m-M-H-B
Tayloe Harding
About this work:
m-M-H-B
(1999)
for Oboe and Piano
to my mother
For the last few years, I have been fascinated by the work since the 1970’s of numerous scholars and scientists regarding the physical evidence, across America, of the presence of Indo-European peoples here long before the 1492 Columbian "discovery." In fact it is the unearthing in New England, primarily in and around South Woodstock, Vermont, of stone megaliths, monuments, chambers, symbols and other artifacts that resemble ancient European Celtic work that has most captured my imagination. Though it is not known exactly when they were carved in America, the most interesting of these Vermont stones (though not the oldest) are similar to European ones that date from: 1) the eighth century BC in Iberia, 2) through some 700 years to the Roman invasions in Britain, 3) through a half dozen centuries more to the time of Celtic Christianity and St. Patrick in Ireland.
Concurrent to some degree with this fascination, though entirely unrelated until now, has been my own personal desire for many years to find just the right compositional medium and work to dedicate to my mother, the driving force behind my development as a composer and musician. I have found works to compose to dedicate to my father, to my wife, and to other significant adults in my life (my works for my children are not far off), but not yet to my mom. I have wanted to compose for her just the right work; that captures what she loves about music herself and not just what I love. It has not been easy.
I accepted a commission this past Spring from our fine faculty oboist at Valdosta State University, Susan Eischeid, to compose for her a solo work with one other instrument. A suite for just oboe & piano evolved in my mind for this occasion. I began work on it in March 1999.
As the four movements of m-M-H-B began to emerge in the recent months, it became more & more clear to me that this was the long awaited work to dedicate to my mother. Good thing, Mary Alice Moncure Harding turned 75 in August 1999, and as many close to me have said, "It is about time you honored her!" But, I have not just wanted the music to be realized and be dedicated to my mom. I wanted somehow to attach to this piece and gain further inspiration from something of a comparable, non-musical significance (as has become my compositional custom) that would relate to my mom, or to motherhood and what hers has meant to me.
And sure enough, a great deal of the import of the celtic ruins in Vermont that I have been studying recently was related to my interest in this new work in both coincidental and almost mystic ways. First of all, much of the pagan religion of the European Celts from the pre-Christian era centers around a fascination with fertility and the role of the mother in their race. The great (and small) stone monuments found in Vermont and recognized as being celtic in origin feature references to mothers, goddesses, and to fertility carved in Ogham script, a Indo-European bronze-age hieroglyph common throughout the western world for dozens of centuries. Much work has gone into translating this script, just as it has for much of the last millennium in Britain, Ireland and on the Iberian peninsula. And this work has revealed a few quite striking coincidences regarding the inscriptions on the Vermont stones.
Though not Roman versions of the letters 'm', 'M', 'H', and 'B', the Ogham script on the Vermont stones does suggest these letters and their connection with the same script of Irish stone carvings of later eras in Goidelic (the ancient Gaelic language brought by the pre-Christian Iberian celts to Ireland in the 4th century BC). Not only does this provide significant proof of Celtic habitation of America in the centuries before Christ, it also reflects an overwhelming coincidence with my mother, whose initials are MMH. The Ogham versions of the Roman (and Goidelic) letters M-H-B and M-H-M-B are carved into the Vermont stones to represent a particularly important pagan goddess who occupies a unique fascination in the general obsession of the ancient Irish celts for motherhood and fertility. The Goidelic and subsequent English translation of the M-H (or M-H M) is Mathair-Mabo or "Mother Goddess of Heroes," and when combined with the 'B' further illustrates the character Byanu , the actual name of this ancient goddess. Finally, the Ogham version of the small 'm' is a separate indication, not combined with M-H-(M)-B in the inscriptions, and it refers to the macamh or "noble son." I consider my self neither noble or a hero, but the son connotation here is too strong to ignore. And, though mom's initials MMH are not part of any Ogham inscription in Vermont per se, with the addition of the macamh to the front an mMH is obtained.
Each of the four movements of m-M-H-B is titled after one of the four letters. Though not literal translations of the letters (the letters have no literal translation and do not represent anything individually other than the 'B' when connected to the others), the titles do feature a single word that I have associated to each letter. These words (macamh, Mathair, Herms, and Byanu) do have significant connection to the letters, if not literal translations. Only Herms does not have an indirect linking with the Ogham script for 'H'. Herm is an English word for rectangular shaped stones upon which Ogham scripts are found, and there are some of these in the Vermont find. This is in sharp contrast to the fact that most of the Vermont scripts are found on stones carved or arranged to represent fertility in male phalluses and female clefts, common for monuments of the pre-Christian eras.
Even though the composition m-M-H-B has an intended connection to the druids (the philosophers of the pre-Christian Irish Celts), there is no intended connection in the musical fabric to the work of the bards (the musicians and artists of the same race). The only intended correlation between the four letters and the musical nature of a particular movement titled after one is that the second movement, entitled Mathair (literally 'mother' in Goidelic) is highly melodic and traditionally harmonized to reflect my mother's love for this type of western musical language. Hymn-like, it is reflective of the inevitable course of Christianizing that the celts of European underwent and that the descendants of pre-Columbian Iberian celts in America (the Algonquin indians) did likewise centuries later.
Year composed: 1999
Duration: 00:17:00
Ensemble type: Solo instrument, non-keyboard:Unknown
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: oboe and piano