Written for the JACK Quartet at New Music on the Point (NMOP) in June 2023

Sound engineer: Brian Riordan

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“i know the story of a rose.” is part of a series of works inspired by Clarice Lispector’s novella Agua Viva. This work in particular draws its musical nature from the intimate and delicate relationship found in the excerpt below:

“I know the story of a rose. Does it seem strange to you to speak of a rose when I am talking about animals? But it acted in a way that recalls the animal mysteries. Every two days I would buy a rose and place it in water in a vase made specially narrow to hold the long stem of a single flower. Every two days the rose would wilt and I would exchange it for another. Until one certain rose. It was rose-colored without coloring or grafting just naturally of the most vivid rose color. Its beauty expanded the heart by great breadths. It seemed so proud of the turgescence of its wide open corolla and of its own petals that its haughtiness held it almost erect. Because it was not completely erect: with graciousness it bent over its stem which was fine and fragile. An intimate relationship intensely developed between me and the flower: I admired her and she seemed to feel admired. And she became so glorious in her apparition and was observed with such love that days went by and she did not wilt: her corolla remained wide open and swollen, fresh as a newborn flower. She lasted in beauty and life an entire week. Only then did she start to show signs of some fatigue. Then she died. It was with reluctance that I replaced her. And I never forgot her. The strange thing is that my maid asked me once out of the blue: “and that rose?” I didn’t ask which one. I knew. That rose that lived from love given at length was remembered because the woman had seen how I looked at the flower and transmitted to her the waves of my energy. She had blindly intuited that something had gone on between me and the rose. That rose-made me want to call it ‘Jewel of my life;’ because I often give things names-had so much instinct by nature that I and she had been able to live each other profoundly, as only can happen between beast and man.”

"i know the story of a rose." for JACK Quartet (June 2023)

Caleb Walker (they/them) is an experimental composer, conductor, performer, and improviser. Focused on the cross-roads of music composition and improvisation with environmental advocacy, ecological processes, and queer studies, Caleb strives for intrinsic organismic in their work. Currently based in Boston, Massachusetts, and having recently graduated from Berklee College of Music.