Rising – Ešenvalds, The First Tears
Ēriks Ešenvalds – The First Tears
Sunrise, Thursday April 30
Color.
We got into this whole choral thing because of color.
Breath/Voice/Words
Because choral colors mean things to our ears.
To our bodies.
Hearts.
It’s not important, just a matter of breath and life
Ēriks Ešenvalds’ The First Tears is a color bath. A soundscape inspired by barren Baltic lands, Northern Lights, and the textural explorations and innovations that embody contemporary Latvian choral music. It was not written for us, but it feels like it – phrases that demand commitment, lines that soar and collapse, echoes, shouts, intertwined lives.
It is like The Crossing Knot – singers, connected through song.
But you can stay and keep me company for a while if you like.
We would love singing The First Tears even if it didn’t have words or a message or a history, the writing itself gives us so much to work with, to listen to, to think about, and with which to commune. In fact, the symphonic nature of the humming moments, with percussion and quiet tone bells, requires we dig down and sing from our deepest place. We do love those humming moments.
But, the true love of singing The First Tears lies in our desire to tell stories. Our stories.
Here is a story.
Raven created the world:
he is both a god and a bird with a man inside.
But until this moment in Raven’s life
he did not understand what he had created–
that everything living has a heart and a soul,
all things are born and die.
Desire has consequences,
and great wisdom is achieved through sorrow.
We understand.
We love to sing it.
We grieve.
–The Whole Team @ The Crossing
We encourage you to read along with the words to this one!
The First Tears
music by Ēriks Ešenvalds
words of an Inuit legend
recorded live in concert at The Month of Moderns
June 11, 2017 at the Icebox Project Space at CraneArts, Philadelphia
audio by Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services
percussion by Ted Babcock
flute by Elijah J. Thomas
video art "Bear Under Stars" by Christopher St. John (2019, mixed media on paper)
* * *
It was Raven who created the world.
One day, Raven was out on the water in his kayak,
When he saw what he thought was an island.
He rowed up to it and tried to land his kayak,
But a huge mouth opened up and swallowed him.
It was not an island at all, but an enormous whale!
As he went down the whale’s throat, Raven thought he would die,
But instead he saw the whale’s ribs around him like ivory columns.
In the distance he could hear a sound,
As if someone was banging on a drum.
He could see a light. A mysterious light.
Raven followed the light and went further inside the Whale,
Where he came to a strange little house.
He peered in through the window,
Then knocked on the door and went inside.
He came into a small room,
and there in the corner sat the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
“Won’t you marry me and come out into the World with me?"
The girl replied, “I do not belong in the World,
just as you do not belong inside the Whale.
But you can stay and keep me company for a while if you like.
However, I must warn you never to touch my drum or my lamp."
The girl then stood up and started to dance.
When she danced quickly, the Whale soared through the ocean.
When she danced slowly, the Whale rested gently near the surface.
The girl then stopped dancing and walked straight out the door.
“Where are you going?"
The girl replied, “It’s not important, just a matter of breath and life."
“Who are you and why do you live inside the Whale?"
The girl replied, “I am the Whale’s soul and my drum is the Whale’s
heart.
My lamp must never go out or I will die,
And there will be nobody to beat my drum.
I sing and dance all day and night, and never grow tired."
But when the girl next left the room, Raven did something dreadful.
He ignored what the girl had said to him.
He touched the lamp.
Raven burnt himself on the lamp, and dropped it on the floor.
It hit the floor, and the flame went out.
The girl fell in through the door and dropped down dead;
The house collapsed and became a pile of dead whale bones.
Raven suddenly was all alone, inside a mess of blood and fat.
Raven clambered back up the Whale’s throat,
Up through its blowhole, up onto the top of its dead body.
Raven flew higher and higher, far from the sea.
He flew to the earth and sat at the whale’s side,
And there he wept the first tears the world had ever known.