“...every scene from real life and from the world...individual pictures of human life, set to the universal language of music, are never bound to it, never correspond to it with absolute necessity, but relate to it only as an example relates to a universal concept” (Nietzsche). A finger pointing to the moon, then, oui?:
a song’s poem wraps itself round a singer’s voice
timbre pitch shape of phrase dynamic rush and hush spill and pull
to the next measure to the next measure to the next measure to the next
shadows stretch from honey wood floor to ceiling
translucent black on brick
a deluge of bodyform span space and the gentle gentle
pull pull push of bow strings across
reds shimmershimmershimmer texture crinklecrinkle smoothsmooth swoosh
branching patterns of light and dark on old pine grain beneath feet
with the crash and shudder thunder of hands on keys hammers thrash strings
golden light outlines a tableau trinity of female figures and the sharp
rasp influx of gasp
each sound
not an illustration of phenomenon
not an accompaniment to phenomenon:
“music differs from all the other arts in that it is
not a copy of the phenomenon
...but...the true nature of all things...
the thing-in-itself to every phenomenon” (Nietzsche)
~ Misha
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Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. Trans. Shawn Whiteside. Ed. Michael Tanner. London: Penguin, 1993. Kindle Edition.
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Featured Performance
Klytemnestra - The Original Subversive Female
Klytemnestra - The Original Subversive Female
A new chamber opera by Dominick Diorio. Libretto by Misha Penton
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