Program
FULL ENSEMBLE:
Workers Union
Louis Andriessen
CHAMBER PERFORMANCES:
Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes
Florence Price
At the Purchaser’s Option
with Variations
Rhiannon Giddens
arr. Jacob Garchik
Yumma Mweil il Hawa
(Mother, This Is My Story)
Traditional
arr. Shawn Ellison & Julie Slim
Dạ Cổ Hoài Lang
(Night Drum Beats Cause Longing for Absent Husband)
Cao Văn Lầu
arr. Nick Montopoli*
Who is Ireland’s Enemy
Brian O’Higgins, Traditional
arr. Karl Mitze*
Quatuor pour la fin du temps
(Quartet for the End of Time)
V. "Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus" (Praise to the Eternity of Jesus)
Olivier Messiaen
arr. Zach Matteson* & Geoff Manyin*
FULL ENSEMBLE:
The Moldau (Vltava)
Bedřich Smetana
arr. Nick Montopoli
*denotes member of Austin Unconducted
Workers Union
Louis Andriessen
1975
This work is one of inherent contradiction — a sustained aural assault that attempts to capture the dialectical energy and impetus of political action. Andriessen wrote the work for “any combination of loud sounding instruments” — part of his lifelong goal to avoid standard instrumental combinations. The score has no specified pitch, but is rhythmically interminable and texturally ferocious. To maintain an atmosphere of discomfort and aggression, the composer asks the ensemble to avoid conventional instrumental figurations. The work is remarkable for highlighting a meta-commentary on the ensemble’s internal performative struggle — to simultaneously unify and remain individuated.
Andriessen remarks:
Only in the case of every player playing with such an intention that their part is an essential one, the work will succeed; just as in the political work.
Program note by Rohan Joshi
Curator’s Commentary:
I had initially felt called to elaborate on this piece selection more, but in revisiting Andriessen’s own remarks above, I only really feel the need to say “‘nuff said.” Visual projections paired with this piece include historical footage from American labor movements of the early 20th century. These movements and the resulting policies they brought forth shaped aspects of society we know as familiar today, such as workers compensation, social security, and weekly limits on working hours (which at the time was 54 rather than 40 hours).
Drink to me only with thine eyes
Florence Price
1951
Written in 1951 as part of her collection of five arrangements of American Folk songs and spirituals, “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” features Florence Price’s masterful blend of traditional folk melodies with orchestration and counterpoint from the Western European art tradition. In describing the history of this particular folk song, Price wrote:
(Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes) was sung by settlers on the Eastern coast of America before the days of the American Revolution…the words of which were written by Ben Johnson in 1616 and sung to a tune of unknown origin as early as 1770, included in this group is now regarded as a folk song, and is authoritatively included in published volumes of folk songs.
This collection unites folk songs of resistance and spirituality throughout American history - putting the melodies of “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” alongside other folk songs including “Calvary,” “Clementine,” and “Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” many of which have been performed - and at times perhaps co opted - in a myriad of formats by a wide range of artists, from the likes of Bing Crosby to Johnny Cash.
Program note by Isaac Fuentes
At The Purchaser’s Option
with Variations
Rhiannon Giddens
2017
Originally a song from her album Freedom Highway (Nonesuch, 2017), Rhiannon Giddens, with arranger Jacob Garchik, reimagined this work for string quartet as part of the Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future project. Giddens describes it as “a nice marriage of formal and folk music making,” perhaps highlighted in the continuous plaintive melodies of the violin and lively pizzicato reminiscent of the banjo.
Inspired by a 19th-century advertisement for the sale of a 22-year-old enslaved woman and her 9-month-old baby, who was also available “at the purchaser’s option,” the music is a transportive meditation on resilience—ripping us out of the present and forcing us to confront the horrific realities and adversity faced by a mother and her child in slavery.
Program note by Rohan Joshi
This piece was commissioned for Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, a project of the Kronos Performing Arts Association. The score and parts are available for free online. kronosquartet.org.
Curator’s Commentary: In addition to At the Purchaser’s Option included in the above (of which I recommend checking out this performance from Rhiannon herself), all three of the songs in the below section demonstrate a motherhood motif, which I was delighted - but not altogether surprised - to discover between pieces that endeavor to represent a people, a place, and a purpose. A motherland, so to speak. Though variant in origin by both time and space, each ties to a deep seated, shared core: policies become personal.
Perhaps parents understand this best. Our American culture often views children as necessary, but a nuisance. But those of us who care for them are transformed in their orbit.As artist Catie Atkinson recently wrote:
“Motherhood in its essence is a threat to powers that be, because if we embraced the act of raising children with the reverence it deserves, it would grind our violent, greedy, wasteful ways to a halt. If we saw children as human beings with a sacred right to a safe future - we would fight like hell for this planet. If we saw the work of raising children as worthy and worthwhile, we would restructure society to ensure that caregivers were supported and provided for. If we had any real hope for humanity, we would recognize that children are the leaders of tomorrow and we would show up to change. If you have a child, I know you have hope. Little ones tether us to tomorrow in the most beautiful, brutal way. Beyond the doom scrolling and the steady wave of disasters crossing our screen, our babies remind us that the power of love will prevail. It must. There is no other way.”
yumma mweil il hawa
(Mother, This is my story)
Traditional
Date Unknown
Yumma Mweil il-Hawa (Mother, this is my story) is a traditional Palestinian song likely dating to the early 20th century. It paints the lament of a resistance fighter who expresses a longing to bring their mother home, while comforting their mother by describing their calling to and journey in resistance. The English translation of the vocals as performed by Julie Slim in Arabic are as follows:
Mother, This Is My Story
Oh mother! The wailing of the wind is my wailing.
I would rather be stabbed by daggers than live under occupation.
I walked in the rain, and the rain quenched my thirst
And when summer came, it lit the fire inside me.
My life will always be given in the hope of freedom.
Oh night! The dew bears witness to my wounds.
The enemy’s army surrounds us from all sides.
And night sees the destruction in the wounds of my body.
The rifles in the mountains are higher than the highest
They are the key to the path of hope and hope is in my fighters
Oh my people! Oh heroes! I sacrifice my eyes for you.
I wish my chest were a bridge that you could cross to me.
So that you and I may live a Palestinian life.
Program Note by Isaac Fuentes
Translation provided by Julie Slim
Dạ Cổ Hoài Lang
(Night Drum Beats Cause
Longing for Absent Husband)
Cao Văn Lầu
1913
Written in 1913, the song’s composition and style paved the way for cải lương, a modern folk opera style in Vietnamese music. It is based on a true melancholy story about the composer’s experience of being apart from his wife due to Vietnamese cultural and marital norms, which condemned the couple to separation after a failure to conceive children. This song is peculiar because the composer expresses his emotions through the point of view of a wife longing for her absent husband. Perhaps the composer was amplifying his wife’s voice? Maybe it wasn’t acceptable for men to express these emotions at the time? Perhaps a woman’s timbre and vocal range best express the emotions? Regardless, the composer wrote a song defying cultural norms and creating a genre that captures an array of artistic expression throughout Vietnam.
Local artist promqueen remarks:
“My music derives inspiration from how the composer processes deep emotions and uses his art as a form of protest against the cultural status on marriage. I am inspired by the use of metaphors to nature in this song that furthers a dimensional perspective of the human experience. Not only did Dạ Cổ Hoài Lang create a new genre for Vietnamese music, but his musical style allows Vietnamese people to express their pains and challenges during the times of French Colonization (1862-1945) and civil war (1956-1975). Among the song’s main themes of longing and sadness, there is resistance. The fact the song is written, composed and sung is an act of resistance.”
Program Notes and Translation by promqueen
Tonight, this performance was arranged by Nick Montopoli as an instrumental for Austin Unconducted, though its original form includes a vocalist singing the following (English below):
Dạ Cổ Hoài Lang
Từ là từ phu tướng
Bảo kiếm sắc phong lên đàng
Vào ra luống trông tin chàng
Năm canh mơ màng
Em luống trông tin chàng
Ôi gan vàng quặn đau í i
Đường dù xa ong bướm
Xin đó đừng phụ nghĩa tào khang
Đêm luống trông tin bạn
Ngày mỏi mòn như đá vọng phu
Vọng phu vọng luống trông tin chàng
Lòng xin chớ phũ phàng
Chàng hỡi chàng có hay?
Đêm thiếp nằm luống những sầu tây
Bao thuở đó đây sum vầy
Duyên sắc cầm đừng lợt phai í i
Nguyện cho chàng đặng chữ an bình an
Trở lại gia đàng
Cho én nhạn hiệp đôi í i
Night Drum Beats Cause Longing for Absent Husband
Husband comes the precious sword of the general, the sharp sword of the general always waiting for news from the swallows
in the five watches of the night.I've been waiting for news from you.
Oh! My liver is aching.
The road is full of bees and butterflies.
Please don't betray the kindness of your friends.
At night I wait for news from you all the time.
During the day I'm as tired as a stone. Waiting for my husband.
Waiting - waiting for news from you, I
beg you not to be heartless.
You are you, do you know that
I lie down at night with sadness. How long have we been together here and there?
Don't let our iron-clad fate fade away.
I wish for you,
two words: peace and safety,
to return to your family,
so that the swallows can unite.
who is ireland’s enemy?
Brian O’Higgins, Traditional
1914-ish
At the outset of World War I, Irish Republican and poet, Brian O’Higgins (Na Banban) was outraged by a speech given by fellow Irish politician, John Redmond, who publicly advocated for Irish volunteers to join the British Army war effort. It further gained popularity in 1918 during the Irish Conscription Crisis, when it was set to the popular Irish folk tune, “The Rising of the Moon,” and sung throughout the country in opposition to Britain’s law requiring mandatory conscription (which never went into effect).
Oh, who is Ireland's enemy?
Not Germany, nor Spain,
Not Russia, France nor Austria;
They forged for her no chains,
Nor quenched her hearths,
Nor razed her homes,
Nor laid her altars low,
Nor sent her sons to tramp the hills
Amid the winter snow.
Who murdered kingly Shane O'Neill?
Who poisoned Owen Roe?
Who struck Red Hugh O'Neill down?
Who filled our land with woe
By night and day - a thousand times,
In twice four hundred years -
Till every blade of Irish grass
Was wet with blood and tears
Who spiked the heads of Irish priests
On Dublin Castle's gate?
Who butchered helpless Irish babes,
A lust for blood to sate?
Who outraged Irish maidenhood,
And tortured aged sires,
And spread from Clare to Donegal
The glare of midnight fires?Who scourged our land in Ninety-Eight,
Spread torment far and wide,
Till Ireland shrieked in woe and pain,
And Hell seemed fair beside?
Who plied the pitch-cap and the sword,
The gibbet and the rack?
Oh God! that we should ever fail
To pay those devils back.
Who slew the three in Manchester,
One grim November dawn,
While 'round them howled sadistically
The Devil's cruel spawn?
Who shattered many a Fenian mind
In dungeons o'er the foam,
And broke the loyal Fenian hearts
That pined for them at home?
Not Germany nor Austria,
Not Russia, France nor Spain
That robbed and reaved this land of ours,
And forged her heavy chains;
But England of the wily words –
A crafty, treacherous foe –
'Twas England scourged our Motherland,
'Twas England laid her low!
Rise up, oh dead of Ireland!
And rouse her living men,
The chance will come to us at last
To win our own again,
To sweep the English enemy
From hill and glen and bay,
And in your name, oh Holy Dead,
Our sacred debt to pay!- Brian O’Higgins
Program Note by Zach Matteson
Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Quartet for the End of Time)
V. "Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus"
(“Praise to the Eternity of Jesus”)
Olivier Messiaen
1941
Written during Messiaen’s imprisonment in a German camp during World War II, Quatuor pour la fin du temps is widely considered one of his most important works. Originally scored for the only battered instruments available - a violin, cello, clarinet, and piano - the quartet was premiered in 1941 by himself and three of his fellow political prisoners. The work is dedicated "To the Angel who announces the End of Time", for Messiaen was no longer interested in hearing steady beats such as military drums defined by rhythm in time, and instead aspired to something beyond.
Jesus is here considered as one with the Word. A long phrase, infinitely slow, by the cello expatiates with love and reverence on the everlastingness of the Word, mighty and dulcet, “which the years can in no way exhaust.” Majestically the melody unfolds itself at a distance both intimate and awesome. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Olivier Messiaen
Program Note by Nick Montopoli
Curator’s Commentary: I’m often struck by how much of collective care relies on conceptualizing time beyond our individual rhythms, our individual lives. It requires that we envision and empathize with the experience of others - past, present, and future. While understanding the world through the timescale of that of a tree or a geologic formation can make our time here on earth seem insignificant, acknowledging the value of our impact on those around us and that will come after us can hearten us with purpose. It brings a sense of awe a la Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot:
“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
the moldau (vltava)
Bedřich Smetana
1874
Smetana composed six symphonic tone poems between 1874 and 1879, collectively entitled Má vlast (my fatherland), each representing an aspect of the composer’s homeland: the westernmost region of the Czech Republic, known as Bohemia, or Čechy.
The second poem, The Moldau, sonically interprets the flow of the Czech Republic’s longest river:
The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer’s wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night’s moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John’s Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Labe (Elbe).
- Bedřich Smetana
Program Note by Nick Montopoli
Curator’s Commentary: The Moldau is a piece that I view as a beginning to my own musical meanderings. It made it onto tonight’s program not only because it allowed a challenging opportunity for Austin Unconducted to pull from the classical canon and make something of their own with it, but because it was the first piece that really struck me within classical explorations. I appreciated its more “folk” roots and strength of visual storytelling, a seeming contrast from other compositions of the same genre and era. Though composed in the 1800s, it came to be such a powerful representation of motherland for so many that it was still being banned by the Nazis in the mid 20th century to suppress collective movements. A fitting end to a concert full of music rich with resistance.
Special thanks
to our supporters!
This project is supported in part by
the City of Austin
Economic Development Department.
We also extend gratitude to
Make at Rosie, the community makerspace where the custom creations embedded into tonight’s experience were made.
Learn about membership, classes, and events on their website.