• 1111/1110/2perc.2syn/str(1.1.1.2.1)/live electronics.tape
  • soprano
  • 15 min
  • Rainer Maria Rilke
  • German

Programme Note

Benedict Mason
Rilke Songs
(1991)

Christine Whittlesey Soprano

Rilke's Neue Gedichte is a set of nearly 200 poems written in 1906 and In the Jardin des Plantes where Rodin sent Rilke to practice the art of c
1908 during his association with Rodin. I was attracted to trying to observation, the flamingos are still there exactly as he described them: :£"'
express in music the sculptoral, observational quality of these poems the same discourteous shriek interrupting their statuesque
expressing things rather than feelings and the way the same musical ornamental pose. Rilke's famous repetitively perambulating tragic
object might be viewed from different angles in time. panther is still there too: these animals are immortal in more ways
All the poems - apart from the fourth which serves as a kind of than one.
entracte - reflect a different type of movement, respectively: The setting of these poems does not provide the listener with a light
mechanical, animal, travel, light and dance. I also chose poems which comfortable backdrop mirroring the images of the poems, but
all (again apart from the entracte) refer to places in Europe that I relentlessly reflects not only the distance of their character but also _c-.
have much affection for. the inner momentum that throws the reader forward to the poems' ~~
final surprise or throwaway endings.