The poetic style of Miklavž Komelj so enchanted me that in the spring, I set to music three poems from his collection "Liebestod" for soprano and flute. On this occasion, I also got to meet the poet in person, and soon a strong friendship bond was formed between us.

We share many common interests, among which an interest in archaeology and, consequently, in the culture of ancient Egypt stands out. I mentioned to him that I would very much like to set some texts from the Egyptian Book of the Dead to music, and in this regard, I asked him for some advice, especially of a literary-stylistic nature. On this occasion, he casually sent me his Isis's Lullaby. In its beautiful verses, I found the inspiration that encouraged me to abandon my original idea for the moment and immediately dedicate myself to setting Komelj's poem to music.

The piece is intended for performance by a mixed choir and percussion. Among these, crotales and a large wind-gong with various playing techniques stand out. Other percussion instruments are finger cymbals, shaker, mark-tree, gran cassa, tomtoms, and frame-drum.

In the choir, the narrative role is left to female voices, which represent the intimate mother-son binomial (in the poetry, the mother is represented by the goddess Isis, who sings to her son Horus in the first person), while the appearance of male voices or the entire choir reveals the (incomplete) external world, over which Horus will have to reign.
Because of its musical form, the subtitle Madrigal seemed appropriate for the piece, characterized by a close connection between the text and music, executed with the help of (universally understandable) musical-rhetorical figures, especially at key words.

The entire composition is based on a hexatonic scale of D-F-F#-G#-A#-B and its transpositions. An interesting property of this scale is that it becomes mirror symmetrical upon the octave transposition of the first note. If we mirror it again along a fictional axis and connect the notes, a mystic symbol - the Eye of Horus - appears to us in a stylised form.
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Performers:
Slovenian Philharmonic Chorus
Špela Cvikl - Percussions
Marco Ozbič - Conductor

7.2.2020 - Gallus Hall - Ljubljana

New tracks tagged #My Compositions