Rising – Ratniece, Saline
Santa Ratniece – Saline
Sunrise, Thursday May 21
Speak out, you silent rocks, talk to me.
How are you doing?
A new day and with it, the story of a lake.
And, of a mountain.
Speak out, you mountains, talk to me!
Told in the extraordinary color world of Santa Ratniece.
In Santa’s Saline we sing the story of the mountain through shimmers found in the slow bending of pitches; we sing of the lake in deep breaths and exotic, exaggerated vibrato. All is still and wonder.
Is it true that the sea used to be ours?
Santa writes of her subject – her inspiration:
Lake Van is one of the world’s largest salt lakes; its water does not flow away either above ground or below ground. Implacable water gathers and is concentrated right here—as melodies that soon cover everything, as a great thirst for a rain. An unquenchable thirst that can only evaporate. Sounds and emotions, hidden in the saltwater, do not sink…
We love singing Saline for its sound world, its fragile texture.
And, for the dividend of waiting.
Santa is patient – these stories are ancient; we live long in a murky haze of breath until, finally, from our misty sound world, melody emerges, blossoms, and overwhelms.
The wind blows indistinct sounds toward us
and then blows them away again.
It shakes up, stretches out,
and spills melodies upon one another.
Yet, the moment of melody, like us, is brief.
How can they help crying, those who remember you?
Good morning.
Be well.
- The Whole Team @ The Crossing
Saline
music by Santa Ratniece
words by Hovhannes Shiraz, sung in Armenian
recorded live in concert at The Month of Moderns 3,
June 30, 2013 at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
audio by Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services
video art by Paul du Coudray
* * *
The composer writes:
How can a woman’s prayer move the air in the silence beside a mountain? With mute movements she bends down under a mercilessly burning sun, in a place with a dry, desert-like breath, untouchable ivory-colored cliffs, and cracked, chapped earth, salt, and sand. In this parched landscape sleeps Saline, where the world’s tears dry out. The lake closest to the souls, the Dead Sea, has gathered within itself all suffering and worry. In the beginning—quiet, lonely melodies in Armenian from Lake Van (1,640 meters above sea level). Many centuries ago this was Armenia; therefore the melodies echo Armenian folk music.
How is Van Sea doing? †
Speak out, you silent rocks, talk to me.
How are you doing?
Speak out, you mountains, talk to me!
Speak out, you mountains, scream, you mountains,
Is it true that the sea used to be ours?
We were separated by a bad slave,
who took our sea and our land.
How can they help crying, those who remember you?
Speak out, mountains of Armenia, speak out.
Speak out, you mountains, scream, you mountains,
Masis is the crown of Armenia. §
† Lake Van is the largest lake in Turkey, a saline soda lake with no outlet
§ Masis = Mount Ararat, a dormant volcano with Lake Van in its shadow