News

‍

‍

NCMF cycling jerseys are for sale in-store at Riverside Cycle with all proceeds going to the festival. Thank you, Riverside owner Tom Reinke! You can follow David live along the route and watch his pin inching along.

‍

‍

The rain has stopped and it was glorious today. I wish I could say the same about my legs but we’re both really suffering and looking forward to the last leg tomorrow. Today we passed through Providence on our way up north. I’d only been for a concert maybe 20 years ago. What a lovely little city.

‍

Providence, RI

But first, a reminder that on Wednesday, 27 May, we’ll roll into town into Market Square at Sea Level Oyster Bar at 3:00 and it would be lovely to if as many of you as possible could meet us to celebrate the ride. The Mayor is coming along with many NCMF friends. A reminder that you can follow David live today, the last day, along the route and watch his pin inching along.

An abbreviated post tonight since I’m completely knackered. I can’t list favorite pieces from the last 25 years without something by György Kurtág, the 100-year-old Hungarian’s string quartet Officium Breve in memoriam Andreae Szervánszky. Humans are storytellers and this is true in music as well. We think of the arc of a Brahms string quartet, we talk about the narrative of a Beethoven symphony, the line through a Chopin nocturne. But there are other ways humans communicate, and in a more immediate manner: gesture. We express feelings with our faces and our bodies: someone rolls their eyes, a person shows disdain, we smile when we greet an old friend.
‍

These 15 miniatures by Kurtág don’t consist of stories but gestures. There are fifteen super short movements, what he calls microludes, and combined they take up maybe 12 minutes. What is so interesting is that the individual gestures combine to tell a story. There is a hint of this in the title, Officium Breve, or “short service” in memory of his friend. Szervanksy was an older composer and mentor to Kurtág and the piece is a memorial to him, some happy memories and also sad experiences of loss. So too, some of the movements refer to other friends of his who have passed away. Sadly, I suspect that when you hit 100 years old, this becomes all too familiar.

Everyone has experienced some terrible grief at some point in their lives. It might be the death of a loved one, or heartbreak, or career failures, or financial ruin. It can be something as simple as moving from a beloved home. I don’t put much into the “stages of grief” that they talk about. For most of us, it doesn’t work in some pat linear way. Rather you can feel all those emotions sometimes simultaneously: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.  
‍

This piece is about all those things, each one a kind of musical gesture for what is felt, the gestures of which combine to tell a story. The listener shouldn’t worry about trying to following a specific narrative. Instead, one should just go with the flow of each feeling as it comes. Some are weird, and just allow that weirdness to be part of your experience as you listen. The most beautiful thing of all is that the piece ends, finally, restfully, with a sad but calm acceptance.

‍David Yang, Artistic Director