Rituals

CD with Tom Beets, Joris Van Goethem and Sören Sieg.
Playing Time: 51:48

1. Karungi

Imbalu
2. Inemba
3. Lulwanda
4. Kamayiya

The Dervish and the Devil

5. Into
6. The Dervish and The Devil

Circus Suite
7. The Jugglers
8. Magic Bubbles
9. Acrobat Battle

10. Sad Song

11. Though it were ten thousand Mile
12. She's so excited

Rituals convey meaning. They structure time, shape lives, and hold cultures and communities together. At the heart of this album lies a fascination with ritual in all its forms - spiritual, social, emotional, and artistic.

Imbalu is inspired by a ritual of the Bamasaba community in north-eastern Uganda: three days of dancing, drumming, and celebration surrounding an initiation ceremony that my son and I witnessed in 2018. The first movement, Inemba, evokes the anticipation leading up to the festival - the expectations of the boys, their families, and the entire community. The Inemba itself is an instrument used during Imbalu, somewhat resembling a marimba.
The second movement, Lulwanda, portrays the night before the ceremony. The boy stands on the threshold between childhood and adulthood. He looks back on the lightness and joy of childhood - games with friends, his mother’s lullabies - and bids farewell to a state of weightlessness in which time seemed to stand still. It is a moment poised between melancholy and anticipation. The third movement, Kamayiya, depicts the festival itself. I quote a traditional melody sung during the ceremony and combine African rhythmic vitality and energy with touches of French Impressionism.

The Dervish and the Devil reflects the Sufi whirling ritual, practiced for more than 800 years. I witnessed such a ceremony last year in the Turkish part of Cyprus. The spinning mirrors the movement of the planets around the sun; the soul journeys toward God and relinquishes the ego. After a dark, meditative Intro reminiscent of a solemn prayer, the music enters the world of Arabic flute traditions. The increasingly ecstatic whirling is expressed by continuously shortening metres, creating a sense of mounting intensity and compression as the music races toward its climax. One might even call it ‘Arabic bebop’.

The circus, too, is a ritual - one of illusion, entertainment, comedy, competition, and breathtaking virtuosity. To this world I dedicated Circus Suite. Accordingly, The Jugglers and Acrobat Battle are among the most virtuosic works on the album. I am especially pleased with the use of the low recorders in Acrobat Battle - and perhaps I have never sounded quite so close to Sergei Prokofiev as I do here. In contrast, Magic (soap) Bubbles drift gently through the circus ring like through a lonely night sky, evoking sweetly nostalgic memories.

Though it were ten thousand Mile is a piece about homecoming - and perhaps the most recorder-like work on the album. It is inspired by the poem A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns. For reasons difficult to explain, this poem has always touched me deeply. I wanted the melody to resemble the traditional flute tune of a Scottish shepherd and to express the longing of those who live far away - ten thousand miles - from home and from the people they love: their sorrow, their yearning, and ultimately the joy of return.

Finally, there are three deeply emotional pieces framing the album.
Karungi - meaning beauty in Luganda - is a meditation on a melody consisting of only three notes, approaching my Erik Satie-inspired ideal of beautiful simplicity. The melodic flow follows the accompaniment line of the first movement of an earlier piece of mine, Inside Kampala.
Sad Song is a strict four-part piano composition and a homage to the polyphonic clarity and transparency of Johann Sebastian Bach.
The album’s encore, She’s so Excited, returns to the joyful ‘African style’ with its strong, ‘hypertonal’ focus on the seven notes of the major scale - a musical language through which I first became known in the recorder world.

I am deeply grateful to Tom and Joris for this wonderful collaboration. With their immense musicality and virtuosity, they allowed my musical ideas to blossom. As a composer, I could not wish for more!
The music sheet of many pieces on this album are available at www.soerensieg.de