Finnish composer Olli Kortekangas wrote "Seven Songs for Planet Earth" to focus on man's relationship with nature. He constructed it for a large chorus, orchestra, soloists and a children's choir choosing one text from St. Francis of Assisi and four poems by American farmer, academic and activist Wendell Berry.
The fourth movement, Yoik, consists of nonsense syllables, quasi-yodeling vocal calls or echoes, mimics the ancient singing style of the Sami people living in the northern part of Scandinavia. The sixth segment The Beat, is performed by children enunciating a text they developed during a workshop as they manipulate pebble instruments to emulate rain and other earthly sounds.
Kortekangas was searching several years ago for a text for a piece commissioned by the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble when he came across some of Berry's poems. He did not know Berry's work and never heard of him. The encounter was love at first sight. After immersing himself in the poetry, he became convinced that Berry is a great poet, a great thinker and that rare somebody who lives the way he preaches.
The poem a composer sets to music, Kortekangas explains, has to say something to him and have a certain musical quality that matches his way of writing. His goal was to create an intellectual and emotional continuum. But he also wanted to include a more political text and he particularly likes Berry's intertwining of religious and/or spiritual pondering, political statements and simple questions of everyday life. For example, Berry's wonderfully sarcastic "We Who Prayed and Wept" is actually a very serious poem about the absurdity of consumerism and the freedom we think we have."
"Seven Songs For Planet Earth" is a joint commission by the Choral Arts Society of Washington and the Tempere Philharmonic Orchestra of Finland. According to Norman Scribner, music director of CAS, it is well organized and singable. He cites the evocative textures that arrest the ear, rhythms notable for their intense motor energy, lower notes that are icy clean and simple chords splashed into complex chords to enhance the theme that the Planet Earth is our island home, fragile and strong, yet needing our care.
Because he did not want a standard finale, Kortekangas felt that The Beat, with its big percussive sound, was essential for the sixth, next to last, movement. The narration performed by children situated on balconies at either side of the stage and holding their pebble instruments over the side of the rail seemed the optimal dramatic movement to supersede the expected closing.
Emily Cary is a prize-winning teacher and novelist whose articles about entertainers appear regularly in the DC Examiner. She is a genealogist, an avid traveler, and a researcher who incorporates landscapes, cultures and the power of music in her books and articles.
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