By Luna Pearl Woolf | For Panflute and String Quartet | 7′

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From the composer:

The Ingenious Sister was commissioned by virtuoso panflute player Denise Gagiu during her PhD studies at the Conservatory of Music in Bucharest, Romania, where her thesis focused on the panflute in contemporary music. Having played new works by several Romanian composers, Denise reached out to me in an effort to expand the instrument’s repertoire abroad.

Still, I wanted the new work to reflect the unique history of the panflute, and its strong connection to Romanian culture. Reading through many wonderful folk tales originating in the region, I was particularly drawn to one called, “Why Does the Cuckoo Call ‘Cuckoo’?,” which I felt was particularly suited for our ensemble of panflute and string quartet. The story unfolds throughout the score:

Out of the hollow of a tree, there came a fat little bird with grey feathers, and flying up to sit on a high branch of the tree, he began to sing. 

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo! My stepmother killed me and cooked me in a broth, and my father ate me up! But my sister, she put my heart in the hollow of this tree, and now I am a cuckoo and free!”

When the stepmother heard what that fat bird was singing, she went almost out of her mind with fury. 

She took a heavy rock of salt and, using all her strength, threw it at the little boy-cuckoo. She threw it over and over again but she couldn’t hit the little bird. Then, after one final throw, the highest of them all, the salt-rock fell down on the stepmother’s head and killed her on the spot.

And the little boy has remained a happy cuckoo to this very day.

In the piece, the little boy-in-bird-form can be heard clearly through the panflute’s call, while the string quartet evokes the cacophony of the forest, the stepmother’s horrible ire, the boy’s trying ordeal, and his unmitigated joy when he escapes his fate though the ingenuity and care of his clever sister.

Commission/Dedication: Commissioned by Denise Gagiu.