Conversation with a Stone (Gespraech mit dem Stein) (Rozmowa z kamieniem)
for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Women's Choir, Oboe, Violoncello & Piano.
Text: Wislawa Szymborska
Hebrew translation:: Rafi Weichert
Sung in Polish and Hebrew
Program notes:
The work was commissioned by POLIN Museum (Museum for the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw) for the opening event of the museum in Israel and was performed in a concert version in November 2014 in Tel-Aviv. The work is based on one of the most known poems by the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel Prize winner and one of the most admired poets of our times.
The poem was written in the Polish language and was translated into Hebrew by Raphi Wiechert. The idea to compose the piece in two languages has double meaning, opposite to each other.
First, it symbolizes the new cultural dialogue between Poland and Israel, so the two languages in one composition based on a poem by Szymborska who is very much admired in Israel, makes it speak to the hearts of Polish and Israelis. (The relationship between the two people were very complicated based on the past).
The second opposite meaning is the dialogue between a stone and a human-being. This is an impossible dialogue, they speak in a totally different language. Here the two languages emphasizes the fact that this is a non-dialogue.
The poem speaks about a woman who wants to enter the stone and explore its content, its treasures, its structure, its meaning. The woman is excited, full of curiosity energy and emotions. She understands the fact that she is mortal and has limited time. Szymborska, in her poem, does not specify the age of the woman but I felt it should be a young woman because she is so determined to find out the secrets of the stone that she invents all kind of reasons and methods why the stone should let her enter. This kind of energy and curiosity and, if I may say, naivety, one usually finds in young people.
The stone, on the other hand, does not feel anything. She is cold and uninterested to make any dialogue. She is disturbed by the young woman and tries, in every way possible, to make her give up and go away. In my music, I made the stone more human than in the original poem by letting her develop her musical style. At the beginning she is cold and non-emotional. Later on she is trying to use all kinds of musical styles to get closer to the young woman to persuade her to go away. The stone is amused by the girl. She says she cannot laugh but at the end she cannot help laughing until she almost gets mad from laughter but as she is a stone, she does not break.
I chose to have 2 choirs, one which goes with the stone and one which goes with the girl but also this is confusing and mixed as they, sometimes, unite and sing together. The 2 choirs are echoing the two characters, emphasize what they say and sometimes, especially with the stone, they say what she (the stone) cannot say or cannot react. But the choirs have also a narrator part. They tell the story.
The whole story is about the human-being's in-ability to understand what is beyond her. The one who has consciousness, (the girl), tries to understand the one who has no consciousness. The mortal human-being tries to understand immortal nature.
At the very beginning, the choir makes us enter an atmosphere of chaos, of something which is totally unclear. The instruments play the main theme which repeats itself throughout the whole piece in various ways. The oboe plays it straight, the violoncello in a canon and the piano plays actually the same theme but in an interrupted way as if each note stands on its own. The instruments, during the whole work, has an integral part in the dialogue or non-dialogue between the girl and the stone.
My decision to compose this work and dedicate it to the POLIN Museum in Warsaw had a very personal reason. My parents were Polish Jews, holocaust survivors, who, after the war in 1946 had to leave Poland because of anti-semitism. But they were also saved by Polish people. They spoke always Polish at home, and I, born in Israel, heard this language since I was born, but never spoke it with them. For many years I did not want to speak Polish but I visited Poland many times and found out how much I understand this language and their mentality. This is the first time I decided to compose to the Polish language and to connect with what is actually my real mother tongue. I find the new museum for the History of Polish Jews a very important institute and was honored to be commissioned by them to compose this piece.
Ella Milch-Sheriff
November 2015
TEXT
Rozmowa z kamieniem
Pukam do drzwi kamienia.
- To ja, wpuść mnie. Chcę wejść do twego wnętrza, rozejrzeć się dokoła, nabrać ciebie jak tchu.
- Odejdź - mówi kamień. Jestem szczelnie zamknięty. Nawet rozbite na częsci będziemy szczelnie zamknięte. Nawet starte na piasek nie wpuścimy nikogo.
Pukam do drzwi kamienia.
- To ja, wpuść mnie. Przychodzę z ciekawości czystej. Życie jest dla niej jedyną okazją. Zamierzam przejść się po twoim pałacu, a potem jeszcze zwiedzić liść i krople wody. Niewiele czasu na to wszystko mam. Moja śmiertelność powinna Cię wzruszyć.
- Jestem z kamienia mówi kamień i z konieczności muszę zachować powagę. Odejdź stąd. Nie mam mięśni śmiechu.
Pukam do drzwi kamienia.
- To ja, wpuść mnie. Słyszałam że są w tobie wielkie puste sale, nie oglądane, piękne nadaremnie, gluche, bez echa czyichkolwiek kroków. Przyznaj, że sam niedużo o tym wiesz.
- Wielkie i puste sale mówi kamień ale w nich miejsca nie ma. Piękne, być może, ale poza gustem twoich ubogich zmysłów. Możesz mnie poznać, nie zaznasz mnie nigdy. Całą powierzchnią zwracam się ku tobie, a całym wnętrzem leżę odwrócony.
Pukam do drzwi kamienia.
- To ja, wpuść mnie. Nie szukam w tobie przytułku na wieczność. Nie jestem nieszczęśliwa. Nie jestem bezdomna.
Mój świat jest wart powrotu. Wejdę i wyjdę z pustymi rękami. A na dowód, że byłam prawdziwie obecna, nie przedstawię niczego prócz słów, którym nikt nie da wiary.
- Nie wejdziesz - mówi kamień. Brak ci zmysłu udziału. Nawet wzrok wyostrzony aż do wszechwidzenia nie przyda ci się na nic bez zmysłu udziału. Nie wejdziesz, masz zaledwie zamysł tego zmysłu, ledwie jego zawiązek, wyobraźnię.
Pukam do drzwi kamienia.
- To ja, wpuść mnie. Nie mogę czekać dwóch tysięcy wieków na wejście pod twój dach.
- Jeżeli mi nie wierzysz - mówi kamień zwróć się do liścia, powie to, co ja. Do kropli wody, powie to, co liść. Na koniec spytaj włosa z własnej głowy.
Śmiech mnie rozpiera, śmiech, olbrzymi śmiech, którym śmiac się nie umiem.
Pukam do drzwi kamienia.
- To ja, wpuść mnie.
- Nie mam drzwi mówi kamień
Conversation with a Stone
I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I want to enter your insides, have a look round, breathe my fill of you."
"Go away," says the stone. "I'm shut tight. Even if you break me to pieces, we'll all still be closed. You can grind us to sand, we still won't let you in."
I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I've come out of pure curiosity. Only life can quench it. I mean to stroll through your palace, then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water. I don't have much time. My mortality should touch you."
"I'm made of stone," says the stone, "and must therefore keep a straight face. Go away. I don't have the muscles to laugh."
I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I hear you have great empty halls inside you, unseen, their beauty in vain, soundless, not echoing anyone's steps. Admit you don't know them well yourself."
"Great and empty, true enough," says the stone, "but there isn't any room. Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste of your poor senses. You may get to know me, but you'll never know me through. My whole surface is turned toward you, all my insides turned away."
I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I don't seek refuge for eternity. I'm not unhappy. I'm not homeless. My world is worth returning to.
I'll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there will be only words, which no one will believe."
"You shall not enter," says the stone. "You lack the sense of taking part. No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part. Even sight heightened to become all-seeing will do you no good without a sense of taking part. You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be, only its seed, imagination."
I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in. I haven't got two thousand centuries, so let me come under your roof."
"If you don't believe me," says the stone, "just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same. Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said.
And, finally, ask a hair from your own head. I am bursting with laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter, although I don't know how to laugh."
I knock at the stone's front door. "It's only me, let me come in."
"I don't have a door," says the stone