributes strongly to their power of expression. The musical material of the songs is derived from folkloristic dance rhythms, while the lyrics contain several phrases in Quechua. The title of the fourth song of the cycle, Doundou tchil, is taken from a Peruvian festive dance song, usually performed as part of ritual celebrations. The performers wore ankle bells to accompany their dance, and the expression ´doundou tchil´ is used as an onomatopoeicon, alluding to the sound of stamps and bells. Amour oiseau d’étoile is marked by a calming sense of motionlessness and simplicity of form. The movement is firmly rooted in the key of F#, described by Messiaen as the ‘key of love’. The text deals with the idea of transcendental, divine love – birds had symbolic significance for Messiaen, as he regarded them as messengers between heaven and earth. Both movements share a repetitive character, evoking an almost meditative quality.

The eccentricity of Olivier Messiaen is strikingly captured in a number of unique interviews that inspired Koen Kaptijn to write AIRfor trombone, piano and live electronics (commissioned especially for this programme). Kaptijn quotes a fragment from one of the interviews to describe the mood of his piece: “The slow, distant, lunar sounds. Like it’s from another planet and the bird has long gone.”

In Her still singing limbs, Nicholas Moroz,

also uses birdsong – the call of the Slate-coloured Solitaire in particular – to construct the electronic part of the composition and the melodic gestures in the trombone part. The trombone is fitted with an iPhone that sends compass data to the computer, allowing the trombonist to move sounds across the loudspeakers in real time. Using live time stretching, the echoes of the electronics envelop the trombone and audience in an antiphony of warped echoes, feedback, and resonances.

Early on his career, Giacinto Scelsi fell in love with Eastern philosophy and made trips to India and Nepal. After the Second World War, he suffered a breakdown and stopped composing for a few years. He spent day after day playing a single note on the piano. The casual observer might have thought that he had gone mad. He was, in fact, regaining his balance. Playing around a single note by slightly altering pitch and timbre is a technique that is used extensively in Tibetan and Indian music, and which also became a distinctive feature of Scelsi’s musical language. In Mantram, canto anonimo, originally written for double bass, this technique is used to summon a meditative, repetitive atmosphere – similar to that of a mantra.

El cant dels ocells (‘The song of the birds’) is a traditional Catalan Christmas song and lullaby that was made famous by the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals. An active voice for human rights and against oppressive governments, Casals played El cant dels ocells at every one of his concerts, calling attention for the situation in Spain (and Catalonia in particular) under the Franco regime – much like a mantra.