- The Mad Song / Duo ObSolute: Riivo Kallasmaa (oboe), Jaanika Kuusik (soprano), Doris Hallmägi (electronics)
The Mad Song (2020) for soprano, oboe and electronics is based on W. B. Yeats’s poem "The Song of Wandering Aengus".
Ancient stories are brimming with wisdom, beauty and endless possibilities of interpretation. For this poem, Yeats was inspired by Greek and Irish mythology and, naturally by his own life that passed in futile attempts to earn the love of the beautiful and unattainable Maud Gonne. "The Mad Song" is a fairytale where the activity and metaphors can be interpreted in several ways, but for me the word ‘mad’ denotes the (daredevil) boldness necessary to rise above the daily routine – in order to expand one’s mind and notice all those wonderful opportunities and perspectives that life is offering in its multiplicity.
There is beauty in a person’s aspiration towards goals and dreams, the perpetual hope that gives strength to live, all the while being shadowed by uncertainty in the future. Everything may change at any moment.
I have tried to approach the text and the musical material dramaturgically. Three roles – the narrator, the protagonist Aengus and the environment where the events take place – shift among the musicians and switch places. Mostly, the narrator is the soprano but from time to time she takes on the role of the wind, forest or a mystical seductress. The oboe may be Aengus himself or somebody who is observing his activity from afar, and electronics are mostly responsible for the creation of the environment of the events; sometimes he even sneaks into the bodies of the narrator and other characters of the stories.
Old Aengus looks back at his life and its turning point when he went fishing at night and pulled a silver fish from the creek. Suddenly, the fish turned into a beautiful woman who disappeared into the sunrise, calling his name. Aengus spends the rest of his life searching for this woman.
Mingo Rajandi
2020
12'
soprano, oboe, electronics
Text: William Butler Yeats
Fp: Duo ObSolute: Riivo Kallasmaa (oboe), Jaanika Kuusik (soprano), Doris Hallmägi (electronics); September 15, 2020, Arvo Pärt Centre, Estonian Music Days
Commissioned by: Estonian Music Days
