Two Lullabies (2001)

When I perform these arrangements, even when I am the only listener, I try to create a world of feelings by way of the simple textures. The harmonies are deceptive: they seem simple, but a closer listening will reveal how our common understanding of how harmonies work, is stretched. For me this is a way of understanding the psychology of lullabies – something that I talk about in this interview with Jaco Meyer. Like several other compositions of mine, this work is a collection of lullabies. Since they are based on lullabies, they were analysed by Catrien Wentink whose article Inspired by Lullabies: Folk Song Arrangements by Hannes Taljaard can be downloaded here.

1. Thula Sthandwa (c. 2’00”)
2. Spi Mladenets (c. 1’45”)

Total duration c. 3’50”

1 Thula Sthandwa

I learnt this beautiful isiZulu lullaby from one of my students during a class. The melody and words made deep impressions and I searched inwardly for a few months in order to find a way to translate these impressions into sounds. The piano composition forms the basis for other versions of the composition: two choir pieces, and a version for bassoon and percussion. Some parts of the text of the lullaby as I have learned it, would not be recognised by native isiZulu speakers. Maybe it is in an older version of isiZulu…

Thula, sthandwa sam
Thula, sthandwa sami
Thula, sthandwa senhliziyoyami

Uyise limpela bo ngoba umebile
Lowo engimthandayo
Mgenhliziyo yami

Hush, my beloved sweetheart!
Death, you are a thief for stealing
the one I love with all my heart!

Spi, mladenets

While travelling through Circassia (home of the Don Cossacks) in 1840 the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov heard a mother singing to her fatherless baby. The poet remembered the melody, rewrote the text, and thus a popular lullaby originated. In the six stanzas of the song the mother sings about war, the death of the father, and the Cossack’s code of honour and revenge. But from the fourth stanza the look turns inward, and we get a hint of the true pathos behind something as deceptively straightforward and simple as a lullaby:

”Appearing as a hero, and a Cossack in your heart, I shall see you leaving, and you’ll wave. O how many bitter, sorrowful tears I will shed that night! Sleep my angel, softly, sweetly…”

The text of the poem and translations can be found on the internet.

Spi Mladenets, moy prekrasni.
Bayushki Bayou…

Sleep young one, my beautiful one.
Loo lah…