"Some of it is really devastating, and it's amazing that she can produce such harsh images with just language," he says. That harmonic tension - between words of absolute love for the rich inner life and accomplishments of Black Americans, and the pain and sadness inflicted on them for four centuries - is what Abels tried to honor. "The rest of you, the ravishing, wondrous, veiled interior, your vermillion quiet, your indigo jar of morning whispers, the midnight calculations of your mother, every smokey algorithm your father ever dreamed, will, right from the start, be thrown overboard with the sharks." "They will never be disinterested in what your arms, legs, and lips can do on their well-lit screens," the words sing on the page. Don't call it a libretto, she says it's a paean, a song of praise. It's really stunning what he did with it."įinney's couplets reference everything from Harriet Tubman to Black Olympians and astronauts, and from inventions by Black Americans to horrifically racist scientific beliefs of the past. He repeated lines or words or phrases that needed to be repeated, in order for you to make the journey of these 14 lines for this 400 years. And it was like: that is the heart of this. ![]() "And it's because repetition is holy, it got in my ear deeply. "I'm walking around my house the next day, and I'm just going 'never, never, never, never, never.,'" she continues, singing for effect. Verdelle said once that repetition is holy, and that's what Michael did," Finney says. 7, 2021.Īfter hearing a preview in South Carolina - where she finally met Abels in person for the first time - that passage was what echoed in Finney's ears. Nikky Finney (left) and Michael Abels in conversation during a preview in South Carolina on Nov. "And so I had the choir sing, 'Your soul never was, never, never, never was on the auction block.'" "The final line is: the ravishing wondrous private inner bank of you never was on the auction block," he says. And by stretching 500 words into an evening-length composition, he was able to summon a special power: repetition. He used some of each musical style that Black Americans either invented or contributed to: ragtime, bluegrass, jazz, and rock 'n' roll. It's musically very harmonic, and it's a contrast to what the words represent." "So there's suddenly this break-the music stops," Abels says of his setting, "and then there's this what I hope is very beautiful chorale on the words 'before the eyes of their children,' which is just the chorus by itself. And then I realized: because that's how I felt."Ībels cites another section of Finney's text: "'Your neck is believed to be leather, and will be stretched and tested before the eyes of their children.' Really, the most chilling part about it is not the lynching the most chilling part is inviting the town to come watch, the before the eyes of their children part. ![]() And so there is a long passage where the chorus just repeats the words: 'They will dismiss you.' It felt right to repeat that line again and again and again. And not for any reason-not even knowing the reason was frustrating. And at times in my career where things weren't going well, I really did feel like my work was being dismissed. He cites a line: "'They will dismiss your wailing, inventive mouth,' and then it goes on to talk about other things they will do to keep you down. Kronos Quartet performing with Nikky Finney (center) and a chorus of local artists in South Carolina on Nov. Finney wrote 10 pages of deeply researched poetry about the Black American story. Harrington contacted Finney about a collaboration, with the initial idea of commemorating the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. ![]() Since 1973, Kronos has been fiddling on the edge of what concert music can be, performing everything from newfangled minimalism to Jimi Hendrix. "It was clear that I had to be in touch with Nikky after hearing that," Harrington says, "because I didn't know anyone alive could give a speech like that." "That was the best acceptance speech for anything that I've heard in my life," he said.Īnother person who saw that speech, on television some time later, was violinist David Harrington, the founder of Kronos Quartet. Taking the stage afterward, John Lithgow, the event's host, looked stunned. ![]() In her speech, Finney traced a line from an 18th-century proclamation, which decreed that slaves were forbidden from learning to read or write, to the proud, Black literary giants in the room.
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