Like the river with no end (2015)
from Luminous Etudes: Visions of the Black Madonna of Montserrat
for flute and piano
9 minutes
Commission/Premiere: Premiered by Jean Ferrandis and Alison Edwards on November 3, 2015.
Program Notes
Like the River with No End for flute and piano is from my collection of Luminous Etudes: Visions of the Black Madonna of Montserrat for ensembles, piano, voice, projected images and electronics investigating sound and healing and the bio-mechanisms of vibro-acoustics in music performance. This work for flute and piano is inspired by the poem Arte Poética by Jorge Luis Borges (1960), the Blood Moon of April 2015 (from the tetrad of four consecutive total lunar eclipses) and based on materials from O Virgo Splendens from the 14th century Llibre Vermell (Red Book) of songs through my research and encounter with the icon of the Black Madonna during my composer residency at the Benedictine Monastery at Montserrat, in Catalonia, Spain.
Arte Poética by Jorge Luis Borges (1960) [Translation by William S. Merwin]
To look at the river made of time and water And remember that time is another river, To know that we are lost like the river And that faces dissolve like water . . .
Art is that Ithaca
Of green eternity, not of marvels.
It is also like the river with no end
That flows and remains and is the mirror of one same
Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
And is another, like the river with no end.
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Performances
November 3, 2015 | Jean Ferrandis & Alison Edwards at Cal State Fullerton