What knits us to the soul of another?
It鈥檚 one of the central questions of life, and it is the central question of a new recording by the Philadelphia-based choir.
(Navona Records) features cutting-edge musical works that explore the essence of relationships 鈥� the parent-child relationship, a man鈥檚 relationship with his best friend and humankind鈥檚 relationship with the natural world 鈥� in all their beauty and complexity.
The recording鈥檚 central question 鈥� what knits us to the soul of another? 鈥� appears in the text of the recording鈥檚 final work, 鈥檚 Returning, which explores the intense friendship of the biblical David and Jonathan. That question also underpins the recording鈥檚 opening work, Gilbertson鈥檚 Born, in which the poetic speaker contemplates the mysteries of relationship on meeting his/her partner鈥檚 mother. And that question confronts us in the recording鈥檚 central work, 鈥檚 Spectral Spirits, a musical meditation on extinct and critically endangered birds.
Donald Nally, artistic director of The Crossing choir, commissioned Gilbertson鈥檚 Born with his partner, Steven Hyder, in memory of Nally鈥檚 mother. In the work鈥檚 text, Wis艂awa Szymborska鈥檚 poem of the same title, the speaker meets his/her partner鈥檚 mother and ponders the mysteries of the relationship between parent and child 鈥� a relationship at once universal and intimate.
鈥淎t the time I commissioned Michael, I didn鈥檛 know him that well, so we were professional friends. And that鈥檚 really what I thought would be the wisest choice. Because I knew that if I asked one of my close friends (to set the poem to music), they would feel this kind of need to write something that wrote into me, wrote into my life. And I feared that, when you write pieces like that, you run the risk of making them less than universal,鈥� Nally said.
Humankind鈥檚 relationship to nature is the universal theme of Hill鈥檚 Spectral Spirits. Hill based her work on poems from Holly J. Hughes鈥� poetry collection Passings, which focuses on extinct and critically endangered birds. Hill also draws upon Christopher Cokinos鈥� Hope is the Thing with Feathers for quotations from first-hand accounts of these birds. Those quotations come from writings by Henry David Thoreau, the American frontiersman Gert Goebel, the ethnologist and naturalist Lucinen M. Turner and the Scottish poet and ornithologist Alexander Wilson.
Spectral Spirits unfolds in four sections, each focusing on one of four species of bird 鈥� the Passenger Pigeon, the Carolina Parakeet, the Eskimo Curlew and the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Each section takes the form of what Hill describes as a 鈥渃eremony.鈥� A solo-voice setting of an eyewitness account of the bird proceeds to a 鈥淣aming,鈥� which intones the Latin and colloquial names for that species, then to a polyphonic choral setting of Hughes鈥� poem about the species鈥� journey to near or total extinction.
鈥淔or instance, (in Hughes鈥� poem) 鈥楶assenger Pigeon,鈥� you hear about male and female together, and then it blossoms out into the birds darkening the skies, and then you鈥檙e just swept away with the passenger pigeons, and then you鈥檙e taken down with them when there鈥檚 one stuffed in the Smithsonian at the end. And it鈥檚 heartbreaking,鈥� Hill said.
Hill closes Spectral Spirits with Hughes鈥� poem 鈥淚vory-Billed Woodpecker.鈥� There is a glimmer of hope in the final lines of that poem 鈥� 鈥減erhaps / it鈥檚 not too late to save them, to save us all.鈥� But Hill鈥檚 musical setting fades away in a haunting unresolved dissonance that ends the piece without concluding it.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a question,鈥� Hill said of the ending of the piece, 鈥渁nd it鈥檚 up to us (to answer it).鈥�
The final work on the recording, Gilbertson鈥檚 Returning, is a double-choir setting of a poem by Kai Hoffman-Krull inspired by the friendship between the biblical David and Jonathan. The text explores the nature of that friendship in the voices of Jonathan as he prepares for battle, of David after Jonathan鈥檚 death and of an omniscient third speaker, who reflects in limpid imagistic language on the nature of love.
鈥�(Hoffman-Krull) was able to capture aspects of this story in a way that was very universal, in terms of trying to capture love between two people and spoken to each other at a distance,鈥� Gilbertson said.
Born: The Music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson guides listeners to explore how they relate to the creatures around them. It offers history lessons and also warnings for the future. But ultimately, like any good piece of art, the recording doesn鈥檛 step on our toes. Instead, it opens doors for us and lets us decide whether or not to walk through them. And it invites us to consider how we walk with the creatures we encounter on our path.
鈥淭he question, what knits us to another soul, isn鈥檛 answered at the end of the piece. In fact, the piece becomes wordless at the end,鈥� Nally said. 鈥淚f you listen to the whole album, you get to the end of it and it kind of sends you back out into your life this way, without words.鈥�
