
When words emerge in Naomi Pinnock‘s music, that’s precisely what they do: emerge. This is achieved partly by paring down the text to a bare essential minimum (The writings of Jakob Br. uses just two words, for example), but more due to the manner in which the words are articulated. In a similar way to the slow circularity of Pinnock’s material, words take shape gradually, as if the product of an intense internal struggle, coming-to-terms with the necessity of their utterance, and the implications of their meaning. That’s overwhelmingly the case in her stunning 2019 work for soprano and string quartet. I am, I am.
The piece uses just a single line from Rachel Boast’s poem Tentsmuir VII (the full poem can be seen below): “I am, I am, is all that remains”. The poem (as does the whole Tentsmuir cycle) describes a new beginning, one that involves a casting-off and turning away from past practices and methodologies, starting from a place where things have been shattered, and perhaps almost died, but conveying an increasing tone of assertion and confidence at the prospect of “a new life”.
To what extent Pinnock wants the entirety of the poem to be known to the listener is debatable. What she has chosen to focus on is a pivotal line, the point where the poet states that most fundamental of principles, I am, with the concomitant understanding that this is the only thing that’s certain, literally “all that remains”. As in other works of Pinnock’s (such as Words) the soprano only slowly finds her way toward language, appearing from slow string chords – initially buried semi-audible within them – and uttering vowels and phonemes. The strings’ slow, measured movement, tilting within a relatively narrow range of progression, is akin to breathing, bringing to mind the reformed lungs that begin the poem. Throughout this first movement the soprano’s emergence is extremely gradual but it seems necessarily so, in the process introducing moments of autonomy, detaching from the quartet crutch and starting to encroach upon complete words and musical phrases. i’ve often thought of Pinnock’s music as circular, but not here, because there’s a clear process taking place, and because the poet indicates that’s not what’s desired any longer: “Vita Nuova, neither circle nor spiral”. What trajectory this will be remains to be heard, but at the very least it will be some kind of linear development, onward, upward, beyond.
The strings’ response to the soprano’s evolution is sometimes motivating, sometimes jarring: unexpected crescendos seem in hindsight like an act of encouragement, sporadic dissonant clusters suggest the quartet is unsure quite what they’re dealing with. Nonetheless, they stay together – perhaps they rely on her as much as she does on them – and after nearly ten minutes, the words “I am” finally having become consistently distinct (though still fragile), there’s a critical sequence: quicker waves of string crescendo, supporting the soprano’s maintained high pitch, which is then echoed in the string-only epilogue.
The enigmatic nature of Naomi Pinnock’s music comes to the fore in the following movement (~11:23), where those breath-like chords are replaced with high harmonic equivalents, as if the emergence of the voice had pushed the strings far out of the way into the sky. The soprano’s evolution continues, becoming strong downward phrases (also marked “more expressive” in the score), and “is all that remains” is finally articulated clearly. It’s a moment that triggers a temporary shift in the strings, their lower register chord acting almost like a confirmatory cadence. As the voice continues it’s as if the strings had formed the glinting of a pale light, though the general lack of obvious warmth, possibly a surprise after the warmer first movement, underlines the blankness – the poet’s “cleared ground” – at the start of this process of new beginning. As such, it’s a process that will likely be arduous and daunting, filled with questions (as the poem ends). Perhaps it’s the dawning of a new language, barely glimpsed here, but its continuation is implied beyond the work’s double barline.
The world première of I am, I am was given by Juliet Fraser with the Sonar Quartet, at HCMF 2019.
Rachel Boast – Tentsmuir VII
Lungs grow back their forests,
rich in iron and lichen.
I am, I am, is all that remains –
the old call-notes fail.
To break down and build
from cleared ground a new life,
Vita Nuova, neither circle nor spiral,
heaven nor hell, is this what’s called for?
I will pick no bones with the buzzards.
Hast thou considered…?
don’t start that, tell me only
what I should make from these potsherds,
a mock mosaic cathedral floor?
a path through the trees?