for solo soprano (2013)
7’
f.p. Irene Kurka, Klangraum, Düsseldorf, 27th August 2013
Programme note
Asked for a piece on the subject of Prayer, I thought of Henry Vaughan’s definition, from The Morning-watch (from Silex Scintillans, 1650) :
Prayer is
The World in tune,
A spirit-voyce,
And vocall joys
Whose Eccho is heav’ns blisse.
The idea of ‘tuning oneself in’ also occurs in the lines from Pessoa that are incorporated into the piece:
May this always be my life:
The day bright with sunshine or mild with rain,
Or stormy as if the world would drown…
To feel life flowing through me like a river over its bed,
And outside a great silence, like a sleeping god.
The piece exclusively uses intervals formed between some of the first eleven partials of the harmonic series, and so performs its own kind of tuning-in.
Recorded by Irene Kurka on Beten (Edition Wandelweiser Records, 2015)