I’ve spent the last months painstakingly and sometimes painfully writing a ‘cello concerto. The ‘cello is an instrument I think I know pretty well, having written several solo pieces for it as well as featuring it in numerous larger works. But so many times in composing this piece I had the sensation of scrabbling around, running my hands across a smooth blank wall trying to locate a hidden seam or catch that would open up a secret space beyond. Yet what sustained me throughout was the thought that there even was a space beyond. It may not be much fun but it’s interesting to be ‘lost’ — I held on to an idea that the stumbling blocks covered something very valuable which could not be reached via known pathways. The resistances I kept feeling were pointers to types of aesthetic logic that were more unfamiliar for me. I can describe it like writing a book using an unknown grammar where one only finds out the key verb at the end of the second chapter and then discovers its essential conjugation right on the last page. Through this I gained more respect for processes of decay (I discarded many, many pages of sketches including a whole extra movement which became a completely other work, Ghosts make form, for ‘cello and piano), as well as patience with the limitations of sense-making ‘techniques’.
This work asks ‘how does light arrive in the world?’ Like all the famous poets say (Rumi, Ursula le Guin, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Emily Dickenson and others): through a crack, a laceration, a broken wing, a homeless person; through falling, through pleasure, through a flutter in the throat…
Program note:
Liza Lim
A Sutured World (2024), ‘cello concerto
For solo ‘cello and orchestra
2.2.2.2—2.2.2.0—3 perc—harp—strings
Dedicated to Nicolas Altstaedt (‘cello soloist)
Co-commissioned by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/ musica viva, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam ‘Cello Biennale, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música.
The word ‘suture’ refers to stitching up a wound or an incision. That in turn evokes things in the world (humans, creatures, landscapes etc) that are torn, lacerated, and wounded, and processes of sewing and binding edges together for healing. In surgery, making repair of the body with sutures results in scars. But rather than ugliness, think of the Japanese art of kintsugi in which broken pottery pieces are re-joined with gold lacquer — instead of the damage being hidden, the imperfect lines of the join are illuminated.
Also interesting is that the English/Latin root for ‘suture’ is the same as the Sanskrit ‘sutra’ (or Pali ‘sutta’), i.e., to sew. The Buddhist sutras were sewn texts: palm leaves bound by thread. Thread, string, yarn, sewing – the sutras and sutures weave story lines: scars that shed light, brokenness that is stitched into new life.
The work is in 4 sections:
- take this broken wing…
- Chrysalis
- Sutra
- Simon says: Alle Vögel fliegen hoch
Premiere season
25 October 2024, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner, Nicolas Altstaedt, ‘cello soloist, Musica Viva Munich
7-9 November 2024
Royal Concertgebouw Orkest conducted by Matthias Pintscher, Nicolas Altstaedt, ‘cello soloist
7 Nov, Amsterdam Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam Cello Biënnale
8 Nov, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam
9 Nov, Theater aan de Parade, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, November Music Festival
Further performances by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música in 2025 tba.
[image of kintsugi bowl, Marco Montalti/Shutterstock]
Liza Lim 