Lamentation
Katharine O'Connell
About this work:
Lamentation (2009)
This piece was commissioned by the Ohio Music Teachers’ Association, which graciously allowed me to choose the instrumentation for the work. I had intended to write a work for solo cello, but when I met bass/baritone William Dempsey as I began the project, I knew his voice would sound beautiful with the cello. I enjoyed the challenge of writing for two instruments in the same range.
In researching another work with a war theme, I came across some writings by American prisoners of war and was deeply moved by their descriptions of their captivities. The men struggled with isolation and solitary confinement, and were at times overwhelmed by the feeling of abandonment and the uncertainty of when they would be released. Many of them were consumed by rage, while others survived by conjuring memories of home and their pasts.
At the same time as I read these memoirs, I found a book of poems by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While the writers were from a different religious and political tradition than the Americans, their struggles and anguish were much the same. I was immediately struck by how similar the Middle Eastern men’s poems were to the Biblical Psalms, which, of course, originated in the same part of the world. Poetry was such an essential part of their culture that for the first several years of incarceration when the men were not allowed pen or paper, they wrote in toothpaste on plastic cups, and passed these “cup poems” to each other. Later, when they were allowed writing implements, they wrote longer works which were later published by one of the American lawyers working in their defense.
After having read the prisoners’ poems and the war journals, I decided write a piece portraying the situation of a prisoner of war in solitary confinement, with no immediate hope for release. I took my text from the Psalms and the Book of Job, which express suffering and longing so eloquently.
In seeking to create the “sound world” for the narrator in this work, I listened to and studied Middle Eastern music, particularly that of Iraq, Turkey and Iran. Each country has a rich and ancient musical tradition with its own system of ornamentation and modes, rivaling or surpassing the complexity of Western Classical music. I was particularly interested in how passionately expressive the vocal writing was and how quarter tones and ornaments helped create a feeling of longing and beauty. I used elements of Iraqi and Kurdish scales as the basis of my tonal system and tried to open up the vocal part with ornaments and a heightened emotional sense. In the piece, the cello serves to underscore the voice, adding rhythmic urgency and expanded range to express the narrator’s emotional state.
---Katharine O’Connell
Year composed: 2009
Duration: 00:16:10
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with One Non-keyboard Instrument
Instrumentation: 1 Cello, 1 Bass-Baritone