The Best American Poetry

Silent Notes [by Lera Auerbach]

Silent Notes. Photo by Lera Auerbah

 

When pianos are not played,
they become very sad,
they collect silent notes.
Unplayed music floats –
invisible dust of overtones.
The dead are waiting expectantly:
so many keys – 88 – all untouched. 
The day of silent music
sheds the signature of uncaptured Time.

(“What are you practicing now?”
my mother asks me quietly.
Her eyebrows raised. I shrug.)

from the archive; first posted 10/15/21

Violoncello [Dovid Hofshteyn - Trans. by Lera Auerbach]

Dovid Hofshteyn (1889-1952) left Russia during the years of war and revolution and was a pioneer of modernist literature in Yiddish after the First World War. He returned to the USSR in the mid-1920s and became involved in Soviet cultural activities in Yiddish. Like other Yiddish writers, Hofshteyn participated in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. In 1948, as part of the process of eliminating Yiddish culture in the USSR, he was arrested and tried alongside other Jewish authors. On August 12, 1952, he was executed by the Soviet government in what has come to be known as the Night of the Murdered Poets.

 

Violoncello

 

Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif?
Un s’tsitern di vent,
di zayln fun mayn zayn,
un hekher, hekher shtaygt 
di shtil fun ere dayner,
un nider vert bagrobt
mit shtoyb fun dayne fis.

 

Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif?
Vos bodstu zikh in shtoyb,
vos vashstu zikh in ash,
vi foyglen in a hits,
vos hobm furkht far vaser 
un kiln zikh mit erd un frishn zikh in mist?..

 

Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif,
vi zod fun frishn blut
af shtumen roytn shteyn,
vi zod, vos vert nit shtil
fun umshuld zoyber-reynem,
biz gloybik heyses blut
mit tsiter im bagist.

 

Nu, boyg zhe zikh, mayn zel,
nu, brum zhe brustik tif,
un ver fun ashn klor,
fun blutn ver shoyn reyn,
un ver fun tsiter mild,
ver loyter shoyn fun veynen,
un zol tsu likht dir zayn
dayn groyser brokh, dayn ris!

 

 

Violoncello

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
rumbling deeply in my chest?
The walls of my core are trembling.
Higher, still higher, soars
your quiet honour.
Then, falling, it buries itself
under the dust of your feet.

 

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
rumbling deeply in my chest?
Why do you bathe in the dust,
and wash yourself in the ashes?
So are birds in the smouldering heat,
thirsty for water – can cool
themselves in the earth,
and get refreshed in the sand.

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
from the depth of my chest,
boiling like fresh blood
spilt on the mute stones?
The boiling will not subside
from its pure innocence,
nor from its hot devotion –
it is trembling, spilling over.

Oh, bend to me, my soul,
sing heartfully within my depth,
cleansed by ashes
purified by blood,
your strings tremble gentler,
enlightened by the sobbing …
Let the grief and sorrow
illuminate the way!

 

— “Violoncello” by Dovid Hofshteyn (Translation by Lera Auerbach)

Lera Auerbach's Symphony #6 at Carnegie Hall (Wednesday, April 19, 2023) [by David Lehman]

Lera Auerbach's Symphony #6 at Carnegie Hall (Wednesday, April 19, 2023)

"Vessels of Light"

for violincello, chorus, and orchestra

American premiere

Presented by the American Society for Yad Vashem and Yad Vashem

A Concert for Sugihara

Wednesday, April 19, 2023 7 PM Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage / Carnegie Hall

https://leraauerbach.com/biography/
https://leraauerbach.com/compositions/

 

Kristina Reiko Cooper, Chiune Sugihara

 

A concert commemorating the heroism of Chiune Sugihara, Japanese Vice-Consul to Lithuania, who saved thousands of Jewish refugees during WWII. The performance will feature the American Premiere of Lera Auerbach's Symphony No. 6, Vessels of Light, dedicated to Sugihara and all those who risk everything to save others. This symphony was commissioned by Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, along with the American Society for Yad Vashem, and was catalyzed by cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper.

 
<<< A renaissance artist for modern times, Lera Auerbach is a widely recognized conductor, pianist, and composer. She is also an award-winning poet and an exhibited visual artist. All of her work is interconnected as part of a cohesive and comprehensive artistic worldview.

Lera Auerbach has become one of today’s most sought-after and exciting creative voices. Her performances and music are featured in the world’s leading stages – from Vienna’s Musikverein and London’s Royal Albert Hall to New York’s Carnegie Hall and Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center.

Auerbach’s exquisitely crafted, emotional, and boldly imaginative music reached to global audiences. Orchestral collaborations include the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Munich’s Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Staatskapelle Dresden, and Vienna’s ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester, among many others. Auerbach’s works for orchestra are performed by the world’s leading conductors, including Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Charles Dutoit, Andris Nelsons, Osmo Vänskä, Hannu Lintu, and Marin Alsop, to mention only a few.

Her large-scale theater works have been produced in major venues on every continent, including Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, New York’s Lincoln Center, the Hamburg State Opera, the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, the Royal Danish Theater, the Nuremberg State Theater, the Finnish National Theater, Moscow’s Stanislavsky, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing China and the NHK Hall in Tokyo. >>>

-- DL

Lullaby [Itzik Manger - Trans. by Lera Auerbach]

Itzik Manger (1901-1969) was widely considered as a poet with a unique style among his peers. In the 1930s, he moved to Warsaw and later to Paris, escaping Nazi persecution. After the war, he continued to reflect on the destruction of European Jewry during the Holocaust. In his final years, he lived in Israel.

“LULLABY”

Ikh vel dikh nisht ufvekn,
saydn a foygl,
vos veyst, du host goldene oygn.
Er vet zikh shteln af dayn bet:
er hot zikh mit a yuni-nakht farvet
(zi iz sheyn un gayvedik on a shir),
az du bist toyznt mol shener fun ir.

Ikh vel dikh nisht ufvekn,
saydn a vint,
vos vet arayn durkh а shpare geshvind.
Тu epes a vint,
vos vil visn, tsi s’iz shener faran 
fun volkns, shtern un hint.

Ikh vel dikh nisht ufvekn,
saydn a boym,
vos vet royshn tsu shtark in dayn troym.
Der boym iz der eltster boym in vald,
a kayme-lon fun toyznt yor alt.
Tu epes a boym,
vos vil visn, tsi s’iz sheners faran
fun zayn roysh, fun zayn bli, fun zayn troym.

Ikh vel dikh nisht ufvekn,
saydn a regn,
vos vet kumen a groyer fun vegn un shtegn
un klapm in shtub mit di finger.
Der regn is nokh a yunger.
Ersht nekhtn iz er a prints geven,
haynt iz er farkisheft: eyn shmeykhl fun dir — 
un er vert tsurik vos geven.

Ikh vel dikh nisht ufvekn,
saydn a malekh,
vos vet kumen tsu flien fun a mehalekh 
af a vaysn levone-shtral 
un knien ba dayn geleger 
un zingen: “Shvester, shvesterl mayn!
Vos ken nokh shener un shener zayn 
fun dir un fun mir”.

. . . . . .

Sha, ikh vel mit a goldenem rigl 
farriglen di tir.

— “Lullaby” by Itzik Manger

 

“LULLABY”

I will not wake you up.
Perhaps, only a bird,
who knows your golden eyes,
will stand on your bed-post.
The bird had made a bet with June’s Night
(which is beautiful and maddeningly arrogant)
that you are still a thousand times more beautiful.

I will not wake you up.
Perhaps, only the wind
may quickly penetrate the cracks.
What will you do with the wind –
it wants to know if there is anything more beautiful
than clouds, stars, and dogs.

I will not wake you up.
Perhaps, only a tree
will rustle noisily in your dreams.
The tree – most ancient in the forest –
may be a thousand years old.
What will you do with the tree –
it wants to know if there is anything more beautiful
than its noises, its blossoms, its dreams.

I will not wake you up.
Perhaps only the rain,
will come, all gray from its travels.
It will tap on the house with its fingers.
The rain is still young.
Only yesterday it was a prince,
today it is enchanted. Just one of your smiles —
and it will become himself again.

I will not wake you up,
Perhaps only an angel
flying from far away
on a white moonbeam
will kneel at your bedside
and sing: “Sister, my little sister,
what could be more beautiful
than you and I.”

. . . . . .

Hush, with a golden bolt   
I’ll lock the door.

— “Lullaby” by Itzik Manger (Translation by Lera Auerbach)

Breakage and Repair [by Lera Auerbach]

In early 2020, Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center commissioned me to write a large symphonic work for cello, choir and orchestra related to Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania during WWII. Chiune Sugihara and Dutch diplomat Jan Zwartendijk helped thousands of Jews flee the onslaught and murderous march of the Nazi army by issuing transit visas through Japan to the Dutch colony of Curaçao. 

The Yiddish poetry of Dovid Hofshteyn (1889-1952), Peretz Markish (1895-1952), Moyshe Teyf (1904-1966), Avrom Sutzkever (1913-2010), Simkha-Bunim Shayevitch (1907-1944), Yisroel Emyot (1909-1978), Reyzl Zhikhlinski (1910-2001), and Itzik Manger (1901-1969) is at the core of the symphony.  

In Symphony No. 6 "Vessels of Light" I wished to weave together numerous voices, voices full of mystical beauty and everlasting courage, voices that carry history and manifest the continuity of spirit not by shouting but by whispering. To celebrate their unbroken essence and strength and in honour and memory of the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, whose actions saved thousands of Jews – I implied the ancient Japanese technique and concept of Kintsugi to the form of this symphony. The subtitle of the work Vessels of Light connects with the concept of Shevirat ha-Kelim (Breaking of the Vessels.) I chose Yiddish poetry for the libretto – as a tribute to the Yiddish language. The language itself suffered – it lost too many people. The words of the poets penetrate the void, connect generations, guide us, and don't let us forget who we are.

What is Kintsugi? A technique of repairing broken pottery by joining the shards and filling the cracks with gold powder glue; thus, instead of hiding the repairs, it emphasizes them, making the objects even more beautiful and precious by celebrating their history and uniqueness. The philosophy behind this art technique can be profoundly translated into life. How do you apply the Kintsugi technique and principles to music? As the first step of working on the symphony, I set Psalm 121 for a Capella choir – this Psalm was often used as a talisman for travellers – an amulet of protection. During the Middle Ages, amulets with protective words (such as Psalm 121) were favoured because of their promise to protect the wearer from harm; such amulets offered "safe passage through the precarious world." After completing the Psalm, I "shattered" it; its fragmented musical material – without words – appears in the interludes, with the solo cello in a binding embrace that holds the different poems (parts) together, making them stronger and creating a sense of unity. The Psalm remains unsung in the symphony and will only exist in a bronze sculpture I have created as an integral part of this memorial.

The voice of the solo violoncello becomes the golden glue. It springs from Dovid Hofshteyn's poem "Violoncello," in which the poet addresses his soul, which continues to vibrate high and low through blood and suffering, eternally alive. The violoncello represents that which is unnamable – that mystical "string" that unites all Jewish people scattered across the world remaining mysteriously and multiculturally united. The solo violoncello – the golden glue of Kintsugi – in the act of bringing together fragments of lives and memories becomes Letopisets – a scribe of time. The lines of the Psalm are meant only to be read internally. The interludes feature male and female whisperers, symbolizing different people and stories woven together, helping to connect the broken parts – allowing them to become whole. The whisperers (unsung lines) and the silent Psalm (unspoken lines) in the interludes provide two additional levels of Kintsugi technique and work on different radiuses of consciousness from the movements of the symphony.

When I was approached for this project – I felt hesitant to accept it. It felt too heavy – too much responsibility. After having written two Requiems – Ode to Peace and Russian Requiem, I knew only all too well what it takes to face such a subject and become deeply immersed in it to give it form. I also knew that this symphony would strike a very personal string – my family's history, which I avoided facing directly throughout my life. My mother was born in 1940 to a Jewish family in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. As Hitler's army marched East in 1941, my grandparents abandoned all their possessions (including their beloved library and cherished collection of musical instruments.) They boarded the train – heading towards Siberia. The news of ghettos and the fate of Jews in Hitler's territories had reached them. All they could do was flee into the unknown. In today's context, the same trains with refugees travel west – a mirror retrograde of history.

The same railroad, for some, represented hope, while for others, it represented sorrow and loss of freedom. For many (as for most refugees) – it was the combination of both – hopes and fears, so tightly woven together that it was no longer possible to distinguish between them. The golden string that resonated through their lives was their courage. They carried the power of words and music wherever they travelled and passed it to their children. Knowledge was their most valuable possession. Books can burn, but songs are immortal; the vessels can break, but you can't destroy what they contain – the song, the spirit, the legacy, The Light.

Can the actions and decisions of one individual repair the world? Yes, Chiune Sugihara's acts and choices did, alongside a few other diplomats who were able to save thousands. They include, amongst others, Jan Zwartendijk (Acting Dutch Consul in Lithuania,) Ho Feng-Shan (Chinese Consul-General in Vienna,) Aristides de Sousa Mendes (Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux, France,) Charles Carl Lutz (Swiss Vice-Consul in Budapest,) and Selahattin Ulkumen (Turkish Consul in Rhodes.) The Righteous Among the Nations, honoured by Yad Vashem, are non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust. Rescue took many forms, and the Righteous came from different nations, religions, and walks of life. What they had in common was that they protected their Jewish neighbours at a time when hostility and indifference prevailed.

Each voice weaves its melody into the fabric of history. Each voice matters. Brokenness is illusory. Yiddish poets Yisroel Emyot, Dovid Hofshteyn, Itzik Manger, Peretz Markish, Simkha-Bunim Shayevitch, Avrom Sutzkever, Moyshe Teyf, Reyzl Zhikhlinski, and others left an indelible heritage. Embracing their world also requires courage, but one of the essential human desires is the wish to remember, preserve, record, connect to the past, and pass the knowledge to the future. The beginning contains the end; its arch – a gateway. The form of an arch communicates a connection between space and time, seen and unseen, hidden and open. It's also a symbol of transfer – a passageway between the past and the future.

How do you capture grief? How to make that which is impossible to grasp – graspable? The poems selected for the libretto are vessels containing memories, some so painful as if every letter was a shard. Incantations of memory – letters to nowhere or forevermore – addressed to us, the living. Each shard is a mirror – we are reflected in them. The golden string vibrates. There are no shards – there are only words sung in a language, still vernacular, with words – alive, ancient, and young – the language of dreamers and poets, musicians, and scholars – people just like you and me; people who suffered more than most, who laughed, loved, and danced, whose fates intersected. People whose voices, never forgotten, share their stories of hopes and losses, wanders and wonders, sacrifices, and courage. Are we ready to hear them?

 

Who Will Stop the Mad Man? [by Lera Auerbach]

My mother was born in 1940 to a Jewish family in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. As Hitler's army marched East in 1941, my grandparents abandoned all their possessions (including their beloved library and cherished collection of musical instruments). They boarded the train – heading towards Siberia. The news of ghettos and the fate of Jews in Hitler's territories had reached them – all they could do was to flee into the unknown.

A few years earlier, my mother's grandfather, Berl Fishbein, the head of the family, was tortured to death by Stalin's secret police). His only "guilt" was being born Jewish. While my family evacuated, their train was bombed by Hitler's armies. Another tragedy occurred: the family lost my mother's grandmother Ettel Fishbein in the confusion and chaos. She was grief-stricken after the death of her beloved husband, frightened and confused over all the changes and sorrows that the war and evacuation brought. Somehow, after the bombing, she was no longer with my grandparents on the train. They never found her and never learned of her fate. 

With my one-year-old mother, my grandparents deboarded in Chelyabinsk – a closed industrial city at the gateway of Siberia. I was born there some thirty years later. They never returned to their abandoned homes in Ukraine.

In today's war, the invading army marches from the East, and more than a million Ukrainian refugees head West – to Germany in a mirror retrograde of history.

Earlier this year, I wrote a cello concerto, Diary of a Madman, inspired by Gogol's famous short story about Poprishchin, a government clerk who gradually descends into insanity. The concerto was premiered last month by the Munich Philharmonic, Giedrė Šlekytė, and Gautier Capuçon. Nikolai Gogol (or, more correctly, romanized from Ukrainian – Mykola Hohol) – was a genius writer, born in Ukraine, father of Russian language literature, and a visionary far beyond his time. I have been fascinated by his work all my life. Ten years ago, while composing my opera Gogol, I read and re-read everything he ever wrote. After my opera's premiere in Vienna, I received an open letter from Russia calling me "Vrag Naroda" (Enemy of the People) – the same terminology used against Shostakovich and many other artists years earlier. My website was hacked, erased, and replaced by the slogan "Death to Jews" and a skull. It felt terrible, but I was not afraid – since 1991, I lived in the West, and since 2001, I no longer had any relatives in Russia. I was responsible only for myself, my words, and my actions. 

While composing the cello concerto Diary of a Madman, I did not think of Vladimir Putin. Now, Gogol's tale carries an eerie resonance. Diary of a Madman is a story of a lowly government bureaucrat with a minimal, easily forgettable personality. In his increasingly demented diary entries, Poprishchin claims that a state cannot "be without a king." As the storyline progresses, he becomes increasingly mad, starts having delusions of grandeur, and, finally, on the "43rd of April of the year 2000" he believes himself as the King. (V. Putin was first elected president of Russia on the 7th of May of the year 2000. Gogol wrote his story in 1835!) Finally, Poprishchin ends up in an insane asylum. 

Perhaps, Gogol, the visionary and one of the greatest writers who ever lived – could see beyond the 19th and 20th century – into the heart of the 21st, where we are doomed to continue the eternal tale.

I think of my grandparents and my child-mother in Ukraine, leaving everything behind, heading into the unknown – evacuating from the onslaught of Hitler's army. Could they have imagined that eighty years later, the land of their birth would face again a very similar nightmare and that refugees would now head West to Germany to save their children?

Gogol's visions and nightmares become a reality, with the whole world turning into a lunatics' asylum as the great tragedy unfolds. Who will stop the Madman? 

from the archive; first posted by Lera Auerbach on March 04, 2022 at 06:59 PM 

My mother was born in 1940 to a Jewish family in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. As Hitler's army marched East in 1941, my grandparents abandoned all their possessions (including their beloved library and cherished collection of musical instruments). They boarded the train – heading towards Siberia. The news of ghettos and the fate of Jews in Hitler's territories had reached them – all they could do was to flee into the unknown.

A few years earlier, my mother's grandfather, Berl Fishbein, the head of the family, was tortured to death by Stalin's secret police). His only "guilt" was being born Jewish. While my family evacuated, their train was bombed by Hitler's armies. Another tragedy occurred: the family lost my mother's grandmother Ettel Fishbein in the confusion and chaos. She was grief-stricken after the death of her beloved husband, frightened and confused over all the changes and sorrows that the war and evacuation brought. Somehow, after the bombing, she was no longer with my grandparents on the train. They never found her and never learned of her fate. 

With my one-year-old mother, my grandparents deboarded in Chelyabinsk – a closed industrial city at the gateway of Siberia. I was born there some thirty years later. They never returned to their abandoned homes in Ukraine.

In today's war, the invading army marches from the East, and more than a million Ukrainian refugees head West – to Germany in a mirror retrograde of history.

Earlier this year, I wrote a cello concerto, Diary of a Madman, inspired by Gogol's famous short story about Poprishchin, a government clerk who gradually descends into insanity. The concerto was premiered last month by the Munich Philharmonic, Giedrė Šlekytė, and Gautier Capuçon. Nikolai Gogol (or, more correctly, romanized from Ukrainian – Mykola Hohol) – was a genius writer, born in Ukraine, father of Russian language literature, and a visionary far beyond his time. I have been fascinated by his work all my life. Ten years ago, while composing my opera Gogol, I read and re-read everything he ever wrote. After my opera's premiere in Vienna, I received an open letter from Russia calling me "Vrag Naroda" (Enemy of the People) – the same terminology used against Shostakovich and many other artists years earlier. My website was hacked, erased, and replaced by the slogan "Death to Jews" and a skull. It felt terrible, but I was not afraid – since 1991, I lived in the West, and since 2001, I no longer had any relatives in Russia. I was responsible only for myself, my words, and my actions. 

While composing the cello concerto Diary of a Madman, I did not think of Vladimir Putin. Now, Gogol's tale carries an eerie resonance. Diary of a Madman is a story of a lowly government bureaucrat with a minimal, easily forgettable personality. In his increasingly demented diary entries, Poprishchin claims that a state cannot "be without a king." As the storyline progresses, he becomes increasingly mad, starts having delusions of grandeur, and, finally, on the "43rd of April of the year 2000" he believes himself as the King. (V. Putin was first elected president of Russia on the 7th of May of the year 2000. Gogol wrote his story in 1835!) Finally, Poprishchin ends up in an insane asylum. 

Perhaps, Gogol, the visionary and one of the greatest writers who ever lived – could see beyond the 19th and 20th century – into the heart of the 21st, where we are doomed to continue the eternal tale.

I think of my grandparents and my child-mother in Ukraine, leaving everything behind, heading into the unknown – evacuating from the onslaught of Hitler's army. Could they have imagined that eighty years later, the land of their birth would face again a very similar nightmare and that refugees would now head West to Germany to save their children?

Gogol's visions and nightmares become a reality, with the whole world turning into a lunatics' asylum as the great tragedy unfolds. Who will stop the Madman? 

Who Will Stop the Madman – A Gogol's Prophecy [by Lera Auerbach]

My mother was born in 1940 to a Jewish family in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. As Hitler's army marched East in 1941, my grandparents abandoned all their possessions (including their beloved library and cherished collection of musical instruments). They boarded the train – heading towards Siberia. The news of ghettos and the fate of Jews in Hitler's territories had reached them – all they could do was to flee into the unknown.

A few years earlier, my mother's grandfather, Berl Fishbein, the head of the family, was tortured to death by Stalin's secret police). His only "guilt" was being born Jewish. While my family evacuated, their train was bombed by Hitler's armies. Another tragedy occurred: the family lost my mother's grandmother Ettel Fishbein in the confusion and chaos. She was grief-stricken after the death of her beloved husband, frightened and confused over all the changes and sorrows that the war and evacuation brought. Somehow, after the bombing, she was no longer with my grandparents on the train. They never found her and never learned of her fate. 

With my one-year-old mother, my grandparents deboarded in Chelyabinsk – a closed industrial city at the gateway of Siberia. I was born there some thirty years later. They never returned to their abandoned homes in Ukraine.

In today's war, the invading army marches from the East, and more than a million Ukrainian refugees head West – to Germany in a mirror retrograde of history.

Earlier this year, I wrote a cello concerto, Diary of a Madman, inspired by Gogol's famous short story about Poprishchin, a government clerk who gradually descends into insanity. The concerto was premiered last month by the Munich Philharmonic, Giedrė Šlekytė, and Gautier Capuçon. Nikolai Gogol (or, more correctly, romanized from Ukrainian – Mykola Hohol) – was a genius writer, born in Ukraine, father of Russian language literature, and a visionary far beyond his time. I have been fascinated by his work all my life. Ten years ago, while composing my opera Gogol, I read and re-read everything he ever wrote. After my opera's premiere in Vienna, I received an open letter from Russia calling me "Vrag Naroda" (Enemy of the People) – the same terminology used against Shostakovich and many other artists years earlier. My website was hacked, erased, and replaced by the slogan "Death to Jews" and a skull. It felt terrible, but I was not afraid – since 1991, I lived in the West, and since 2001, I no longer had any relatives in Russia. I was responsible only for myself, my words, and my actions. 

While composing the cello concerto Diary of a Madman, I did not think of Vladimir Putin. Now, Gogol's tale carries an eerie resonance. Diary of a Madman is a story of a lowly government bureaucrat with a minimal, easily forgettable personality. In his increasingly demented diary entries, Poprishchin claims that a state cannot "be without a king." As the storyline progresses, he becomes increasingly mad, starts having delusions of grandeur, and, finally, on the "43rd of April of the year 2000" he believes himself as the King. (V. Putin was first elected president of Russia on the 7th of May of the year 2000. Gogol wrote his story in 1835!) Finally, Poprishchin ends up in an insane asylum. 

Perhaps, Gogol, the visionary and one of the greatest writers who ever lived – could see beyond the 19th and 20th century – into the heart of the 21st, where we are doomed to continue the eternal tale.

I think of my grandparents and my child-mother in Ukraine, leaving everything behind, heading into the unknown – evacuating from the onslaught of Hitler's army. Could they have imagined that eighty years later, the land of their birth would face again a very similar nightmare and that refugees would now head West to Germany to save their children?

Gogol's visions and nightmares become a reality, with the whole world turning into a lunatics' asylum as the great tragedy unfolds. Who will stop the Madman? 

 

Interview with Tzimon Barto: Languages, Poetry and Education [by Lera Auerbach]

 I am always fascinated by people who are masters of more than one profession.  I interviewed Tzimon Barto for the Best American Poetry blog. His passions and knowledge run deep. Tzimon Barto speaks seven languages fluently, reads ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew; his love of poetry is contagious, his ideas about education are inspiring.

      

For a taste of Barto's music-making here he is performing Mozart's Rondo for Piano and Orchestra in A major with the SWR Symphonieorchester and Christoph Eschenbach.

 

Growing a Book [by Lera Auerbach]

 

© Lera Auerbach - Monoprint

 

A tree is never just a tree.

Physical distance one can measure.
But what about the distance from oneself?

(Too far – and numbness spreads.
Too close – and you fall apart.)

A book is a tree:
it needs to take hold,
to find nourishment and water.

In its early stages it is fragile,
while the hurricane season is coming.

Where do all unwritten books go?
Completed manuscripts waiting for editors?
Lost publications waiting for readers?
Forgotten lives?

Like a child, a book requires sacrifice.
Its birth is painful.
Ultimately, it is never yours.

Who are you?

You are only its tool –
(and a highly imperfect one at that.)

Borderless Creativity [by Lera Auerbach]

Insomnia © Lera Auerbach 2013

It is undeniable that creativity is one of the most important aspects of any profession. For an artist being creative is a matter of life or death. If you are not creative, you can't be an artist. Music emerges from silence, poetry from a white page, painting from a blank canvas. The artist brings to life ideas, sounds, images, giving form to that which was formless before. Yet that silence, that blank page or canvas - it is not empty, it is full of infinite possibilities.

I remember the first time I performed a piano concerto with an orchestra. I was 8 years old and very excited. Standing backstage, I was waiting for the orchestra to finish tuning. The chaotic, wild roar of the symphony orchestra tuning felt miraculous to me; it was my blank canvas as it contained limitless possibilities of music-making.

But the world of infinite possibilities can be also frightening, confusing and intimidating. The blank page can glare at you and leave you incapacitated, immobile, shrinking with each passing minute. How can one deal then with limitless freedom when everything appears possible, yet full of invisible walls that stifle your imagination?

The craft of an artist (and here I mean any artistic expression, be it a musical composition, literature or visual arts), requires building forms, structures within which a work of art can operate, the frames of space and time which it can inhabit. It involves creating certain restrictions within which the work can be free to emerge, and against which it can rebel, in other words, creating frames which can be altered, but nevertheless allow for creative thought to flourish and realize itself.

So, how does one sustain creativity in art when the Muses themselves are known for their disloyalty and fickleness? In my case this involved acting against the advice of my teachers, and following my calling against all odds.

I began playing piano and writing music when I was 4 years old. Soon my teachers presented me with a Solomonic dilemma: "Do you want to be a composer or a concert pianist?" I was told that in our age of specialization one cannot be both a virtuoso performer and a serious composer so I had better choose soon and focus." When I was 12, I wrote my first opera, which was staged and toured in Russia. When I mentioned this opera to my piano professor, who was a wonderful teacher by the way, he said rather sternly: "I don't want to hear anything about it. I don't care what you do in your spare time as long as long as it doesn't take away from piano practice."

Perhaps as a reaction to this, I started writing poetry and prose. Soon enough, my publishers informed me that I can't be publishing both poetry and fiction, that doing so would only confuse the readers and I would not be taken seriously. At the Juilliard School in New York, the pressures to choose only grew. Even today, after countless performances worldwide and with more than 100 compositions published, some of my well-wishers are still concerned that I may be spreading myself too thin. My response to that? I started creating visual art. As always -- I could not stay just with the paintings. Quickly I added mixed media, photography and sculpture.

It's not that I have not tried to limit myself to one form. And heaven knows, even one career in music is hard enough. But every time I tried to do so, the weight of a blank page became unbearable and I would feel depressed and accomplish less than when I allowed myself to fly freely with the child-like approach that everything is possible. My friends think that I am a workaholic, but I am not. I am a chronic procrastinator, always guilty of not doing something else. Yet somehow everything gets done with illusory effortlessness.

Experiencing art through its different forms helps to gain a fresh and unexpected perspective. Often we are unable to see what is right in front of us, but through the metaphor of art we recognize our own face. This is why a melody or a line in a book can move us to tears, as it becomes personal, and through sharing this experience we realize that we are not alone. Often enough, by immersing oneself in art, one may find solutions for seemingly unrelated problems.

And one more thought. There is no such thing as progress in art. Art does not follow the principles of Darwinism, at least not qualitatively. Picasso is not better than Rembrandt, Stravinsky is not better than Mozart, Pasternak is not better than Dante. Art changes and evolves so that the artist becomes an instrument and representative of his time. In one of his early interviews, Steve Jobs said that all his work will become obsolete by the time he is 50. Unlike art, technology becomes outdated almost overnight. Any scientific discovery, with time, will be found either obsolete or incomplete, whereas a work of art can remain relevant and whole throughout centuries.

In our fast-paced ever-changing world, art reminds us of our humanity, of that which is timeless and always relevant. Art communicates through the universal language of human emotions and thus, while representing its time, it is also capable of transcending it. Music of Mozart, words of Shakespeare, paintings of Da Vinci continue to inspire us, to move, to touch and to transport us beyond our daily routine; they are as powerful now as when they were created. Through these works we continue the dialogues between the centuries, as we individually attempt to answer some of the essential universal questions: Who are we? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? What happens when we die? Why is there so much suffering, cruelty and war? These are the unanswerable eternal questions that define our existence. In the cosmic frightening vastness of silence of these unanswered questions, and facing the perpetual terrors of history, it is Art and Culture that become the frames allowing us to justify our existence and creatively flourish in any field we choose. Our art and culture give meaning to our lives and become our legacy. 

I know the price of Silence
When on the threshold of sound,
It congeals in the contour of emptiness
Blends with the beating heart.

The air is charged with fear
And opens into voiceless space.
Hypnotized by incorporeality,
The wind unfurls its wings in dance.

 ilence parches the mouth
As I catch it on my lips,
Mesmerized by the muteness of sound,
The dreary whiteness of the page.

From the archive; first posted February 28, 2014

The Art of Falling [by Lera Auerbach]

Papa takes me to figure-skating school.
The school has classes every day: running, choreography,
floor gymnastics, figure skating. With skates over my shoulder,
we come to the school half an hour before the classes begin.
Putting on skates is a ritual. Papa ties the laces
very tight. I am wearing a woolen dress,
tights, and a gray hat with a visor and a pompom.

“Well, how was it?” Papa asks after my first lesson.
I am covered in snow from head to toe.

“I don't know. We were taught how to fall.
For the entire hour. Fall – get up. Fall again. Fall, fall, fall!”

“To learn how to fall,” Papa says seriously,
taking off my skates, “is an art form in itself.
Who knows, maybe it was your most important life lesson.
If you learn how to fall – nothing can harm you.
If you learn how to fall – you can be fearless.” 

 

MARIA - Dialogues on Stabat Mater [by Lera Auerbach]

Some works have parallel lives. In 2006 Musikfest Bremen and Lucerne Festival commissioned me to write a piece for Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. As soon as I started composing it, I knew that it would be reborn as a theater work one day. I did not know at that time how or when. I thought of Maria, the Grieving Mother, and the Other Maria – the mysterious one who remained in the shadows, the two outlines becoming one, blending their voices in never-ending dialogue where one voice echoes the other. This weekend, in Nürenberg, Germany, will be the world premiere of the new ballet Maria, choreographed by Goyo Montero with Diana Vishneva dancing the principal role. How did it happen?

On May 14, 2019, I met with Diana Vishneva for dinner in New York after attending an art exhibition together. I have known Diana for many years. I wrote my ballet Tatiana (after Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin), choreographed by John Neumeier with Diana in mind, and she has danced it numerous times since its creation. Diana visited me in Florida earlier that year to explore our future collaborations. That spring day, in 2019, on the lower side of Manhattan, we spoke about my idea for the ballet Maria based on the music of my Dialogues on Stabat Mater. We talked about different ways how to make the ballet Maria a reality and who could be the ideal choreographer to realize it on stage. We both, at the same time, breathed out: Goyo Montero. I called Goyo from that restaurant, and he said: "Yes!" 

Dialogues on Stabat Mater is an experiment. I wished to create a frame, a dialogue, an outlook from our own time on the same subject as Pergolesi's celebrated masterpiece. And to base this dialogue not so much on the differences of cultural and harmonic esthetics between the 18th and 21st centuries, but rather on their similarities, which is much more challenging. The image of the grieving mother is universal, just as pain is universal, although its expressions may vary based on cultural or religious backgrounds. 

Dialogue can happen at different levels. Is it a dialogue between different times, a beginning and an end, musician and audience, soli and tutti, loneliness and understanding? Perhaps, after all, the difference is not that great between vocal and purely instrumental, sacred language and the vernacular, monologue, and dialogue? Any prayer is a dialogue even though the addressee may not appear present. To whom am I addressing this?

 

No Boundaries [by Lera Auerbach]

Sometimes I wish to press the knife against my skin and let out blood
because the world is growing within me, overflowing; it overwhelms me –
for how is it possible that the world is within me while I’m within the world?
Where are the boundaries between us?
Where do I end, and the world begins?
I step barefoot on the ground and feel the rotation of the Earth.
I’m falling through the universe at breathtaking speed while not moving at all.

 

The Audience [by Lera Auerbach]

 

If I were dead, I wouldn’t want to stay around. I would fly to some other realm where I would no longer be myself but everything else at the same time. A happy, joyful radiance of a realm. 

But I wouldn’t be able to jump there if my heart was too heavy with worry for my loved ones who are still living in this world. I would have to stay around to see how they are coping. The living become the responsibility of the dead. Maybe, if I stayed around, I could still help them somehow. 

My dead grandparents and their parents and the parents of their parents und so weiter slightly move their invisible bodies making room for the new arrivals. They watch how I write these lines in English – the language they never spoke and slightly shake their heads.

 

Making an Inventory [by Lera Auerbach]

 

Bruegel's Sky - Fragment [Photo by Lera Auerbach]

To live, one must make an inventory:

Item 1: The sky. It is everywhere.

 

Item 2: People. There are many of them.

 

Item 3: It is hard to believe, but there are still birds. They occupy space between people and the sky. Sometimes they touch the heavens; sometimes they touch the earth.

 

Item 4: Conceptual thinking.

 

Item 5: Garbage cans. Discarded objects, personal treasures no longer loved such as broken limbs of dolls.

 

Item 6: Cars. Be aware of them.

 

Item 7: The rest of the world.

 

The dead are watching the shadows caused by light. 

Inside of each shadow, a small invisible death is practicing the art of dying.

 

The Cat of Montserrat [by Lera Auerbach]

My memory: meeting a Montserrat cat –
she is sitting beneath Pablo Casals’ sculpture –
the true owner of his bronze cello
with whiskers sniffing mountain air.
It is Fall. It’s sunny, but the air is already
keeping a promise of the storms ahead.
I am now worried about this cat –
the cat that guards Casals and his cello.

Who will feed her during the winter?
Who will brush her tricolored coat?
Who will make her feel safe in the mountains?

I beckon the cat to follow, promising
to take good care of her if she lets me.
But the cat sniffs Casals’ dusty shoes,
raises her tail, and turns away.
I feel abandoned. I pray to the Black Virgin
to protect this proud feline. I ask Casals
to keep watch and play sometimes
for the cat’s hunting pleasures
El cant del ocells (The Song of the Birds.)

The air shimmers with hidden music.
The cat catches overtones – and the horizon shifts.

 

 

The Layers of “To Be” [by Lera Auerbach]

Labyrinth - Ink on Handmade Paper by Lera Auerbach

The verb “to be” is very short, yet it contains layers of existence.
It is possible to hide in these folds – that’s the secret of survival.
You share hiding spaces with ghosts, and ghosts become you.
You speak for them because, generally speaking, ghosts cannot speak.
But you can. Words flood your mind, and your heart can’t mend
broken words and broken promises. Your heart murmurs between the beats,
and the dead encourage it to keep on beating.

If I raise my hand – would my fingers touch the invisible hand of my nanny Marianna?
Or my grandma Alichka? Can love just disappear with the departed
or some crucial nothingness stays around, protecting you in moments of despair?
You can’t see the thread in the darkness, but you can choose to believe it’s there –
to guide you through the labyrinth of your own making.

The Shadows of Memories [by Lera Auerbach]

Untitled [Oil on Canvas] by Lera Auerbach

 

1. Forgetting Ignorance

The world is created anew. I often fail to see it and think as if it was still the old world that I knew. I forget my ignorance.

My mother doesn’t own a computer and doesn’t understand how the Internet works. It’s all mundanely miraculous and miraculously mundane to her. I try to explain but realize that I don’t understand it either. I can navigate it, but I do not know who or what is staring at me from the other side of the screen.

 

2. Reflection

I spit out blood from my bleeding gums and, looking at the sink, see my death.

 

3. The Shadows of Memories

One can think about so many things and nothing at all.
How can nothing be something?
How can nothing be?

Can a shadow cast a shadow?
Perhaps within each shadow lies a deeper shadow, just like within the first death, lies the second death. 
If a person can be born more than once, it’s possible that after he is dead, he dies again – a death within death from which it is impossible to return. In this second death, he loses not only his memories but the shadows of memories.

When did Eurydice die?

Songs in Minor Keys [by Lera Auerbach]

Leitmotifs [Photo by Lera Auerbach]

Every day I give birth
to my death. Each death is different.
They flutter around like moths.
I find them in dusty corners, in drawers,
or trapped in the spider webs
hanging from the ceiling. My deaths
can see my ancestors and talk to them.
My deaths sing to each other
children's songs in minor keys.
They prefer lullabies.
I fall asleep, listening.

Creation According to the Cat [by Lera Auerbach]

 

 

Oil on Metal Roof Tile [by Lera Auerbach]

When God created animals, He first asked each animal for their permission. But He never received the Cat’s blessing. The Cat just didn’t answer, and God took the Cat’s silence as “yes.” But the Cat simply needed some time to think whether to enter into existence. It needed to look through the open doors of creation and then decide if it wanted to be in or out, but God was in a rush and didn’t pay enough attention to subtleties. So, He created the Cat along with all other animals. Later, the Cat reprimanded God. The Cat said that it was going to answer “no,” that God created it against its will, and that God needed to compensate it for all the pain and suffering since the creation of the world.

It is why God bestowed the Cat with nine lives. This way, it could have additional time to decide whether to stay alive or not. That’s why the Cat, unlike others, can move through time – it understands its porous nature and knows how to slip through. The Cat doesn’t like closed doors. According to the Cat, a good door is a door half-opened (or half-closed depending on the perspective.) According to the Cat, one should always see both sides and be free to change one’s mind at any time. According to the Cat, things only pretend to be solid, but in truth, they are mostly empty spaces, and one needs to learn to see through their illusory solidity.

According to the Cat, one needs to learn how to disappear and, even more importantly, when.

 

The Еgg-matryoshka of Death [by Lera Auerbach]

Untitled - Japanese Ink on Handmade Paper [by Lera Auerbach]

1. Forever Present

Is there one more death within death?
And then one more death inside of that one?
And so on, so on, so on, infinitely dividing and dying again and again within each new division? The egg-matryoshka of death – the deeper we look, the smaller it becomes, indefinitely so. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Our time extends in both directions until nothing is left except the present everlasting moment.

 

2. Forgotten Memories

What happens to all forgotten memories?
Memories that are forgotten more than once?
Memories that lost their bodies of words and images?
What would happen if words lost their meanings and definitions?

My father is drawing the map of the dead.

 

3. The Kingdom of the Dead

The Kingdom of the Dead is far greater than the Kingdom of the Living. It is not surprising – all who are living, sooner or later join the Kingdom of the Dead, and as far as we know, the opposite doesn’t happen. If reincarnation exists, it still requires a new body, and the new body will sooner or later die – one can’t argue about that.

The dead are everywhere – we breathe them in with the air.

My father marks the graves of our deceased relatives on his hand-drawn map of the cemetery. I am supposed to find them one day. I wonder if I ever will.

 

4. Falling

The words fall from the sky like leaves from a tree.
Do fishes go to school?
I count visible stars – there are more of them than my fingers and toes combined, so I stop counting.

My father complains there are no longer any stars in the sky. He is holding my mom’s hand to stop it from shaking.

I feel I am falling,
falling,
falling…
while failing to make a wish.

 

5. C-sharp

The note C-sharp is what binds all stars and holds this Universe together.
At night you can hear C-sharp quietly buzzing. I imagine it as the endless string connecting and holding together heavenly objects, vibrating, and shimmering.

My umbilical cord was never tied correctly. If I could press my eye to my belly – I could probably see through my untied belly button all that is inside.

 

6. Flossing the Dead

Sometimes the dead are so thick in the air – it’s hard to breathe.

You feel your heart trying and trying to pump blood, but the air is too thick and heavy. The dead get stuck between the teeth, and no flossing can help.

The air bleeds history, and you can’t escape it – even in your loneliest hour, you are never alone.