à Sibyl - mǒnē
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À Sibyl – mǒnē – program note:
The piece is strung around two poles: the sybil of the Rhine, Hildegard of Bingen, and the 16th century Carmelite nun and mystic, Teresa of Àvila. Hidden in the sound and textures, if you are equipped with a microscope you find traces of melodies, words (the secret lingua ignota of Hildegard) and possible even the voice of the extasis of Hildegard. In form, the mansions (mǒnē in classic Greek) of Àvila’s book The Interior Castle looms as different movements of contemplation. In essence the piece comprises of 8 shorter movements strung together as one. Each with a different subtitle of “homage” encapsulating a wide range of my mystic and musical forebears.
Teresa of Àvila, in her book the interior castle, writes of the prayer and the monastic life, as not an activity, but as a state-of-being. For me, sound, is exactly this. It is not something I do for a few hours every day, but it is mode of existence; never possible to discern from life.
The opening sound of the tail-piece to the final moment of an unstable harmonic is an exploration of sound in an imaginary space where past and present resonates through the hands and cello body of the performer. Taking the sound from its explicit point of origin to – hopefully – a more mythical, primordial dimension.
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