Notes on Reflections

I have spent the last couple of months working on a piece for flute and strings in memory of my mother, who died this past Valentine's Day. I finished the piece yesterday, and it is now in the IMSLP. I thought I would use this virtual "space" to write some notes about "Three Reflections for Flute and Strings."

The first movement has the title "Was will die einsame Thräne?" I began this as a setting of a Heine poem which I encountered, through a reference to it, in Willa Cather's My Mortal Enemy, one of the books Michael and I read earlier this summer. The poem has been sitting next to me all summer, copied onto a yellow legal pad.

Was will die einsame Thräne?
Sie trübt mir ja den Blick.
Sie blieb aus alten Zeiten
In meinem Auge zurück.

Sie hatte viel leuchtende Schwestern,
Die alle zerflossen sind,
Mit meinen Qualen und Freuden,
Zerflossen in Nacht und Wind.

Wie Nebel sind auch zerflossen
Die blauen Sternelein,
Die mir jene Freuden und Qualen
Gelächelt ins Herz hinein.

Ach, meine Liebe selber
Zerfloß wie eitel Hauch!
Du alte, einsame Träne,
Zerfließe jettender auch!

The poem from the section called "Die Hedmkehr," XXVII from Heinrich Heine's Buch der Lieder, and it has been set by at least 81 composers. Here is a link to a good English translation.

I didn't do a full setting of the song, but I used the lines of poetry to write the major thematic material of the first piece of the set, and allowed the music to reflect poetry. The artwork on the Soundcloud link is by my mother.



The second piece in the set, "The Silence," is from a group of songs I wrote in 2002 to poems by Federico Garcìa Lorca. I made an arrangement of some of the songs for flute and piano, but left "El Silencio" out of that set. It works really well for flute and strings. Here's the poem:

Oye, hijo mío, el silencio.
Es un silencio ondulado,
un silencio,
donde resbalan valles y ecos
y que inclina las frentes
hacia el suelo.

Lee todo en: El silencio - Poemas de Federico García Lorca http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/el-silencio.htm#ixzz4HPZCoTfv

Here is the setting:



The third piece is a "Yahrzeit" tribute to my mother. I re-used and adapted material from a set of calendar preludes for piano that I wrote in memory of my brother Marshall for the Jewish year of 5775, the year that began right after his death. The time for my mother's Yahrzeit is in the month of Adar, so I used material from the piece I wrote for the month of Adar. Adar is the month of Purim, so the piano piece runs like a kind of story that is interrupted by explosions of noise (whenever the name "Haman" is spoken). For this setting I lightened the mood. I also reduced the number of "interruptions," and I turned them into trills. Here is the updated setting:



(For reference, and in case you are interested, here is a link to an audio file for "Adar.")