Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music ... - NewMusicBox

NewMusicBox May 2003
13. From The Bible to Blake
[Alberto Grau and Jorge Cordoba are often speaking through interpreter, Christian Grases]
TOM HALL: I am the music director of the Baltimore Choral Society here in the United States.
To my immediate right is Stephen Paulus who is a resident of the Twin Cities, right here in St.
Paul, Minnesota. To his right is Jorge Córdoba, from Mexico, whose wonderful piece on a poem
of William Blake we just heard a few minutes ago. We have a saying for that choir that sang your
piece—Those guys have got game! And to his right is Alberto Grau from Venezuela. We are
delighted to have him. And to his right is our good friend, Christian who I understand is going to
translate. We are grateful to have you here to help us out with that. Tonight we are going to hear
Steve and Alberto's work sung by the VocalEssence, as well as the Dale Warland Singers, and we
just heard Jorge's piece just a few minutes ago. So, why don't we start at your end, Alberto?
Could you tell us a little bit about the piece that you wrote for the Dale Warland Singers, and give
us a little background as to what we might expect tonight?
ALBERTO GRAU: I chose the text in Latin, because I thought this was better for a world
symposium and that this text praises God. The piece is divided into several parts, and in some of
the parts, the main thing is to experiment with the consonants, and how those consonants should
be sung, like the percussion.
TOM HALL: We should note that his text is Psalm 32 from the Vulgate. "Give praise to God
upon the harp, play upon the ten-stringed psaltery, sing to him a new song, sing skillfully with a
strong voice." It is a text that many of us are familiar with. And indeed, you assigned separate
notes, for example in the word "con-fi-te-mine." It is a really wonderful effect. Jorge, how about
your piece? You set a beautiful poem by William Blake, which I just thought was particularly
poignant and special text for this kind of gathering. Beautiful text. Tell us a little bit about that.
JORGE CÓRDOBA: I will try to speak English—I would confess that for me it was very
difficult to find this text. When I received the invitation for this symposium, it was a little late for
the deadline. I looked in many books of my friends, and I could find nothing. I was very worried.
I searched in the Bible; nothing stood out. I prayed and I prayed, and nothing came to me. And
then September 11 happened, and I was very depressed after this notice, and I was very afraid,
because I thought—if this happened in the US, what would happen next? This was very
frightening. Then I continued to try and find a good text, and I went to a bookstore that was
starting to close, and I found the book of William Blake. I began to read it, and I found this poem,
"The Divine Image," and I felt a real contact and my heart cried and my feelings began to flow and
I thought that this is the poem that I wish to give to the people that come to the symposium.
And the curious thing about this is that I wrote the piece very quickly. Sometimes it is the idea in
the air, and it could arrive at any moment; it can be written walking, and like thunder it comes.
And I was at a concert of 20th century music, and the idea just came, and I said, "That's it! That's
my composition!" It was very complicated to hear the music at the same time I was receiving,
Composers’ Dialogue #1, 08/06/2002