Berlin Songs, No. 1 (Excerpt 2, Ending) by Jason Thorpe Buchanan - I. The Orchestra is Not a Scene

Berlin Songs - I. The Orchestra is Not a Scene (Excerpt 2, Ending)

This collaborative project was initiated when composer Jason Thorpe Buchanan, conductor Thomas Heuser, and poet Kate Thorpe first met as Fulbright fellows in Marburg, Germany, August of 2010. The potential subject matter for Kate's soon to be written poetry was discussed at length, exploring themes such as distance, time, memory, culture, and the creative process, as well as the role of art in modern society.

In later correspondence she described her interest in "making connections and erasing distinctions (new growth, life, oddness, distortion, re-seeing of the everyday world)" and "having a central strand that remains constant", for other ideas to "grow or be juxtaposed against.... I think of a spiral often-that you're in roughly the same place but further out/in-also different." In composing these songs, my intention was to retain Kate's idea of a spiral, where one remains at a fixed point spatially and observes their surroundings change, thus shifting perspectives while physically remaining in stasis. This principle is applied harmonically and thematically through polytonality and the superimposition of germinal pitch and rhythmic materials, while simultaneously retaining a strong sense of centricity.

I have found that the opportunity to write these songs has come at a stage in my life where, as an American composer living in Germany, my mind is constantly filled with thoughts, questions, and doubts regarding my own aesthetic values and national identity. How can the familiar and unknown be reconciled-- the comfortable and the unsettling, the romantic and the avant-garde, the old and the new? These are questions that I have asked myself over and over again throughout the process of composing these works. My hope is that these issues are reflected in the musical atmosphere within which these songs exist, alongside the tension, fragmentation, decay, roughness, expression and space alluded to in Kate's poetry.
- Jason Thorpe Buchanan

The original version of this work (for soprano, baritone, flute, oboe/english horn, violin, violoncello, percussion, and piano) was premiered at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, Germany on March 22, 2011 as part of the Pan-European Fulbright conference by American Fulbright musicians studying in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Hungary, and the Netherlands.

Total duration (3 songs): 18 minutes; Composed December 2010 - February 2011 in Hamburg, Germany
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I. The Orchestra is Not a Scene - text by Katherine Thorpe

We thought
we could take a thing and run but an idea is not concrete

while the streets of the buildings fade, big branches
onto the pavement. It is evening

here where ideas fall into places over ideas
straight into a ball field. To get covered or buried? Cheap? (A vacant street. A building to sleep in. To paint.)

A Kingdom for a stream? A beach we have made (really). A branch for a day, a dream. A line (S3). To get into an idea

of a thing. A train? (Headed East.)

For more information, please visit http://www.jasonthorpebuchanan.com

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