Talita cumi

CD Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre LMIPCCD009, 1999

In this work, the composer used a poem by Oscar Milosz, Lithuanian-French poet and mystic, where one can find the words: Enfant! C’est une douleur que l’on n’exprime pas (Child! This sorrow is beyond expression). Though he does not aim to convey the semantics of a poetic text in his music, this line can be perceived programmatically. The musical material of Talita cumi is based on three sets of sounds, each of which consists of 30 non-recurrent pitches and rhythnmical values attributed to them. The sounds are placed within three semitones F-F#, G#-A and B-C), and each of them is divided into microintervals of 3.333... cents - the smallest section of a pitch distinguished and perceived by the ear. The permutation of this set containing 30 microtones makes it possible to produce new, ever changing sound constellations, which create the impression of a seemingly stable flow of sounds but constantly renewing itself and sparkling with various colours. Here the computer serves not only as a tool enabling the composer to achieve hard-to-intone and mathematically determined microtones in narrow space, but it is also necessary to eliminate a vocal vibrato, which hinders the absolutely exact pitch of microintervals. By the way of attributing a single sound to every syllable of the poem’s text, the composer comes to the number 30 again, which corresponds to the semantic sections of the text and the groups of the syllables. During the performance of the work, the group of singers (the “extras”) mimic to sing the syllables of the poetic text without a sound. A hint at a non-expressed cry is also hidden in Oscar Milosz’s poem, where despite the absence of particular quotations, one can discover associations with the New Testament.

Helga de la Motte