Composed by Linton Reynolds Hale, 2002
Reader: Alison Trotta-Marshall
Singers: Alison Altstadt, Alison Trotta-Marshall
Viola: Katrina Wreede
Cello: Moses Sedler
Tabla: Joe Fajen
A settings of excerpts of text from Lou Andreas Salome and Rainer Maria Rilke. Legend has it that she met him in Munich in 1897 and carried on a three-year affair until his increasing dependence set her off again. I chose these inspiring words and wrote this music for Jehanne Rogowski-Hale, Eleanor Reynolds Hale and all their granddaughters.
Many of us thought Jehanne and I would have a baby girl… now I want to dedicate it also to my son Raven (and his sons and grandsons).
“I can neither live according to models nor shall I ever be a model for anyone at all. On the contrary, what I shall quite certainly do is make my own life according to myself whatever may come of it. In this feel I have no principles to represent, but something much more wonderful–something that is inside oneself and is hot with sheer life, and rejoices and wants to get out.”
– Lou Andreas Salome (1861-1937)
“We are only just now beginning to consider the relation of one individual to a second individual objectively and without prejudice… Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being. This advance… will transform the love experience… and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing… The love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet” (Letter Seven, Rome, May 14, 1904