What happens when you tell a story?
This happens so often in our lives, in so many different ways. I’m telling a story right now, as I write. To whom? Gentle reader, who are you? And how can I reach you best? Ultimately, I think that’s what every storyteller wants to know.
However, if my goal is to figure out how to reach you, and I figure it out, then I can tell you exactly the story that you want to hear. This is a dangerous place to be in for both of us. That one “perfect” story might choke out many other, truer, ones.
If I can figure out how to reach you, and that can be the beginning of a dialogue, instead of a simple confirmation, then we’re both getting somewhere. If the dialogue catches and pulls, and illuminates and grows, then we’re getting somewhere great. But to get to that spot takes trust. I have to trust that you are open to hearing a different story. And I have to be OK with the fact that you might not like it as much. And that in turn can lead to different consequences, and different outcomes. It is fascinating, and it can be dangerous.
When we were first thinking about this program, I knew the bones of a story, which clearly was a story that someone (who?) thought I might have wanted to hear. I knew the story of Antonin Dvorak, coming to this country with ears wide open, hearing the beauty of spirituals and getting inspired to write his “American” works. I love these works of Dvorak’s deeply, and I love this thing that he did.
The story that I knew much, much, much less well was the story of Harry Burleigh, whose friendship with Dvorak was just an early chapter in a massive and critically important career. His settings of spirituals didn’t just illuminate the mind of one composer - they ignited the entire American stage. Bringing spirituals into the concert hall, adorned with his lush piano accompaniments and tender harmonies, changed the whole topography of the classical landscape. I love these settings deeply, and I love this thing that he did.
Spirituals, and their changing place in American music, underpin both of these stories. But what is gained, and what is lost, as this act of translation takes place and spirituals, dressed in their harmonic finery, start to become widely performed in classical circles? Burleigh went to work and the American concert music scene received these immensely powerful songs. What was it that was actually received? What might have been shed in order to enter the concert hall? What stories might be no longer welcome?
I recently read a work of science fiction - Babel, by R. F. Kuang - that played with the idea that when a word is translated into a different language, an explosive amount of energy is released. As someone who spent a few years overseas stumbling around with a mouth full of German words, trying to make sure I had the right ones, this doesn’t surprise me in the least. When you find exactly the right way to represent a word or phrase in another language, you feel the power - but you also feel the distance - and both have that explosive energy.
What does it mean to move a spiritual into a new space? What energy exists between the old identity and the new one? What distance? What power is locked up in there?
Criers rehearsing with Davone at the BYSO space in Boston.
These were the thoughts that were playing in my head when A Far Cry started working today with Davóne Tines. Davone is such a deep and passionate thinker that his first act when coming into rehearsal was to speak with us about all of this, using the rubric of code-switching to describe the different stories at play. I don’t want to represent all of his thoughts here - they’re his to express and we’ll experience them at the concert - but do want to focus in on some things that he shared about the two spiritual groups that we’ll be performing - one by Burleigh and the other by Tyshawn Sorey.
The Burleigh settings are sweet - so sweet that it can be challenging at times to remember where spirituals came from, the raw, desolate grief embedded in them and the information encoded in there too that pointed the way towards freedom. And while this gentle “reading” of them might feel complicated for that reason, it served the purpose not just of promoting them but also preserving them, safely, for a time to come.
Sorey’s modern settings, on the other hand, don’t shy away from staring into the darkness and asking/intuiting what these songs were truly about. Even his program note suggests as much: "The character of this song cycle shall be made self-evident upon listening, and therefore, requires no further explanation." I’m tempted to describe how I feel when I hear his “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” but - it really doesn’t need a single word to make its point.
As Davóne sings (and our jaws collectively drop), you can hear the shifting layers of meaning. There is power - such immense power - in these works, as they “speak” to each other and to everything that came before. Each one is a miracle. These songs exist against all odds, and they break us open. Why are they so, so, beautiful? In the face of everything that brought them into being, How can they be so beautiful?
Again and again, as I listen, a quote from Adrienne Rich comes into my mind:
this is the oppressor’s language / but I need it to talk to you
