the music
How Slow the Wind
Music by Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960)
Based on two poems by Emily Dicksinson
Version for chamber ensemble composed in 2001. Recorded by the Atlanta Symphony on Golijov's Oceana CD (released July 2007).
Concert Date: FALL 2008 (revised date)
Based on two poems by Emily Dicksinson
Version for chamber ensemble composed in 2001. Recorded by the Atlanta Symphony on Golijov's Oceana CD (released July 2007).
Concert Date: FALL 2008 (revised date)
"warm, and close...but a slight sense of claustrophobia only increases the impact of Golijov's music. If he's new to you, try and hear this... However you react to it, you're unlikely to forget it!”
–BBC
About this work
How Slow the Wind, a setting of two short Emily Dickinson poems, was Golijov's response to the death in an accident of his friend Mariel Stubrin. Golijov writes, "I had in mind one of those seconds in life that is frozen in the memory, forever-a sudden death, a single instant in which life turns upside down, different from the experience of death after a long agony." This is the original version for voice and string quartet. The piece was commissioned by Cecilia Wasserman, in memory of her late husband Herb, for Close Encounters with Music and was first performed in their Seiji Ozawa Hall concert of May 5, 2001, by Dawn Upshaw, soprano; Toby Appel and Justine Chen, violins; Kenji Bunch, viola, and Yehuda Hanani, cello.
Performed in English.
