RUMI CANTATA lyrics and structure

Good news! My new work, RUMI CANTATA has completed the sketching phase. I am beginning to write the score now.


RUMI CANTATA is a religious cantata in the form and style of a BACH Cantata. It is for soloists (SATB) and a small SATB choir accompanied by a small string orchestra + oboe + flute.


It is based on 6 poems from:
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi'de Seçme Rübailer
Türkçeleştiren: Talat Sait HALMAN


The piece is written with modern notation (Serocki - Ligeti) but with a strong modal flavour. The transitions from modal to atonal and vice versa are studied and experimented carefully.


1st movement is for choir + strings (Huseyni)
2nd movement is for tenor solo + vcl + CB recitative (Hicaz)
3rd movement is for soprano + alto soli + vln + vcl + CB + oboe aria (Karcihar)
4th movement is for basso solo + vcl + CB + flute recitative arioso (Kürdi)
5th movement is for alto + tenor soli + string orchestra + oboe aria (Suzinak)
6th movement is for SATB soli + choir + string orchestra + flute + oboe (Huseyni)


Modal chords is sometimes used as only colors without functionality. They are sometimes used with functional relations also.  I produced the text by choosing the poems in such a way that they could comply with the function and form of a BACH cantata.


It seems there is at least 2-3 months more to see the my final work. I hope you enjoy the text. Both texts may be altered a bit during the composition process. I am not happy about the English text but the composition will be done for both languages at the same time. This restricts the location of words etc. because of the prosodi.


Regards.


Ali R+ SARAL


RUMI CANTATA
1
Bir can vardır: Düşünce güç sağlar ona,
Bir başka can ormandaki bir arslana.
Dikkat et! Bir baltaya benzer düşünü;
Çok fazla düşünme: vurmasın balta sana.
2
And içtim: Çıkmadıkça kalbimden can,
Şaşmam tek yönden çıkmam düz yoldan.
Derken sağa baktım, sola baktım: Hep o var.
Hep sevgili çıktı... çekti sağdan soldan.
3
Gönlümdeki iç ve dış O'dur, bende can O.
Gövdem, damarım, ruhum, O'dur. Bende kan O.
Tek Tanrı'ya, çok Tanrı'ya tapmak bir mi?
Bak, benzeri yok varlığımın: Var olan O.
4
Peyda olurum, saklanırım, işte buyum;
Müslüman, Hiristiyan, Musevi olurum.
Kalbim yerleşsin diye her bir yüreğe,
Ben kendime hergün yeni bir yüz bulurum.
5
Ey dost, sana candan yakınız aşk duyarak;
Sen nerde yürürsen orda olduk toprak,
Aşk mezhebinin cilvesi: Görmek sende
Tüm evreni - ancak sana hep kör kalmak.
6
Dünyada ve ahrette O var, bir tek O var;
Tek taptığımız O. Sahte tüm varlıklar:
Gökler de yalan, güneş de; bağ bahçe yalan.
Her sözde, her anlamda O tek gerçek, O var.
-------------------------------------------
1
A soul exists: Thinking gives strength to it
An other soul to the lion in the forest.
Be careful! Thinking is like an axe;
Don't think too much: may axe not hurt you.
2
I swear: Unless my soul leaves my heart,
I won't change my direction, I won't leave the straight way.
Then I looked right, and the left: It is always the same thing.
It's always the beloved... pulled me from right or left.
3
My soul's in and out is It, my soul is It.
My body, my vein, my spirit is It. My blood is It.
To a single God, to many Gods, is it the same to believe?
Look, my existence has no similar: what exists is It.
4
I appear, I disappear, I am this;
Muslim, Christian, Jew, I become.
May my heart find place in every heart,
I find everyday to me a new face.
5
Lo friend, we are closer than souls, feeling love;
Wherever you walk we were there the soil.
The game of love sect is: To see in you
The whole cosmos but remain blind to you.
6
It exists in the world and eternity, only It exists.
The only thing we believe in is It. False are all the creatures:
Lie are the skies, lie is the sun; Lie are fields, wineyards.
In every word, in every meaning, It is the single reality, It is.

RUMI CANTATA introduction

BEGINNINGS


I had difficulties when I tried to begin writing the score for RUMI CANTATA.  Many skecthes for all 6 movements of the cantata existed.  But it was still difficult even to decide the layout of the score.
I do not remember how I wrote the skecthes of the melody phase.  But the clearest section was written in syllabic melody:


3
 Gönlümdeki iç ve dış O'dur, bende can O.
 Gövdem, damarım, ruhum, O'dur. Bende kan O.
 Tek Tanrı'ya, çok Tanrı'ya tapmak bir mi?
 Bak, benzeri yok varlığımın: Var olan O.



 I noticed now that this is also the culmination point,  the peak of the 6 poems I chose.  Strage, it is asif somebody else  is writing this music.  The music transcends the consciousness of the  composer.



 The four parts harmony of the 3rd section was also written.  So, I decided  to begin writing the RUMI CANTATA from the 3rd movement.  This helped me to decide  easily which layout of score, location of English-turkish lyrics and also to make  continuo as vcl obligato + guitar or others.  This has made me think once more that a work of art does not necessarily begin   at its physical beginning.



 A musical piece may begin and continue for a while and then a very charming melody  comes and sets itself as the beginning.  The new melody or section overwrites and  even reshapes the previous material.  The human memory rewrites everything it remembers.  Moreover it may not only rewrite, it may change the memory it has accessed.  Simply, Beethoven 9th symphony chorus section begins as the real beginning of the  9th symphony.  Everything before it serves to prepare its entrance.



 The issue becomes complicated thinking of multiple movement works.   There are multiple entrances, multiple beginnings.  If the 1st movement sets a   semantic net of percepted material,  the second movement may have a contrasted  material or non-relative material.  The slow 2nd movement of the Sonata form for ex.   Contrast will add to the established semantic net but non-relative will  create a   new semantic net.  If the 3rd movement has to become the real beginning of the  piece identity, it has to establish a more dominant idea which will import  the previous semantic net of the first movement. This is where the listener  wakes up the idea and remembers that the 1st movemnt's material is being referenced.



 Music is endless... There will always be beginnings.



 But as simple human beings, we also have to make many beginnings almost everyday.  But are they really beginnings?  Or are they just a continuation of previous choices,  decisions? 



 Really, when was the last time we had done a real beginning?

RUMI CANTATA foreword

FOREWORD
We percieve the world in a semantic integrity.  When we see a Mercedes, we percieve it as a car, as a vehicle, as a product, as a composite material, as material and finally as a being and  we treat it according to the attributes and functions these categories/classes provide.


The semantic integrity arises from a semantic three that we form and maintain through our life experiences.  Anything we experience is recorded in our episodic memory together with the time/place information of  occurrence.  The pith of the information that is driven from the episodic memory is recorded into the semantic memory as knowledge.  Knowledge is transformed into meaning in the semantic memory.




The knowledge of Mercedes being a car attaches Mercedes to the car node in the semantic three.  This enables us to infer that Mercedes is a vehicle and thus it carries people and goods.  Semantic three comprises everything that we learn personally.  The common knowledge of humanity accumulated in the universal semantic three includes everything we know as human from the beginning till now.




There is no doubt about the lower leaves of the semantic three but there are different approaches to the understanding of the top node, namely the root.  The root of the universal semantic three is considered as creator, the 'creator' from which everything is inherited.




Some believe that the top node is 'matter' itself and everything is inherited from 'matter'.  I believe 'matter' and 'non-material beings' are children nodes of the 'creator' node.  The 'non-material beings' are inherited by ideas or different disciplines of thinking such as science, religion, ethics etc.




Religion provides an understanding of the creator and semantic integrity and a discipline of living according to this understanding.  There are/has been different religions with different  names and understanding for the 'creator'.  There is also 'agnostic' approach which accepts the status of the creator but does not instantiate it.




RUMI stresses the unity of beings, emphasizes that they come from the same 'creator' and states that they are the reflections of God the creator. This provides a mind-set of seeing the common points in conflicts rather than magnifying the differences.




RUMI points at a better understanding of the meaning of life which serves tolerance and tenderness.