related works
Ecstatic Eruptions... : for piano trio / Peter Kerkelov
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Piano trio (piano, violin, cello)
Scoring:
vn vc pf
L’cho Dodi : for solo voice / Samuel Schuijer
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice solo
Scoring:
zang
Zaum : for solo voice, 1994 / Ab Sandbrink
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice solo
Scoring:
voice solo
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice solo
Scoring:
sopr(perc)
composition
Serpents and Doves : Bestiary for four female voices / Peter Kerkelov
Other authors:
Kerkelov, Peter
(Composer)
Description:
One night I had a dream of a giant letter A made out of intertwining pigeons and snakes. I was standing underneath this mass of animal bodies while the snakes were falling on my head like rain. The atmosphere was very soothing and tranquil. Being back into the awaken world I remembered about the wonderful Bestiary by Guillaume Apollinaire, while at the same time in my mind sounded so many familiar Bulgarian village songs where the serpent and the dove are often-occurring characters. Thus, I found the desire to bring together the witty, yet profound, language of Apollinaire’s poetry and the mysticism and straight-forwardness of traditional songs lyrics.
For the construction of the lyrics for „Serpents and Doves” I used some poems from Apollinaire’s Bestiary as a generator of visual associations. Based on such vague imagery I would then gather large number of short verses from different Bulgarian traditional songs. Consequently, the order of these verses was randomized with the help of a software resulting in something like a „wrongly“ assembled jigsaw puzzle.
For me in these texts the serpent and the dove are not mere animals. They are symbols of earth and heaven, of dark and light, of reality and imagination. To capture the metaphysics of these visions I created a text that paints an image which doesn’t depict a narrative. It is rather a kaleidoscope of hallucinations which reflects the unrefined primitivism of the human soul.
Peter Kerkelov