Mutterwasser
| Date | 8th August 2017 |
|---|---|
| URL | https://vimeo.com/246409030#t=81m17s |
| Format | Video |
When commissioning Sydney Conservatorium of Music composers to write choral music for this concert, I chose the poetry of Nelly Sachs for a number of reasons. First, she was a superb poet, recognised in 1966 with the Nobel Prize for Literature. Second, she was a Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany, fleeing into Sweden in 1940 with her elderly mother, remaining there for the rest of her life. Third, she had a working relationship with one of the other composers in the festival, Moses Pergament, and possibly knew his brother Simon Parmet, so there was a Scandinavian Jewish connection. Finally, her poetry explores diaspora and Jewish identity as a woman, and I was conscious of the under-representation of female voices in the festival. I am very grateful to Damien Ricketson for recruiting such talented composers to participate. I would like to thank Victoria Pham for her beautiful setting, and Dr Jennifer M Hoyer, whose work The Space of Words: Exile and Diaspora in the Works of Nelly Sachs (Boydell & Brewster, 2014) inspired the choice of poetry. This performance lasts approximately 5 minutes, 33 seconds.
Dr Joseph Toltz
Composers Note: Out of all the poems in Nelly Sachs’ anthology, Mutterwasser (Vorspruch zu Abram in Salz) with its evocative imagery and melancholy yet spiritual rhythm was immediately musical to me. Aside from being a composer, I am a student of archeology and art history. The integration of ancient texts, Sachs’ words conjured images of revelation, diaspora, exile whilst painting colours of nostalgia and rejuvenation. The complexity of her poetry offered me the opportunity to explore my love of the human voice. Hopefully the clarity of her ideas and her voice can be heard throughout my musical interpretation of Mutterwasser.
© Victoria Pham
Permission for the setting of this poem has been granted by the publishers Suhrkamp Verlag. Mutterwasser is part of a collection of poetry entitled Flügel der Prophetie, and can be found in Nelly Sachs, Werke, Kommentierte Ausgabe in vier Bänden – Band I + II: Gedichte © Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin 2010.
