Good poems make good music ? Hopefully so. I was so inspired yesterday that it seemed every sentence, every phrase that I saw could turn into music. When I drank coffee and visited my friend Dian Rosita (Tita)'s blog, which always combine her fantastic photographs with poems (her's is one of my favorite blogs which I visited every few days), I found an exquisite, poignant picture of Frozen Trees with a poem by an unknown author. Suddenly I found my hands already writing the music. It is for SATB choir, and I gave the altos the melody. Its low register with quite a far distance from the sopranos gives the piece a dark & brooding colour & mood . In fact, the poem could be by Robert Frost ; it had that sort of lonely feeling of his. It is appropriately dedicated to Tita who had indirectly provided me with the inspiration, a combination of the poem and the photograph. Today I had a look again at the music, and it sounded fresh, simple and contained some delicious harmonies, so I decided to keep it.
I am imagining what would happen to great composers of the past if blogs would have been invented then. Britten, for example, would have had the time of his life. By the way, you might be interested in visiting Tita's blog : http://dianrosita.blogspot.com
Yesterday was indeed a good day. Another friend of mine, a very young but very talented soprano Deta Astari who is now studying in Utrecht Conservatory won the First Prize of the Princess Cristina Concours. I knew she would ; I had good vibrations about it (besides I heard her in a recital in Jakarta which confirmed her great talent to me) which I told her a few days before through email. No, this is not a kind of Nostradamus-ian prophecy which are always realized AFTER the real event has occured. I just had good premonitions, that's all. In fact I had prepared a gift for her, a song cycle based on poems by ... yes, who else ... my one and only Sapardi Djoko Damono . Deta is also a big fan of his poems. So, these are his poems which I really wanted to set to music, but are not included in my cantata Ars Amatoria . It's mostly about rain (and other wet things, like the lake !) and of course about love. 6 songs in total. Can't wait to hear Deta singing them . Congratulations, and bravissima, Deta Astari.
And spring is definitely here to stay. Life is beautiful, don't you think ?