The Best American Poetry

A protective blanket of words [by Lera Auerbach]

 

Arctic Dreams - Photo Credit: Lera Auerbach

(1)

I learned that a friend of mine was going through a tough time. His mother died, and he had debilitating neck pain. He needed to write the obituary and arrange for the funeral. His mother had dementia. Was he able to say goodbye? I did not ask. 

I don't know which scale would measure grief. Such a scale doesn't exist. 

Physical pain is easier to manage. If it is yours. Because at some point, the pain stops defining you. 
Grief buried deeper, so deep it can't be torn away, it becomes you.

In the Arctic, old babushkas, when they become unable to take care of themselves, hope to be killed by a polar bear. When they become too ill and weak, they look for the bear to eat them. I asked why. Being devoured by a wild animal didn't seem to me like an attractive way to finish life. 

"The bear will be nourished by eating me," explained an old Inuit woman. "The bear will become strong and fat. Then one day, my son will kill that bear. My son and his family will eat the bear's meat, make healing mixes from its fat, and make trousers from its fur. Thus, through the polar bear, I will nourish my son and keep him warm, even past my life, even past my death."

Post mortem motherly care.

(2)

A few years ago, I travelled to Greenland and stayed in Nuuk in the apartment of a polar bear hunter. A polar bear hunter's home looked like an IKEA house made by children constructors of adult sizing. Everything was modern, functional and perfectly unremarkable. 

A photograph on the wall showed a polar bear (or rather its fur) covered in blood, soaking in a bathtub. I realized it was the same bathtub in which I had showered that morning. It had rubber ducklings as lucky ornaments. Perfectly, chillingly, unremarkable bathtub.

(3)

"I wish I could make a blanket of protective words to shield you," I wrote to my friend, whose mother died after suffering dementia for several years. 

“A protective blanket of words” could be a definition of poetry. 
“Could be” because, like everything else, it rejects any definitions. 

Poetry is no different than spell-making or alchemy.

As if words could make a difference. 
As if anything could still make any difference.

In the world gone mad with apocalyptic craziness and fear, can words remain protective talismans? 

(4)

Bears in the Arctic are suffering from global warming. They're skinny and weak; they couldn't kill even old babushkas on their suicide mission. 

If I could stitch a protective blanket of words, I would make one for the polar bears, another one for the suicidal babushkas on their mission to feed the polar bears, and the third one for the polar bear hunters. I would then make a gigantic frozen quilt for the Arctic to protect it from climate change and even a bigger blanket for the entire world to save it from madness. 

Every stitch would be a word of love, a talisman against impending disaster. 

But I never learned how to make blankets or quilts. I can mend sounds and strings but not threads. The thoughts made of words are unravelling, and I can't weave them together. 

 

Traces [by Lera Auerbach]

^{Untitled - Ink on Handmade Paper by Lera Auerbach} 

 1.

When I think of my Great Aunt Rosa, I hear her laughter – deep chuckles rising from the belly of the Earth and exploding like an uncontrollable volcano. My earliest recollection of Great Aunt Rosa goes back to the time in my life when crawling seemed easier than walking, and every situation had a fantastic array of discoveries. Aunt Rosa was a gigantic mountain that captivated my mom's attention entirely. I was free to crawl around on my own to my total satisfaction. I had a small, plastic red fox. From time to time, I heard volcanic explosions of Aunt Rosa's laughter and thought that a tiny fox may not fully comprehend these sounds and feel scared. Remembering from one of the fairytales that foxes liked hiding in dark spaces (or in pretty wooden huts they would steal from the less intelligent animals), I looked around for a hiding place for my fox. I found it in Aunt Rosa's shoe, which was perfectly designed to be a home for a small plastic fox, combining the best qualities of a foxhole and fox-hut.

I must have fallen asleep somewhere next to the shoe rack. My parents carried me to the apartment of my mother's sister, Natasha, where we stayed during our Moscow visits. The little red fox spent that long night alone in Great Aunt Rosa's shoe, probably wondering if she would ever see the daylight again or if I had abandoned her forever.

2.

Nothing lasts forever. Perhaps, only the Great Nothing lasts forever until Something appears. Of course, it could not have been "forever," but perhaps it was – if Time (as we understand it) did not exist then. No space, no Time – nothing. Or, rather, everything so condensed and indivisible that it all had to fit into Nowhere. Then – Big Bang – everything explodes, divides, and we hear singing – the Word – God's name. Or His laughter. Or Her laughter. Or Great Aunt Rosa's laughter, which explodes and spills over as I wake up.

My mom, who is holding the telephone receiver away from her ear (so as not to be deafened by thunder), is also laughing. I can't help it and start laughing too, even though I have no idea why we are all laughing. And Natasha, my mom's sister, walks into the room and starts laughing too. And from the receiver booms Great Aunt Rosa's laugh, filling the room, spilling through the windows into the sky and breaking into snowflakes, dancing in the wind.

3.

My tiny red plastic fox had bitten my Great Aunt Rosa when she (Aunt Rosa) tried to put on her shoe. It did not surprise me. After the long night, the fox must have assumed that this shoe was her home. I wondered if small plastic animals have the same concept of time as we do. I decided that no, a night spent in a shoe could seem to last an eternity to an abandoned fox. So, of course, she bit Aunt Rosa's massive toe, which threatened to squish her inside the shoe. Aunt Rosa promised me she would keep the fox safe until our return. She did.

4.

When grownups talk, I prefer to hide under the table. I imagine them growing heads of animals: this man is a bear, and this woman is a sheep (just listen to how she bleats to every word the bear-man says.) This one is a wolf, and he always contradicts the bear. They have different strengths, the bear-man, and the wolf-man. The bear-man might be stronger, but the wolf-man is faster and more aggressive. It is why they argue; they challenge each other. In the corner, there is a woodpecker – he repeats the same point over and over again, proving everyone else wrong. He wins every discussion because others become too bored and lose any interest in him and his point of view.

5.

But who is Great Aunt Rosa?
I think and think but can't picture her as an animal. Maybe a bird?
I think of the stories involving birds but can't imagine Aunt Rosa flying. At least not now – maybe when she was young?
Was Great Aunt Rosa ever young?
Perhaps, she is a Dodo, that mythical bird, timeless and strange, so familiar, yet completely incomprehensible.
Aunt Rosa is flapping her wings, erasing colors, fading into a less and less traceable outline, until nothing remains except her shoes.

 

Rugged Silence [by Lera Auerbach]

Personal Mythology - Acrylic on Wood Board -  by Lera Auerbach

 

I love old rugs. 

Rugs with animals, flowers, and small people. 

Prayer rugs and large entrance rugs. 

Rugs with dragons and monkeys. 

Tiger-rugs. 

Yes, especially tiger-rugs.

 

One day I will buy a house 

and fill it with old rugs. 

I'll put rugs everywhere on the floors. 

And on the walls too.

And, perhaps, even on the ceiling. 

 

I will lie down on a rug and listen. 

The silence of a room covered in rugs is very different 

from the silence of a room with naked floors. 

I will listen to the rugged silence for such a long time 

that I too become part of it. 

I will shrink and disappear into the rug, 

becoming one of its tiny people.

 

I will jump from rug to rug, 

meeting its wondrous animals, 

befriending a dragon, 

fighting with a tiger. 

One day, one of the flowers in the rug 

will swallow me whole, 

and something would change in the silence, 

it would gain an extra stitch. 

(The silence, not the rug.)

 

Permission to Fail [by Lera Auerbach]

Hidden Room • Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

When you struggle to survive, 

there is simplicity in perspective:

You take one breath. 

Then another.

You take one step. 

Then another.

You learn how to respect your body's new limitations.

You learn how to challenge it. 

You try to hold on to who you are.

You try to reassure others. 

You give yourself permission to rest, to stay quiet.

You grow impatient and irritable.

In anger, you call yourself a failure, 

then remember –

you have given yourself permission to fail.

Sometimes you feel alone.

Sometimes you feel loved.

Unscalable [by Lera Auerbach]

Ivan Shishkin's Morning in a Pine Forest & Russian Chocolates

On the grand scale of things, it's not always clear what keeps the balance. 

But things are not scalable. Memories hide in the smallest details and surfaces like a shy relative of long-forgotten relations:
in the color of the window-curtains from childhood,
in the taste of sgushchyonka (sweet condensed milk of my childhood),
in the sound of unwrapping a chocolate candy – the favorite one with three brown bears-cubs and their mother-bear on the cover.

The picture of four bears was from a well-known painting by Shishkin, a famous Russian painter. 

Come to think of it; I'm not sure why Shishkin was so famous if the work he was mostly known for was this painting of four bears playing in the forest. Later it was discovered that Shishkin did not paint this painting, or rather he painted the forest but not the bears, because painting animals was not his forte, and he asked a friend to do it.

'Shishka' in Russian means a pinecone, but it also means a bump, as when you hit your head. It also can mean, in a slangy way, a big shot – a person in a position of power. 

The painter Shishkin clearly loved Russian nature with its pinecones, but he also hit his head hard with the bears' fake authorship. He did manage to remain a big shot in the annals of Russian art. 

I stopped liking these chocolates at the age of five when I discovered wriggling white worms in one. It was 'war chocolate' from the boxes of food my nanny kept in case of a new war. She had some of these boxes since WWII, some 40 years earlier. 

Time was eaten by worms, leaving only crumbs behind; crumbs dressed in the picture of the cute bears painted by a man who didn't get proper credit for painting them and whose name escapes my memory right now, unlike Shishkin. 

 

No Longer My Own [by Lera Auerbach]

No Longer My Own - Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

1. Some books matter only
   for the future-books
   hiding in them.
   
   
2. Books with strong plots
   offer safe captivity,
   allowing us to hide.
   
   
3. Books without plots
   may dangerously spiral,
   exposing us to memories of unburnt desires.
   
   
4. When you are writing a book, in reality, you are writing two books:
   one is the book you are writing; the other is the book
   about writing the book you're writing.
   
   
5. I face myself in the mirror,
   but I'm no longer my own.
   
   

Smelling Beyond Words [by Lera Auerbach]

На птичьих правах - Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

 

There is a phrase in Russian, ‘na ptich'ikh pravakh’,  having birds' rights. 

To live ‘na ptich'ikh pravakh’ means not having proper rights to occupy space (i.e., no correct documents or inability to pay rent) but being temporarily tolerated and allowed to remain. 

What rights do birds have? 

And why birds? 

Why not say opossums' rights? 

The flattery of wings? Geography? Lack of stability? 

Can the lack of stability be something stable, constant?

If you're constantly absent, does this make you reliably absent? 

The bird can sing and leave. 

I do the same, but behind me snakes a trail of debt and obligations, a chain to keep me within its reach, stones available for throwers. Personalized gravitational pull.

* * *

In the world of confusion, only a dog knows the truth. 

But we rarely listen to dogs. We forgot how to listen.

A dog knows what would make us happy. Because it's precisely that which would make a dog happy: a walk in the woods, smelling the fresh air, that sense of well-being which only comes when you can commune with nature and feel fully present. 

A dog is not interested in words. 

Words are the mythological woods in which humans get lost instead of visiting the real woods and taking long walks with their dogs.

A dog knows the danger of words. That's why it can understand all human languages. 

It knows to smell beyond words. Because words are only shells. What's essential lies within, beyond the shell. And the shell may be misleading, a disfiguring perception of the shape it contains within. 

A cat also knows it all but doesn't have the patience to deal with human stupidity and stubbornness. A cat knows – it is futile to change us. 

Dogs are more hopeful.   

* * *

Living life in dogs' years. 

How many dogs will still adopt me? 

My childhood's big Sheila, then Toto and Daisy (all three were still alive when I left Russia for New York at the age of 17.) 

Then came school years without a dog, living on ptich'ikh pravakh here and there. For a while, I managed to keep a lizard at the Juilliard dorms, but it was difficult to shop for live worms and keep them all hidden. 

The moment when I rented my first apartment – little Sheila joined my life. I named little Sheila after big Sheila who died peacefully in my father's arms in Russia after I left for New York. Little Sheila also died in my father's arms, but in Boston, many years later. She was aging, she was ill, and I knew my father would take better care of her than I, in my birdy ways, fluttering from one city to the next.

And for the last two years of Sheila's life, there was Finek, whom Sheila hated as only an old cranky dog may hate a young puppy, who stole her human's attention and love. Finek didn't steal my love, for I still loved Sheila. Sheila was Sheila, and Finek was Finek. 

But I knew she did not forgive my betrayal with another dog. 

The moment Finek appeared, Sheila realized she was no longer the only one. 

Even today, many years later, I still feel guilty about it. Never sorry for getting Finek, but sorry for hurting Sheila in doing so. 

Dogs are supposed to be forgiving? Not so sure. 

But for my father, Sheila was still the only one. She's buried in Boston next to my aunt's house.

* * *

My life in dog-lives…

At night I protect Finek's dreams. 

He snores. His legs jerk – he is dreaming. 

His dreams often turn into nightmares, and he cries. 

I gently wake him up. He falls asleep again, breathes quietly. 

Does he ever dream about me? 

Am I the cause of his nightmares? 

 

Sheila and Finek

With Sheila in Siberia

Resonating at Random [by Lera Auerbach]

 

Ink on Paper by Lera Auerbach

 

A tree is never just a tree. 

Social distancing one could measure. But how distant should one be from oneself? 

Too distant, and you risk losing yourself and becoming numb, incapable of true empathy and love. 

Too close, and you fall apart, unable to hold on to the imaginary thread
that keeps different parts of you together.

A book is like a tree: it needs a chance to grow, to take hold,
to find enough nourishment in the soil, enough water. 

In its early stages, it's too fragile, while the hurricane season is just around the corner,
and strong winds could uproot and demolish it. 

Where do all the unwritten books go? Half-written? Completed manuscripts waiting for editors? 

Forgotten manuscripts waiting for readers? Forgotten lives? 

Like a child, a book requires sacrifice. It hurts you, its birth can be bloody painful.

It can also give you the greatest joy. Ultimately, it is never yours. 

It is born through you but doesn't belong to you; you are simply its tool
and a highly imperfect one at that. 

To read a book the way one asks for forgiveness, 
as an act of searching for solace. 

But a book is just a book – a collection of words, 

resonating at random 

only when struck.

 

Beethoven's Choice [by Lera Auerbach]

The truth is that I do not know how I feel about Beethoven.

There seem to be two separate things – one is Beethoven, the other one is our admiration for Beethoven. The second is so thick that it's impossible to find the real Beethoven.

Just try to move the world's admiration for Beethoven aside: what will you see in its place? The admiration seems to be made of bronze: it can take any patina or color, yet it is so heavy it cannot be lifted or moved; it seems to replace Beethoven forever. Beethoven became insignificant compared to what he symbolizes: the greatness, the spirit, the best of the best of humanity.

Was the real Beethoven a great genius, a spiritual leader of free men, an example of the best of humanity? Nobody knows; the bronze veil of admiration is just too great to move aside. I suspect there is something awkward about Beethoven. We admire him because he can rise above his squareness, grumpiness, and inability to fly easily. He triumphs over his limitations, and that is why he's closer to the masses than Mozart with his Mozartian divine ease. 

Beethoven is a lion who tears music with his teeth, claws, and sforzandi. Through the efforts of his stubborn will, he can roar at the end triumphantly. We celebrate his brows; we celebrate his sweat; we forgive his foul smell, nasty hygiene habits, and bad manners, his lies. None of it matters. 

We forgive him for a choir that has to wait for an hour before singing for a few minutes at the end of the ninth symphony. We happily forget that Beethoven didn't write his most famous tune: it is a drinking song. None of it matters.

When a man becomes a god, he sheds all his humanity alongside his life.

Godliness, like anything else, requires sacrifice.

Was that Beethoven's choice?

 

Beethoven's Death Mask

Sergey Yursky - The Seasons [by Lera Auerbach]

During the time of the pandemic, I am thinking of people that have inspired me and my work.

 

On March 16 Sergey Yursky would have celebrated his 85th birthday. He died last year. While his name needs no introduction in Russian-speaking countries - he is truly legendary, many of my friends who do not speak Russian probably have never heard of him.

 

Yursky was a legendary actor, I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that he was, perhaps, the most celebrated Russian actor of the 20th century, but his contribution was far greater than acting. He was a writer himself with several books published, and his greatest love was poetry. He was one of the very first artists (if not the first one) who would publicly recite poems by poets who were oppressed at the time when it was still rather dangerous to do. He would tour with his "poetry concerts" reciting poems by Tsvetaeva, Mandelshtam, Hiippius, Brodsky, all his concerts were always full, he was one of my childhood heroes. 

 

I met Yursky for the first time in New York when I came to one of his poetry concerts in Brooklyn. I was 19 years old, shy, and quiet. By that time, my poems have appeared in many Russian magazines and newspapers, and three small books of my poems were published. My parents were living in Chelyabinsk while I was in New York alone since I was 17. I came backstage and gave Yursky one of my small books of poems. I thought he would never open it and that most likely, I will never hear from him again. A few years passed. One day my parents called me. At that time, it was still complicated to call from Russia, not to mention very expensive, so we rarely talked, mostly exchanging long letters that would sometimes take a few months to arrive. My mother’s voice was excited: “Lera, you would not believe this! Last night we went to hear Sergey Yursky’s concert, he is on tour in Chelyabinsk. The program was called “Russian Poets Abroad.” It included poems by Tsvetaeva, Tyutchev, Brodsky and … you!! We are coming again tonight - he is repeating the program."

 

Needless to say, I was shocked. I asked my parents if they could ask Yursky if he would consider recording a CD of my poetry. They did. He immediately agreed and spent that night in the radio station recording each poem in different interpretations, sometimes five different takes of the same poem, so I could choose the interpretation I liked.

 

He continued to champion my poetry and even written a preface to one of my books. We met from time to time. Most memorable was a walk through Soho galleries with him and Ilya Kabakov - another legendary Russian artist, but in the visual art world. 

Sergey Yursky had a larger than life personality. He was a giant, not only in his stage presence but in his views, his perspective, his fearlessness, his honesty. His presence is forever bound with the history of Russian poetry. I miss him greatly.

 

Here is a link to him reciting my poem “Seasons” and the English translation of this poem.

Seasons

 

I 
 
Life is an ouroboros. Spring
Doesn’t keep count, but binds
Everything, everyone, life, death.
For centuries, rebirth has turned
The earth. Only God, surely, knows
What lies behind this endless rotation.

With life ahead, we are more honest;
Stripping down the earth, we lay our deposit on love.
At times like this, we can be happy in a cell,
The poorest shelter can be our palace.
Now, the year seems long
And we battle windmills like the Don.
 
II 
 
The days pass. Spent Spring feels 
Summer’s farewell breath at its back.
We grow used to maturity, it always
Reminds us of home, our native land,
Of household chores, of the family,
Of work and the titles we have taken on …

This time of hot middays, when the sun
Stares straight into its own 
single eye shattering the water
(Life allows us to submit to the flow).
Stamping out grains of dust with yellow rays
It reaches the height of its paralyzed state.
 
III 
 
The days pass and the birds fly by, away.
The leaves fall, fall, but still, they cannot
Quite find a way to settle on the ground …
At times my thoughts cohere –
A sign offered up by my senses
Like a question put to a departing God.

Life resembles a flowing garment sewn
Out of days like a toga’s folds, the last 
Made from foreknowledge of winter.
The cradle is draped with sunset’s shroud.
And the fir tree’s fractured trunk
Crooks like a hanging question mark.
 
IV 
 
The days pass. Crows’ nests –
Old rags on the bare branches.
The snow settling on your temple
No longer even melts, and iron nails
Start to come loose, th​e frame of the house
Breaks up, springs leaks​ like a canoe

Or an ancient ship. And the heart’s gasp
Oppresses. Something weighs on your breast.
Sounds are muffled … The scaffold
Rises suddenly, a cross on your path;
So unexpected is it that you have
Time for just three words: “For everything – forgive.”

Song of Gratitude [by Lera Auerbach]

Final notes of Beethoven's Heiliger Dankgesang

 

On Beethoven, my new string quartet, and the eternal Song of Thanks

Beethoven wrote his Heiliger Dankgesang as an expression of gratitude for surviving a near-fatal illness. The tradition of ex-votos (“from a vow”) artworks created in gratitude and to give tribute to divine intervention of deities in personal calamities has a long history. Ex-votos can take a wide variety of forms. They are not only intended for the helping figure, but also as a testimony of the received help.[1] They can be found in many cultures from those in Abydos in Ancient Egypt to Mexican folk art.[2] Just as in ex-voto retablos, the religious aspect is present as slow sections of the Heiliger Dankgesang which are based on a choral, with its timeless hymn-like meditative nature while the faster sections in Beethoven celebrate the dance of life, renewed strength, the joys of recovery.

Beethoven lived in a time when humanity still believed in heroes and antiheroes; children's stories and fairytales represented a clear division of good and evil, and words still kept some capacity not to betray their meaning at the very moment of their utterance.

I live in a different time. After the extremes of romanticism, distortions and distractions of the 20th century, and the confusion of the 21st century, my initial reaction is to question and doubt everything. Perhaps, when one is or considers himself (as Beethoven did) mortally ill, the gratitude addressed is not towards the future which might be too brief, but towards the past with its memories of the life lived? Perhaps such thankfulness carries the sweet sadness of acceptance? Maybe the song of gratitude is the act of letting go, of embracing the inevitable - like a return to true home, to that interconnected place of true peace, to the origins from which we are expelled for the duration of our lives? Perhaps the sense of real recovery is possible only through the full embrace of the finite aspect of our human existence? Maybe we are only able to appreciate how precious every moment is when we are fully aware of its finite nature?

Artists tend to be superstitious; they love finding inner rhymes in life and deciphering their hidden meanings, finding still resonating overtones through the centuries. I am no exception. It was the Artemis Quartet’s wish for my new quartet (String Quartet No. 9) to connect in some form to Beethoven for his 2020 anniversary. How and in which form this connection would take place, they left up to me. I admit that although I was pleased to collaborate once again with Artemis, initially I dreaded the thought of needing to connect the commissioned work to Beethoven. For a while, I was at a loss of how and where to begin. I knew that such a relationship or homage to Beethoven needed to feel genuine, organic, unforced, inevitable.

The concept of structuring my quartet upon Heiliger Dankgesang came during a prolonged illness; perhaps this was the reason why this particular quartet of Beethoven resonated with me and generated further ideas. The idea also occurred to me on the day of the American Thanksgiving holiday, which I only realized the next day as I was in Vienna and entirely forgot about this holiday. It added an unexpected rhyme to an already forming sequence of thoughts. I can’t help asking again - what exactly are we celebrating? Or how this holiday is viewed from the perspective of the American indigenous people? Life and death are so intertwined that only questions can remain. Is building a new and free nation justification for the destruction and rape of another culture? Are those who kill today “in the name of God” better or worse than those who kill in the name of fatherland, motherland, revolutionary idea or whichever excuse or justification is given to acts of cruelty and bloodshed? Literature, the art of words, is more direct than other art forms in reflecting and forming our understanding of our time, as well as of the times passed. After Nikolai Gogol’s work, there are no more perfectly positive heroes. When such heroes or ideas of them are imposed as in the case of the 20th century Communist Soviet Union, fascist Germany, and Mao’s China, such heroes - in time - are viewed and perceived as monstrosities.

Yet, the notions of gratitude remain, they are universal, regardless of what originates the feeling of thanks. Appreciation for a life lived or life passed? Gratitude for a safe return home, in whichever form it may take, and to whichever home this return maybe? Gratitude for freedom even if true freedom may be attainable only through the liberation of death? Gratitude for kindness, because kindness is universal, and acts of kindness represent humanity at its very best? Finding gratitude is especially essential not because, but despite the difficulties and cruelty, one may be facing. It is like finding accidental beauty in the harshest surroundings – finding what to be thankful for in a world that has gone mad.

My quartet has more tragic and darkly intense undertones than Beethoven’s sublime meditation while approaching the same themes from different times, views and with a different understanding of history. If Beethoven lived in our time, how would he approach these themes? I can only ask questions. Paraphrasing Tolstoy, I do not know why my characters (or pieces) behave the way they do - ask them, not me. Works tend to have a mind and will of their own; my role as a composer is to let them grow into what they wish to become. I repeat: what they wish, not me. What I wish for might be entirely different. What I want is this “Neue Kraft Fühlend” (feeling of new strength as meant by Beethoven). I long for the sense of peace and wellbeing, for the ability to find simple joys to be thankful for; to sit in my favourite armchair with a large pile of books all around me with all the time in the world to read them. And if my quartet seems to address death more than the work on which it is based - it is what this music demanded of me, and I had no choice, but to follow.

________

1. Ex-voto "Ex-Voto". 2020. En.Wikipedia.Org.
2.  History of Egypt Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery, L. W. King, H. R. Hall, Echo Library, 2008

Labyrinth for Solo Piano [by Lera Auerbach]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Labyrinth for Solo Piano
Inspired by The Book of Imaginary Beings
and other writings by J. L. Borges

Tomorrow evening, March 27, 2018, I will premiere Labyrinth, a large work for solo piano commissioned by San Francisco Performances.

I have been fascinated with labyrinths - real or imaginary - all my life. So, it is not surprising that J.L. Borges has been one of my favorite writers for a very long time.

Labyrinth is an exploration of Time and its different prisms, mirrors, faces, games. The passages of the labyrinth are the passages of Time. Or, perhaps, Time itself takes the form of a labyrinth in which the inner and outer sides are the same, infinitely expanding and infinitely contracting.

Inspired by the hidden set of variations in Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (the series of Promenades portraying a man walking through the gallery) in Labyrinth appeared the "Traumwanderer" (Dream wanderer). I do not know where the Traumwanderer came from. I asked him, but his answers are cryptic. Perhaps, the Traumwanderer is my double. More likely, he is a shape-shifter and becomes the double of each listener who comes to a concert hall and unexpectedly finds himself in the bestiary of a labyrinth.

Together with the Traumwanderer, we discover different passages, become lost and sometimes recognize reflections of our memories, fears, and dreams in the strange and at times disturbing shapes of the imaginary beings that the Traumwanderer meets.

These beings have encounters and relationships not only with the Traumwanderer but also among themselves. There are connections and hidden clues that allow the Traumwanderer to recognize his features, even the most grotesque and foreign elements.

Is the Traumwanderer inside of the labyrinth, or is the labyrinth within the Traumwanderer? Is Time standing still while we are searching for our way, or is the labyrinth made of the same material as Time itself? Is the Wanderer's progress through the passages of the labyrinth illusory? What is passing — us or our Time?

Together with the Traumwanderer, we meet the invisible A Bao A Qu, who has lived since the beginning of Time on the spiral staircase of the Tower of Chitor. This tower is known to have the most perfect view in the world, which — as with any perfection — can never be reached. We meet the Kilkenny Cats, who get into raging quarrels and devour each other in anger, leaving behind only their tails. We meet the poor Squonk, who cries himself into nothingness. We encounter the magical binding of the gigantic wolf Fenrir, who is kept on the strongest, yet lightest chain ever made — a cord woven of six imaginary things. (Of course, Fenrir eventually breaks loose.) We experience the terror of the Traumwanderer as he becomes increasingly lost within the mirrors, dead-ends, and detours of the maze. We hear the calling of the mystical Simurgh, the immortal bird that nests in the Tree of Knowledge. The other birds (after a long and difficult pilgrimage to reach him) realize "that they are the Simurgh and that the Simurgh is each of them and all of them." And, of course, what labyrinth could be complete without its Minotaur?

I remember myself as a child, aged six, reading Greek myths and wondering: What did the Minotaur do all day long, sitting at the center of a labyrinth, in the unchanging room, looking at the same inescapable walls? I imagined him being bored, lonely, and malnourished. After all, the poor beast had to survive on an unhealthy diet of only seven young men and seven maidens per year. Always hungry, lonely, half-mad... I imagined him occasionally dancing with himself from boredom and loneliness, perhaps while thinking of some appetizing maiden. As Ovid wrote, “The man half bull, the bull half man—not simply a monster, but a sad, unloved, and a somewhat comical creature at the heart of a labyrinth it will never be able to leave.”

We encounter angels and demons, gods, monsters, and chimeras, while the three ancient Norns (Past, Present, and Future) weave the thread of our lives.

I built Labyrinth in search of a form where relationships and dynamics between the Observer and the Object of observation could be explored. Or, perhaps, I built it to create a space where the inner dialogue between the Self and the Brain (also in the form of a labyrinth!) could be imagined. Sometimes, I think that I am, myself, an imaginary being, just as my Traumwanderer. And, perhaps, it is the Traumwanderer who composed this music, and I am the one forever lost in the labyrinth without even realizing it.

This thread brings me back to the beginnings, to a poem I wrote when I was 14 years old, titled "Labyrinth." I wrote it in Russian. Here it is in its English translation by Ronald Meyer.

Labyrinth
by Lera Auerbach

   In the labyrinth of words and sounds

   I search for the riddle of life.

   Whether I'll find it or not -- I do not know,

   But I am playing upon the strings of the soul

   And in sharing this music, I find happiness.

Commissioned by San Francisco Performances in honor of Ruth Felt

Mussorgky's Pictures at an Exhibition [by Lera Auerbach]

As I prepare a recital program for my concert at San Francisco Performances next month, I return to a work that has accompanied me for most of my life. Modest Mussorgsky's masterpiece, Pictures at an Exhibition, is a unique bridge between the 19th and 20th centuries. Debussy and Stravinsky, two giants of the 20th century, were influenced by this work. Pictures have inspired an epidemic of orchestrations –  from Maurice Ravel's famous symphonic transcription to the imaginative electronic adaptation by Isao Tomita, more than seventy versions exist to date. What is the unique magnetism which attracts musicians and composers to this piece? Is it a secret fascination evoked by the childlike, fairytale images hidden in the work?I think that Mussorgsky was inspired not directly by Hartman's artworks, but by the idea of creating a musical exhibition in itself. The connection between Mussorgsky’s music and Hartman's images is tenuous at best. Mussorgsky's music cannot be regarded as representational of Hartman's subjects any more than Hartman's images can be interpreted as illustrative of Mussorgsky's music.

Mussorgsky chose the form of a suite as the most natural for his musical exhibition. The suite starts with the Promenade. It is a musical self-portrait of the composer walking through the halls of the museum. The Promenade recurs seven times in the work, (only five times under its own title), each time sounding different, thus creating a subset of variations. I believe that these promenading variations reflect the alterations in the mood of a person passing a series of paintings in a museum gallery. Thus, Mussorgsky gives us both: a series of brilliant musical sketches, and their reflections in his own soul; he is an author who creates his work and finds himself changed by it.

Unexpectedly, I found yet another hidden form of variation in this work. It is a partita-like structure, which occurs within the musical architecture of the piece. Bach designed his partitas to include several common elements, which unify the widely contrasting dance movements. These elements are usually a recurring interval relationship or a melodic and/or harmonic device. This is true of Pictures at an Exhibition. The entire work is based upon two primary intervals: a descending second and an ascending fourth. These two intervals appear within the opening three notes: G, F, B-flat. These three notes become the foundation upon which the entire work rests. Each movement is based on these intervals or their inversions.

In Gnomus, the weeping of the dwarf is built entirely on the descending second (mm. 19, et seq.). The ascending fourth in the opening of The Old Castle resembles calling of a distant horn, or, perhaps, the nostalgic song of a Minnesinger recalling the days of old. By looking at the final six measures of this movement we realize that the entire movement is built on the 'calling' fourth and the 'sighing' second.

In Tuilleries: The Children's Quarrel, the concealed descending second which is heard throughout the piece sounds like capricious children. It reminds one of Mussorgsky's vocal cycle In the Nursery, which so wonderfully portrays children's psyches. Could it be that this charming childishness is the central attraction of Pictures? We all come from the land of childhood and 'blessed be they' who shall remain children forever.

In the theme of Bydlo, the order of the two intervals is the same as in the Promenade: the descending second precedes the ascending fourth. They are rhythmically displaced so that the lamenting second is emphasized and the 'calling' fourth is subdued. What does 'Bydlo' mean? The traditional definition is an oxcart. The ostinato in the left hand resembles the slow rotation of heavy wheels. Yet there is another meaning for this word. My Polish nanny, when upset or angry would say Oh! Bydlo!,- an exclamation meaning "this is unfair!" This word can be understood in different ways, but it always stands for something heavy and unpleasant. When I hear Mussorgsky's Bydlo, I am reminded of a painting by Ilya Repin titled Barge Haulers on the Volga. In this painting, a heavy barge is pulled by tired, emaciated peasants. It is a depiction brutal, exhausting, yet meaningless labor. Perhaps, Mussorgsky's Bydlo is a tragic symbol of Russia itself

The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks is a charming and humorous confection. A childlike, bright and touching fantasy, this piece is a joy to perform. The cackling of the chicks is represented by both: 'crushed' and melodic seconds.

In Two Polish Jews, One Rich and the Other Poor the inverted fourth and the second are incorporated to represent a severe image of the rich man and the pitiful begging of the poor. The repeated notes, combined with weeping seconds remind us of synagogue chants. The duet of the two men toward the end of this movement is a counterpoint of misunderstanding in which neither hears the other. I recall the words of Marina Tsvetaeva, "… Nothing is sadder than the hunger of the hungry or the indolence of the satisfied."

Limoges; the Market (‘Great News') - a noisy, sunny marketplace with its quarreling, bargaining, and gossiping. The repeated musical figures imitate the hubbub of too many people talking at the same time. From the outset, it is clear that this piece is built on the combination of the descending second and the ascending fourth. Mussorgsky wrote a text for the market gossips but later rejected it as too programmatic for inclusion in the published work.

Catacombs. A mystery. Somber chords lead the listener to 'Con mortuis in lingua mortua,' - 'with the dead in a dead language'. The theme of the Promenade is heard as chorale and as an ethereal voice from the underground, accompanied by a ghostly tremolo from another world. In the cemetery, where dead Latin words are written on the gravestones, dead men speak their eternal language.

Baba Yaga. The Hut on Hens Legs. This movement opens with seconds and fourths heard in threatening unison.  I love the folkloric image of Baba Yaga flying on her broom in a windstorm, with the trees bending their crowns to the ground. Baba Yaga's hut stands on large hen's legs, which can move on their own will. In mm. 25-30 there are cackling seconds, similar to The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks, but now they sound threatening.  There is an amusing relationship between the hen's legs of Baba Yaga's hut and tiny chicks. Once a chicken, always a chicken! 

In the middle section, while Baba Yaga is away from her enchanted kingdom, two of her helpers, Kikimora (the hobgoblin who lives in the marshes) and Leschy (the wood goblin who lives in the forest) look at the twinkling marsh lights and listen to the owls hooting, waiting for the return of their mistress. She returns and storms right through the Great Gates of Kiev.

One last thought. In spite of the Russian, French, Polish, Jewish and Latin themes or, perhaps, because of them, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition create a quintessentially Russian atmosphere. The work projects Russia from all sides: fairy, pagan, religious, multinational, impossible and incredible!

 

.

Guacamole Treatment [by Erroneous Anonymous]

 

GUACAMOLE TREATMENT 

[From The Infant Minstrel and his Peculiar Menagerie]

 

There was once a man

With such a long nose

That his wife had mistaken it

For a garden hose.

 

When she started watering plants

His nose turned red and tense.

Then he sneezed, as he was allergic to pollen,

With tears in his eyes and his throat swollen.

 

“Oh, my darling, I am so very sorry!

I am going to catch the best guacamole

To make for you a cold green compress –

The best-known treatment for a nose in distress!”

 

Cried his wife and cut for him her best rose.

“Pretty rose for your suffering nose!

– Ooops! I did it again: I forgot –

You’re allergic to all pretty things, poor lad!”

 

The man sat sadly

In a defeated pose

While his wife applied

Guacamole to his nose.

 

 

Instead of Program Notes [by Lera Auerbach]

On November 24, 2015, I will premiere my new concerto for piano and orchestra with the Stuttgart Philharmonic and Dan Ettinger conducting.

Each work is a being with its own life, surprises, mysteries and destiny. This piano concerto has one of the most unusual histories of my catalog. It has haunted me for over twenty years – half of my life.

The opening of the concerto, as well as its entire second movement, is based on a dream I had when I was fourteen years old while living in the city of Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains of Russia. One night I dreamt a strange hypnotic music, unlike anything I had ever heard. It was also very different from my own compositional efforts of that time. I was so shaken and moved by that musical dream that I forced myself to wake up and write down its main material. This experience was profoundly powerful and in some ways it defined my life. I have been composing music since the age of four and it was the most natural way for me to express myself. But it was this strange dream in which I felt that this music had chosen me rather than the other way around, which predetermined much of what developed later in my life.

For a long time I tried to find the proper vessel for this dream-music. First, I set it in the form of a Flute sonata (I studied and played flute through conservatory,) but the result did not satisfy me. A few years later, at the age of seventeen, I traveled from the Soviet Union to the United States for a concert tour and spontaneously decided to remain in New York. I entered the Juilliard School for composition and piano studies. Several times throughout my student years I returned to the musical idea that had haunted me since that memorable night. That material became the second movement of my Symphonie-Konzert. It was one of my very first large orchestral compositions. I struggled with its form and content. Its title kept on changing from "Symphony" to "Piano Concerto" to "Symphonie-Konzert" to the youthfully pretentious "Requiem for the Millennium." Its form varied from one movement to three, encompassing anywhere from 12 to 45 minutes in length. I performed it with different orchestras in the US, Russia and Germany. The last performance was my Konzertexam at the Hannover Musikhochschule where this was the very first time in the history of this university that a performer was allowed to graduate performing his original concerto.

In spite of its relative success, in spite of making endless revisions between these performances – I remained unsatisfied. I felt that I was not able to give full justice to this musical material. Perhaps I lacked experience of writing for the orchestra; perhaps I lacked experience in life. The abstract idea of this piece kept on shimmering in the distance, unattainable. I decided then that I needed to put this work aside and wait until I was better able to realize it.

Now, more than twenty-five years since my first dream-sketch related to this work, I had the chance to return to this music. I thought it would be a simple and straightforward revision. With the experience and perspective of the last twenty years - how difficult could that be? I was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Facing this music again was facing my own demons, facing my old fears, memories, facing myself. It was much more difficult than writing a completely new work. I was no longer that teenager who dreamt the second movement, nor was I the ambitious 28-year-old graduating with this work in Hannover. I'm a different person now, in a different stage of life. At the same time, something very essential in me remains as a defining leitmotif.

This work deals with Time and its transformations, one of the most important themes throughout my entire creative output. It deals with our age of decay, post-apocalyptic ruins of human vocabulary; it continues to challenge my personal dialogue with Time. It continues to question, doubt and haunt me, now much older, more experienced, but perhaps, in some ways, also more limited, more inclined to shy away from the essential questions it forced me to face.

I realized that I needed to approach this concerto anew, rewrite it freely. I needed to dangerously balance on a double edge sword: to be true to the person I am now, and at the same time not betray the person I was 20 years ago. Perhaps, it meant I needed to build a bridge between myself then and now, acknowledge and reconcile our differences. I needed to find that hidden leitmotiv that connects me to my past like a mythological Ariadna’s thread, leading me through a labyrinth of memories into the present moment in time. I wanted to preserve that larger-than-life, impractical, idealistic, dreamy approach of the younger me, yet guide it by the knowledge and experience of numerous orchestral compositions (requiems, symphonies, concerti, operas, ballets) that I have written in between these two chapters of my life.

Writing for orchestra can be a magical, wondrous and limitless experience. It can be also infuriating, hurtful and soul-breaking. Many composers never survive the baptism of orchestral writing – not because they lack talent, but because of the harsh, un-fulfilling realities of under-rehearsed performances, combined with the jaded, skeptical or even hostile attitudes of some conductors, musicians, audiences and presenters towards anything new, and general lack of support or even basic understanding of what it means to bring a new creation to the world. I am more fortunate than most. I survived. I flourished. I wrote dozens of orchestral works. The piano concerto kept on haunting me until I knew I had to face it once again. So here we are.

The Trouble Clef's Glossary of Musical Terms [by Lera Auerbach]

CUT © Lera Auerbach 2015

 

• Music: dreaming aloud.
• Music notation: captured magic.
• Music commissioner: investor in an intangible slice of immortality with his name on a score.
• Chamber music: telepathy.
• Composer: architect of silences.
• Composer’s work: lonely labor, indistinguishable from alchemy.
• Compositional process: distilling passion into sounds.
• Composer-in-residence: a living ghost.
• Sounds: material of creation.
• Premiere: critic’s alert to sharpen preconceptions.
• Program notes: gravely misleading listening maps.
• Microtonal notation: signal to play out of tune.
• Phrasing: the search for gravity.
• Intonation: tracing the holy ghost.
• How to practice intonation? Mentally outline the ideal future and then make it reality.
• Practicing: doesn’t make anything perfect, but can create favorable conditions for accidental perfection.
• Inspiration: The Muse doesn’t forgive those who doubt her.
• Technique: that which requires constant work to be unnoticeable.
• Virtuosity: If you are complimented for it, you don’t have it.
• Tempo: (mostly) controlled flow of energy.
• Meter: wagons in the train of Time.
• Form: a map.
• Unison: All is one.
• Overtone series: proof of divine origins.
• Fundamental tone: origins of the universe.
• Accents: poking.
• Expressions: desperate attempts of composer to communicate from beyond the grave, usually dismissed by performers.
• Articulations: musicians’ blind spots.
• Pedal: misty and mysterious soul of the piano – routinely sterilized and castrated by pianists.
• Repeat: that which never happens.
• Repeat sign: déjà vu.
• Last tremolo: preparation for standing ovation.
• Rests: never restful.
• Harmonic: sound’s afterlife.
• Fermata: the eye of time.
• Vibrato: can cause nervous laughter.
• Dolce: Tuck me in gently.
• Espressivo: caffeinated emotions.
• Molto espressivo: Make it double espresso.
• Morendo: Did you hear anything?
• Pianissimo: solo for the unwrapping of a candy.
• Pianississimo: time for a hearing-aid’s buzz.
• Caesura: Breathe while you can.
• Glissando: stretching space.
• Flautando: memory of a sound.
• Sul ponticello: the beast within, which you have repressed all your life.
• Con sordino: taking the diva out of the violinist.
• Frullato: growling in public.
• Staccato: touching burning music with fingertips.
• Legato: spilled slurs.
• Sforzando: a musical ouch.
• Pizzicato: pecking the grains of notes.
• Subito: wife poking her husband when he starts to snore during a concert.
• Diminuendo: magic mushroom in wonderland. You become smaller and smaller – as long as you are nibbling on it. Unfortunately, you never get small enough.
• Adagio: Think of your mortality.
• Adagio molto: Think of your immortality.
• Adagio religioso: Pray for salvation.
• Allegro: the original definition (‘happily’) no longer applies. Think general level of anxiety.
• Allegro molto: think increased level of anxiety.
• Allegro con brio: playing with fire.
• Andante: The original definition (‘leisurely walking’) is extinct. Think depression.
• Moderato: Comme ci, comme ça.
• Lento: works better than Ambien for male audience members above the age of 50.
• Presto: No thinking allowed.
• Vivace: Act first. Regret later.
• Vivacissimo: Jump off a cliff. You may or may not have time to open your wings.
• Stretto: condensing time.
• Con moto: You’re running out of time.
• Accelerando: seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
• Ritenuto: realizing what that light is.
• Ritardando: Make every note count; you have very few of them left.
• Rubato: loosening the reins.
• Ad libitum: Create the illusion of freedom.

© Lera Auerbach – Excess of Being

September 11 [by Lera Auerbach]

September 11th     

Can you breathe this air,
this thickening air?

The ashes of people are in our nostrils.

Can you hear this silence?
this screaming silence?

The ashes of people are in our throats.

Can you see this city,
through the cloud of dust:
primordial particles,
hieroglyphs of destruction?

The ashes of people are in our eyes.

No bodies were found.
The hospitals remained empty
with doctors and nurses
waiting for patients. 

No bodies.

The ashes of people are in our blood.
This silent cry has no answer.
The ashes of people are in our guts.
We will never be the same.

The dead grow their roots in our hearts.

                                     - by Lera  Auerbach 

Composers [by Lera Auerbach]

There are only 
two types of composers: 
composing composers 
and decomposing composers.

Right and Left [by Lera Auerbach]

I started playing piano before I learned which was my right hand and which the left. To remember my hands correctly, I would associate the right hand with the high notes of the keyboard and the left hand with the bass notes. Even now, the words “right” and “left” remain subconsciously orchestrated. When I hear “extreme right,” I can’t help but imagine all these politicians speaking with high-tweeting Chip-and-Dale voices while the leftists are the slow-slurring basses, regardless of their gender or physical constitution. As a result, I can’t take  either side seriously.

A few thoughts for today [by Lera Auerbach]

Don’t take me so seriously – 
I never joke.

. . . . . . 

I wish I could remain on this 
side of the calendar.

. . . . . .

You don’t know what you are missing.
You don’t even know what you have.
You only know what you have lost.

. . . . . .

This moment in time 
is razor-sharp: will leave you bleeding
through memories.

. . . . . .

Unanswered question
or unquestioned answer? 
– I am lost either way.