Rising – Bryars, "Animals and Birds" from A Native Hill
Gavin Bryars – “Animals and Birds”
from A Native Hill
Sunrise, Thursday May 14
Yesterday a mountain. Today a hill.
May we tell The Curve what to do: Tomorrow, flat.
We return again to Gavin Bryars’ A Native Hill. It has become a familiar place – a homecoming. A house built for us, with plenty of room for breathing.
These are the times when the creature rests,
communes with himself or with his kind,
takes pleasure in being alive.
Words with new meaning.
They balance the stark realism of living.
there is cold and hunger;
there is the likelihood that death, when it comes,
will be violent.
We love to sing movement 10, Animals and Birds, for many reasons.
The words.
Transparency.
The purposeful simplicity.
Its pauses:
Gavin takes a moment between sentences...
for whistling.
(Would we should do the same!)
The pauses provide space for Wendell’s words to land, for the mist to clear.
Time is deferred at these moments, through cadences that rest, but do not summarize.
Instead, a whistle.
As if improvised.
But there is peace, too,
and I think that the intervals of peace
are frequent and prolonged.
Animals and Birds is left unresolved...a thought to be continued, a life to consider.
Moving forward.
After the pause.
- The Whole Team @ The Crossing
A Native Hill
x. Animals and Birds
music by Gavin Bryars
words by Wendell Berry, from A Native Hill
recorded live in concert October 13, 2019
at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
audio by Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services
video art by Dan Cole
A Native Hill is a gift from the composer to The Crossing
We are grateful.
* * *
There is in the lives of the animals and birds a great peacefulness. It is not all fear and flight, pursuit and killing. That is part of it, certainly; and there is cold and hunger; there is the likelihood that death, when it comes, will be violent. But there is peace, too, and I think that the intervals of peace are frequent and prolonged. These are the times when the creature rests, communes with himself or with his kind, takes pleasure in being alive.