for Cello and Electroacoustic Soundtrack

Length: 22:24

Liebes-Lied/Love Song is based on the poem Liebes-Lied by Rainer Maria Rilke and its newest translation into English, Love Song, by Canadian poet and writer Norbert Ruebsaat. (Another work, based on the same poem Für Dich - For You had its world premier at trans-canada, a festival for Canadian electroacoustic music at the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologien (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, in February 2005.)
Liebes-Lied/Love Song is a collaboration between Hildegard who recorded the sound materials and composed the sound track, and Anne who created all cello sounds for the electroacoustic portion and completes the piece through cello improvisation in live performances. Liebes-Lied/Love Song is a meditation on Love, and takes the Rilke poem and its English translation as its starting point. Readings of the text combine with recordings of environmental sounds and Anne's improvised explorations on the cello to create the soundscape of the piece. Over this composed soundtrack Anne performs her own free improvisations live. The piece uses the resulting dialogue between recorded/live and composed/improvised to explore the meanings of the poem.
The original German poem is spoken by Hildegard Westerkamp, the English translation by Anne Bourne. In addition small excerpts of the poem are spoken by Wendelin Bartley, Susan Benson, Louie Ettling, Peter Grant, Andra McCartney, and R. Murray Schafer. Liebes-Lied/Love Song was commissioned by the Open Ears Festival with the financial assistance of the Canada Council. The soundtrack portion of the composition was completed in Westerkamp's own studio in Vancouver. An 8-track version of it was created by Darren Copeland.

LIEBES-LIED*
Rainer Maria Rilke

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.

LOVE SONG**
Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Norbert Ruebsaat

How shall I hold my soul so that it
does not touch yours? How shall I lift it
up over you so it reaches other things?
Oh, how I long to store my soul
with something dark and lost
in a foreign becalmed place that does not
vibrate when your depths vibrate.
But all that touches you and touches me
contracts us like a bow
that from two strings draws forth a single voice.
Upon which instrument are we two strung?
And who, pray, is the fiddler who holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetful song.

*Source:
Rainer Maria Rilke

Der ausgewählten Gedichte erster Teil

Insel Bücherei Nr. 400
Insel Verlag Wiesbaden 1951
Page 61

**Reprinted with permission.