New York Requiem is for solo voice and piano.
Source: | booklet of cd ECM Records 4857334 |
♫ New York Requiem
© ECM Records 4857334
Entire pieces can grow from an old melody in her neatly kept notebooks: New York requiem came about after a friend, who often sang at AIDS-related memorial services, asked Monk for a piece. An eight-bar snlppet from her notebook fitted his voice and seemed emotionally appropriate. She declined to use the standard requiem text; though most of her music is vocal, she prefers 'phonemes', syllables with no specific meaning. 'Words point to a particular meaning,' she says, 'I like image or gesture that's evocative but which is more poetry of the senses. I'm trying to bypass discursive thought, which is verbal. I'm trying to get to an essential communication.'
Author: | David Patrick Stearns |