For marimba, vibraphone and piano
Spring is finally here. The magnolia’s dark pink buds are ready to burst with color and joy. Quiet and peaceful, I yearn to open to this new piece like these buds.
I sense the work, the crackling of the opening. I suddenly remember a dream I had several years ago. Standing in an open field, I am behind a camera ready to photograph a large white horse lying on a flowered couch. I cannot get the entire horse in my view finder; I am too close. I step back, and the clouds part. I look up and see the red glow of the peaks – fire on the mountain.
The dream filled me with love, sexuality up on the mountain, glowing and hot. This is where I need to go, into the heat of the fire, which is myself.
I hear the beginning, muted piano. The marimba and vibraphone use fingers on the instrument bars instead of mallets. The rhythms widen and deepen, a counterpoint. But always a linear pull.
The form my music takes is a stream of movement, a consciousness liquid enough to become something else at any moment. Lean and snake-like, it is continually circular and linear, transforming in a seamless continuity. I know it is good; I also doubt.
My piece smolders with the fire within me. I bring the fire of my life home – the urge to renew myself, to integrate and combine with others. Sacred and profane, intangible and tangible come together in a wonder and beauty. It spills off me, like seeds on a rich earth. Ripe and overflowing, succulent and juicy, the surrender is to the sweet body. The delicious needs and urges.
I finished Fire on the Mountain today. It was difficult to write, full of the energy of love, storm and pain, and finally the bursting of the heart to a quiet, open melody.
I am reminded again of my dream of the horse and the mountain. Often, I stand too close to love and intimacy. All I can see is the whiteness of love’s flanks and abdomen, but not the fine outline of the body, the suppleness of the neck and the quietly etched flair of the nostrils.
So I step back. What is the alternative?
Excerpted from Let Your Heart Be Broken, Life and Music from a Classical Composer © Tina Davidson, 2022.
Listen: Fire on the Mountain, marimba, vibraphone and piano:
Or on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2y5Z17bEilAiViMp9FMuJh
