Week 10 Blog – The Bird’s Lament
Music Written by Mary Petersen-Unger
Piano – Mary Petersen-Unger
with
Keyboards and Bells – Molly Flannery
Bass – Melissa Crowe
Drums and Bells – Jan Bergstrom
My musical composition was inspired by two different sources from our class. The first was from reading the twelfth century Persian mystic-poet, Farid Ud-Din Attar’s poem, The Conference of the Birds. The Sufi poem tells the story of how the Hoopoe, a bird that represents the leader and spiritual guide of the birds, encourages the birds along the path to find Simorgh, who represents God. The birds have various objections to making the journey to God. The objections represent human shortcomings and fears. The Hoopoe answers each bird with advice on how each bird can overcome their weaknesses and make the journey. In the introduction to the book Dick Davis noted the deep spiritual meaning in the poem, “… the poem as a whole is about the soul’s relationship with God …” (Attar, XV). With my musical composition I have attempted to reflect upon the soul’s search for God – with a particular emphasis on the journey.
The second inspiration for the musical composition was from the film, The Color of Paradise, directed by Majid Majidis, viewed in Week Eleven. The movie is about a young blind boy Mohammad, who lives in Tehran at a school for the blind and is reluctantly brought home for the summer by his father. Throughout the movie the imagery of birds, and the sound of their calls, brings forth the idea of God being everywhere and that you can feel and hear God within nature.
My musical composition begins with the haunting call of a bird. Throughout the piece this theme is reiterated. This is a direct reference to the call of the bird that was reiterated in the movie and the continued questions of the birds within the poem. The music moves through various dynamics and different textural themes. These musical moods represent the challenges that life can bring to you, the difficult journey to find God, how the soul is often concerned with things other than God, and ultimately – what you must overcome to find God. Throughout the piece the call of the bird keeps returning. At the end of piece – the music modulates to a different key, symbolizing that God is near. The piece ends in an answered birdcall – resolved by a note that moves upward from the former bird calls – upward as if the soul is finally reaching God. The Birds, edited for Mary