deep calls to deep
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me
oh my soul
why so downcast? why so disturbed?
oh my soul
yet I will praise
oh my soul

Psalm 42

Based on the Lithuanian myth of Jurate and Kastytis.

Performed by the Mendelssohn Piano Trio at the annual Chamber Music in Grantham final recital.

Jurate Ir Kastytis

The Clock Museum: II. Midday

Performed by the WCUPA New Music Ensemble, 3.21.19

In Lithuanian mythology, the Laumės are a group of beings created by the god of thunder, Perkūnas, from birch trees which fall in the forest.  They are tasked with constantly weaving the sky and earth together as they drift apart, as well as regulating all the cycles of nature: the seasons, tides, constellations, moon cycles, and so forth.  Unfortunately, because they are wooden, the Laumés cannot feel any kind of emotion and perform their jobs ruthlessly, sometimes causing strife among humanity by weaving a child into the fabric of the forest, killing it, or stealing precious stones to light the night sky with more stars.  They are simultaneously essential to humanity's existence and destructive. 

Laumės

"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."

-Robert Frost 

This is a piece about autumn. More than that, it's a piece about how in the fall I feel alive and able to breathe again after a long summer, despite the increasing darkness of an upcoming winter. I love that autumn is a season of harvest and hibernation, falling leaves and blooming chrysanthemums, and in that dichotomy is such beauty. 

Nothing Gold Can Stay (Dalí String Quartet)

Composer / Educator / Piano Tech / Applesauce Enthusiast

Rebekah Henry