II: Dust from the Rubble of Dreams

Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? What I feared has come upon me, what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness. I have no rest, but only turmoil. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, my spirit drinks in their poison, my life is but a breath.

(Text excerpted from The Book of Job)

Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba (May His great name be exalted and sanctified)
b'al'ma di v'ra khir'utei. (in the world which He created according to His will!)
v'yam'likh mal'khutei (May He establish His kingdom)
b'chayeikhon uv'yomeikhon (during your lifetime and during your days)
uv'chayei d'khol beit yis'ra'eil (and during the lifetimes of all the House of Israel,)
v'im'ru: amein. (And say, Amen.)
(Text excerpted from the Kaddish)

Why do you hide your face and consider me your enemy? Does it please you to oppress me, while you smile at the schemes of the wicked? Even if I am innocent I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction. My days have passed, my plans are shattered, and so are the desires of my heart. My harp is tuned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of wailing. Though I call for help, there is no justice. God's terrors are marshaled against me. What strength do I have, that I should still hope?
(Text excerpted from The Book of Job)

Y'hei sh'mei raba m'varakh (May His great name be blessed)
l'alam ul'al'mei al'maya (for ever, and to all eternity!)
Oseh shalom bim'romav (May He who makes peace in His high places)
hu ya'aseh shalom (grant peace)
aleinu v'al kol Yis'ra'eil, (for us and for all Israel
vʼim'ru amein (And say, Amen.)
(Text excerpted from the Kaddish)
Excerpts from The Book of Job taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission.
Inner Landscapes (2009)
Program notes

This work, commissioned by Adam Marks and written for him, is scored for a vocalizing pianist, that is to say a pianist who, while playing the music, also interprets a text, which may or may not require reading, singing, acting, crying, sighing, laughing, and doing whatever indicated in the score.

"Inner Landscapes" took a long time to compose, after an even longer period of gestation, during which I was thinking about what type of work I wanted to write, and what character I would give the text. As it often happens in my work, after many months of reflection, the character, structure, and main musical materials of the piece all came to me in a sudden, clear and almost intuitive way. The text was excerpted and assembled from a wide variety of sources and influences which have been very important to me over the years. Musically, a wide variety of styles and compositional techniques coexist, with lyrical and expressive moments characterized by late-Romantic harmonies slowly transforming and exploding into highly virtuosic dissonant passages, only to implode and extinguish themselves into moving, ethereal sections, leading to deep, meditative silence. Musical materials that have shaped my life since my early childhood and fragmented musical quotes of a heterogeneous nature will emerge hauntingly to the surface of the music, like relics of the past; in Italian I call them "fantasmi della memoria" (memory's ghosts). The second movement also features graphic notation, in which the performer is asked to improvise on the basis of the graphic symbols in the score.

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