comsing music Archives - Tina Davidson

for string quartet

June 28

Cody, Wyoming, the first afternoon, is dark and overcast. At night, I cannot see the full moon. But today is blue and so bright; the mountains are clear and tremendous. As I walk, I am reminded of other solitary walks and weeping landscapes – green, green, meadows and black grey skies.

The new work I am hearing is different. I feel its weight and am reluctant to take up the responsibility. Bleached Thread, Sister Thread, commissioned for the Mendelssohn Quartet, takes the title from one of my sister’s, Eva Davidson, poems. These are old issues; sister bonds, attachments, and delicate fine stuff – a sense of joy and release.

Gratitude reappears in my mind. I find it difficult to accept gifts without payment. So used to a bad turn, a broken heart, it is almost beyond my understanding to accept the gift of returned health without sacrifice. Pain has always defined me. Will gratitude now make me one of them? One of whom?

Opening one’s self to grace.

July 15

I begin to hear. Quietly, and with bursts of light, a song emerges out of rubbing – a soft shuddering

what was gathered or what was learned;

and now you and I will tell each other

what we know, that to be distant

is sometimes closer than to be near. (1)

September 16

The shape of the quartet keeps changing. In this piece, I am guided more by the material than the form. There is a dark black energy in my stomach. Despite the clear, calm weather, the days are unsure.

At first I was conflicted over the work moving a direction I had not planned. But when I viewed the construction with curiosity instead of tension, the work reveals itself. The energy of the music is fierce in its optimism, constantly moving forward and changing. I feel the animation of health restored, of a future fullness refreshed.

Yet, still, still – a disconnection. Despite the celebration, a fracture in my life shows itself. The piece ends in a deep sadness. I cannot control this; I only allow what is.

Excerpted from Let Your Heart Be Broken, Life and Music from a Classical Composer by Tina Davidson. © Tina Davidson, 2022

(1) excerpt from Bleached Thread, Sister Thread, poem by Eva Davidson

In the Garden, pastel by Tina Davidson

from my music journal

September 28

I consider the interval of a fifth and wonder what is at the edge of sound. The fifth is a magic interval, circular and round, empty and full. It has an eerie hollowness to it. I am reminded of the soul. Without having actual form or substance, it is the heart of existence.

Where does pitch begin? Where does rhythm, which is circular, start to spiral up? Must I always write in rhythms, or can I slow the upward turning? What is beauty?

October 12

“When you sing,” says Saint Augustine, “You pray twice.” Crickets chirp with candor and cars swoosh by. Sound is sacred in all its manifestations. The voice comes out of the dark, dank breath, truth warmed by my core. My vision is that we all find ourselves as the music and song.

July 7

How do I write of death and connection? The last section of the orchestra piece is clear, starting as the still point. Slowly circling, moving up, the last notes breath into an ecstasy of sound—the kind I love and can hardly bear not to write – swirling blissful love. But how do I get there? The first two thirds of the piece are blank.

The image of the laundry keeps appearing in my eye, a white dazzling continuous curl of fabric. I hear the wind rushing down the mountains, around my face, in my ears, glancing off my legs, stopping. Then picking up again. The rush of life, at its apex, almost a distortion.

December 15

My music is always my guide. The long rhythmic passages I write in most of my pieces are a marathon run of the soul, the process of surrendering to the larger unnamable whole.

At first I run light-footed, and the rhythms are enthusiastic and playful. My intellect enjoys the gait, the wind, and the smell of the earth. I begin to tire a bit, and I am absorbed in the pounding of my soles on the ground, the intricacies and overlaps. But soon my mind weakens to the muscular fatigue, and the rhythms swell.

Now there is no energy left, I can go no further. As I start to fall, there is a moment of pure supplication; my heart leaves my body and lifts upward to the divine – to the color and sound that is beyond words. There is no hesitation, no intellectual chatter, just a slow, graceful fall upward.

Listen: Paper, Glass, String and Wood, for two string quartets. I. Paper:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNOBbt1EHrQ

It is My Heart Singing, music by Tina Davidson, Albany Records, TROY842, 2006

Performed by the Cassatt Quartet (Muneko Otani, Jennifer Leshnower, Tawnya Popoff, Nicole Johnson), Stephen Manes and Caroline Stinson

Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/My-Heart-Singing-Tina-Davidson/dp/B000FO443K