Restless Nation

At daylight we wake by the river
Home long behind us
Our hats atilt
Restless 

The quartet Restless Nation was originally conceived as a musical evocation of a year when the composer and his wife took their two children on a home-schooling expedition. Each movement reflects different aspects of the adventure from the children’s perspective: the open road, the sounds of insects and night animals, rambunctious and reflective moments, wilderness, and the journey home. Now, in this pandemic moment, the restless energy resonates with a sense of wanting to move in conflicting directions: inward toward the surety of solitude, and outward with the persistent hope to connect in an irreconcilable, endlessly fascinating world.

The altered tuning of the first violin, borrowed from Arkansas fiddlers, is audible in the final (sixth) movement, driven by a fiddle tune called “The Hangman’s Reel.” Restless Nation was commissioned and premiered by the Cassatt Quartet at Symphony Space in New York City.

The folk influences in Secrets of the North and Azazme Songs are evident in the instrumentation and modalities, as played by the two master soloists, Marco Ambrosini (Nyckelharpa) and Yair Dalal (Oud). The composer explores here what is earthy, anonymous, and the collective imagination of communities over time. Secrets of the North is inspired by a short story by Isak Dinesen, The Sailor Boy’s Tale. An old Sami woman turns into a hawk and helps a boy. In this suite version, we hear the distinctive sound of the nyckelharpa (key fiddle). The larger piece is composed for narrator, string quartet, nyckelharpa, mouthbow, and concertina.  The music strives to achieve a sense of what is ethereal and yet wild and raw—elements that are inherent in Scandinavian folk music.

The suite of tunes Azazme Songs was composed after a four-day trek with the Walidi family of the Azazme Bedouins across the Aravah desert, close to the Israel/Egypt border. The caravan was organized by Yair Dalal and the Walidis. At each meal, ouds and violins were taken down from the camels and played. The songs are known as “Hjennies,” old tunes the camel drivers sing to themselves on their journeys across the Aravah. The gently repeating themes are steeped in the maqamat Rast and Bayati. Azazme Songs is not intended as authentic transcription, but as the musical offering of a beginner, impressions gleaned from listening around the fire after walking across an ancient landscape, filled with the sense of time unbound. The Appalachian lap dulcimer is used here as a sound evoked by the Bedouin Sumsumia, a strummed psaltery-like instrument.

In 1942, folk balladeer Woody Guthrie was asked to play for the Martha Graham Dance Company in a piece entitled “Folksay.” But Guthrie had difficulty singing his songs the same way each time, and so was paired up with one of the dancers, Marjorie Mazia, in order to learn to count an equal number of beats between verses. The two were immediately drawn to one another, and Woody began to woo her away from her husband in Philadelphia. When Marjorie became pregnant with Woody’s child, she retreated to consider her options. Woody wrote her a series of letters, each one a school composition book. Letter from Woody is inspired by one of these notebook letters. An extended version of this piece includes text for actor/folk singer and dancer. The piece draws on traditional American folk string bowings and energies. Thanks to the BMI/Woody Guthrie Foundation and to the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts for support, and to Nora Guthrie and Woody Guthrie Publications, for inviting the composer to the Woody Guthrie archives.

— Andy Teirstein