"Fourteen Miles: My First Love Story," is the opening track from MacAdam-Somer's new CD, "My First Love Story," a revolutionary solo album featuring MacAdam-Somer on voice, violin, viola, and percussive dance.

Out June 23 on A-Side Records.

Fourteen Miles: My First Love Story - Eden MacAdam-Somer

No One To Ask - for solo performer

“All is still. No living soul in sight. There is no one to ask. The world is feeding. The wind scarcely turns the leaves and the birds are tired singing...We are alone. There is no one to ask.”  - from All That Fall

Beckett’s writing captures all too clearly the cyclical nature of existence. The pulse of speech, halting footsteps, the drone of familiar tunes – all contribute to a feeling of inevitability and repetition. In All That Fall, a trip to and from the railway station becomes a halting, relentless march through life; speculation over a late train, rumination on the merciless progression of time.

Similarly, Wilhelm Muller’s Der Winterreise tells the story of a young traveler whose path leads him to love and security, then abandonment and loneliness. The cycle ends with a bleak image of a hurdy-gurdy player, (Der Leierrman), who plies his trade at the edge of town, harassed by dogs and ignored by villagers. Franz Schubert’s bleak setting of the poem emphasizes the never-ending pulse of the organ, a metaphor for life.

Beckett considered Schubert a “friend in suffering” and the composer’s music is often present in Beckett’s dramatic works. In my mind, the incessant shuffling of footsteps in All That Fall is no different from the drone of the neglected organ-grinder – relentless, painfully slow and seemingly endless reminders of our journey through mortality.


No One to Ask

FiddleGarden

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