Four Tree Lieder for Waiting with Creation - Advent Week 1

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Four Tree Lieder for Waiting with Creation

An Advent Song Cycle for Sarah Holman

Poetry by Tiffany Eberle Kriner

Music by Xavier Beteta

Sarah Holman, mezzo-soprano

Mary Hopper, piano

Nathaniel Holman, percussion

Timothy Holman, viola

Program Notes

These songs (lieder) are based on the Four Tree Lieder for Waiting with Creation by Tiffany Kriner. The songs were commissioned by mezzo-soprano, Sarah Holman. The cycle explores the idea of waiting (waiting with creation) for the final manifestation of the Kingdom of God. This wait is synonymous with Advent. Each song corresponds to each week of advent and portraits a different scene encountering a tree: The ginkgo, a tree in snow, a cherry tree, and the remains of an old tree as stones on the ground. The first song, “The Gingko Leaf Fall,” conveys a nostalgic atmosphere where the singer is accompanied by arpeggios in the piano and counter-melodies in the viola. The second song, “The Tree in Snow,” emulates church bells in the winter and has a mysterious feeling of expectation. The third song, “Waiting by a Winter Forest Waterfall with a Bare, Weeping Cherry Tree,” portrays an introspective atmosphere. The tempo is slow to resemble the wait, not only contemplating a tree, but also waiting for the return of the Messiah. This song introduces the “Jewish theme” as a premonition of the last song. The fourth song, “The Green Stump,” has a faster and jovial tempo, as if announcing the good news, in the same way the frozen stones still have some green and thus the tree can revive, the poetry also points toward the resurrection of Christ. To the short, staccato rhythm, follows a dance, with the previous “Jewish theme” as a celebration of the day when the Messiah manifests himself again.

- Xavier Beteta

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Romans 8: 20-25

First Week of Advent: The Ginkgo Leaf Fall

A gymnosperm, the Ginkgo tree releases all of its distinctively fan-shaped leaves in a single, short period, rather than the commoner way of bit by bit. The tree scars off at each meeting of petiole and branch, perhaps in response to some environmental change, and then all the yellow fans fall within a few hours. The falling seed of the ginkgo is famous for its putrid, galling scent.

The straw of cold

broke our cling hold.

The fall and all

at once ginkgo

leaves’ show is old--

We go down scarred,

with coats of light

and gall. Brief blaze,

fireworks’ tails’ fade.

All our failed gold

stars, spoiled fans, plans

foiled are leaf mold

for holy seed,

untilled. Untilled

earth enfolds him.

Mere reeds, hail him.

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