Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh
Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh is an eight-minute, real-time performance composition for Leap Motion controller, custom software created in Max, and Kyma. The sounds contained in the composition are predicated on a recording of Stephen Rodgers reciting the text of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem “Ein Gleiches.” This composition was inspired by both Fanny Hensel’s and Robert Schumann’s musical settings of “Ein Gleiches.” As I considered the text that formed the basis for this composition, my study led to the conclusion that a central component of the narrative related to a sense of longing that is never satisfied. This lack of emotional resolution also is reflected at the ends of both of the Hensel and Schumann songs. In my composition, I willingly and purposefully allow these literary and musical shadows to cast their influences over my piece, as I work to have the emotional motive of “restful unrest” infiltrate the musical fabric.