By Anna Pidgorna | For Solo Cello and Piano | 6′
Title: Grief Cycles
Composer: Anna Pidgorna
Year Composed: 2024
Instrumentation: For Solo Cello and Piano
Duration: 6′
Format: Performance Set: Full Score + 1 Part
Page Size: US Letter
Catalog Number: OM0920
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From the composer:
Grief Cycles is a set of variations on a Ukrainian folk song “Plyve kacha po Tysyni” (A Duckling Swims in the Tisza). In Ukrainian folklore, the crossing of a river symbolizes death and the soul’s passage to the afterlife. Since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, the song is frequently played during memorials of fallen protesters and soldiers, and is strongly associated with Ukraine’s fight for independence. For me, and many Ukrainians, this song contains all the grief not only of the last decade of war, but of centuries of horrific history of our land and people. Writing these variations was my attempt to lessen the hold that this song has over me, to diffuse the pain through continued exposure, a kind of deliberate grieving process. I methodically took the material through six keys and drew inspiration from historical key associations using Christian Schubart’s Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst published in 1806 as inspiration. I wanted to end with D minor, a key strongly linked with death. I chose to start with D# minor, a key only a semitone higher than D minor, but as far away as one can get on the circle of fifths. The downward movement of each key change was dictated by my own ear and faulty memory: whenever I sang the song, I wanted to shift the next verse down. The descent also felt symbolic. I looked up the historic key associations after mapping out the key changes and was shocked to discover that I accidentally travelled through some of the most devastating of the 24 keys. My attempt to diffuse the song’s power didn’t really work. I still weep when I hear it. I weep as translate the words.
Пливе кача по Тисині,
Мамко моя, не лай мені.
A duckling swims in the Tisza,
My mother, don’t scold me.
Залаєш ми в злу годину,
Сам не знаю, де погину.
You will scold me in a wicked hour,
I don’t know myself where I will die.
Погину я в чужім краю,
Хто ж ми буде брати яму?
I will die in a foreign land,
Who will dig my grave?
Виберут мі чужі люде,
Ци не жаль ти, мамко, буде?
Strangers will bury me,
Won’t you feel sorry, mother?
Як же мені, синку, не жаль?
Ти на моїм серцю лежав.
How can I not feel sorry, son?
You laid on my heart.
Commission/Dedication: Commissioned by Daniel Hamin Go for Project Arirang
Premiere: Premiered by Daniel Hamin Go (Cello) and Benjamin Smith (Piano) on January 25, 2025, at Christ First United Church in Mississauga, Ontario, presented by the Chamber Music Society of Mississauga.
Recording: This work is recorded on Daniel Hamin Go’s 2025 album Arirang, released via Orchid Classics.
OXINGALE MUSIC 