Grūti

First performance: November 4, 2025
Philharmonie Berlin, Germany
Zafraan Ensemble
Katrīna Paula Felsberga, soprano
Miguel Perez Inesta, conductor

Program Notes

Stripped of the ornamentation and rhetorical flourish typical of classical poetry, the Daīna reveals itself as an essential, almost skeletal structure. In my composition, this framework is transformed into “sounding flesh”: its force is amplified in a direct yet unexpected way, while its pathos is simultaneously intensified and ironized.

The text I selected evokes the harshness of a young shepherd’s life — “Though it was hard, for whom it was hard, hard for the little shepherd”. I chose to reinforce this character by placing alongside it a brief text of my own, conceived as an ironic counterpoint: a gesture meant both to underline and to relativize this condition, and to expose the characteristic entanglements of our thoughts when we lapse into self-pity.

Engaging with Latvian — a language unknown to me — opened up a further perspective. Precisely the initial absence of semantic understanding compelled me to focus on the sonic and phonetic qualities of the Daīna. Sounds, phonemes, vibrations, and roughness became the true driving force of the composition, freeing the voice from the constraints of meaning and endowing it with a more direct, almost ritual energy.

Latvian (Daina) English translation

Lai bij’ grūti, Though it was hard,

kam bij’ grūti, for whom it was hard,

Grūt’ mazam ganiņam: hard for the little shepherd:

List no gaisa, It pours from the sky,

krīt no koka, falls from the tree,

Viss ganiņa mugurā. all onto the shepherd’s back.

French (Oscar Bianchi)

Contorsionniste de la raison, Contortionist of reason,

protectionniste de la paresse, champion of laziness,

voyeur, loyeur, procrastinant, prépondérant, peeper, keeper, staller, taller,

saisie d’un succulent escamotage, seized by a delectable sleight of hand,

pour contredire tous vos virages to outwit all your twists and turns.