Why Women Weep: It is the Quickest Way to Rejoin the Ocean (2022-2023)

From Oratorio for the Earth

for solo cello and electronics

11 minutes

Commission/Premiere: Why Women Weep was commissioned and premiered by cellist Ashley Bathgate.

Program Notes

Why Women Weep: IT IS THE QUICKEST WAY TO REJOIN THE OCEAN for solo cello, spoken voice and electronics, is from my multi-media oratorio: “There will come soft rains” for ensembles, soloists and spoken voice, about the need for water and the meaning of rain. I composed this work as a solo work for cellist, that resides in the place of “middleground” between image-music and text, neither background ambient music or foreground, solo music, but hovering at a delicate point in between the various layers of the work. The cello part is based upon “middleground” materials of masterpieces of tonal music —the resonant architecture of voice-leading analysis of works, and spectrum of overtones, so is intentionally both reminiscent and yet distant. This work is also an embedded nocturnes, so has also a secret quote of Chopin hidden within. Like Anaïs’ own discussion of her self in her diaries, which this work quotes, this work embodies three selves—the cello, the spoken voice of the performer, and the recorded voice of Anaïs Nin. Anaïs Nin (1903–77), an American writer of Cuban-Spanish and French-Danish descent, is perhaps best known for her close association with Henry Miller, and for her extensive, deeply introspective diary. Transformed by psychoanalysis and a subsequent relationship with Freud’s longtime col­league Otto Rank, Nin wrote surrealist, experimental, and deeply personal fiction derived from her own experiences. She understood these innate characteristics of texts better than most writers, and through the creation of her handmade, semiautobiographical, deeply personal books, created works of great magnetism and power.

—Pamela Madsen

Rental/Purchase info

Press

Performances

April 12, 2023 | Dominique Williencourt at Meng Concert Hall, Fullerton, CA
February 15, 2019 | Ashley Bathgate at St. Michael’s by-the-sea, Carlsbad, CA
June 27, 2017 | Maggie Parkins at Monk Space, Los Angeles, CA
February 22, 2017 | Ashley Bathgate in Meng Concert Hall, Fullerton, CA