Gordon Monro - "Lament Over Jerusalem"

"Many Worlds Theory"

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"The Voice of the Phoenix (2)"

"Lament Over Jerusalem"

For cello and tape, duration 8 mins 35 secs (1998)

Go to the download page for an extract from Lament Over Jerusalem.

Program note

Lament Over Jerusalem is an abstract setting of the following text from the book of Jeremiah (ch. 9, vv. 16-21).

Call for the mourners to come,
Send for the skilled women to come.
Let them come quickly and raise a dirge over us,
So that our eyes may run with tears,
And our eyelids flow with water.

For the sound of lamenting is heard from Zion:

       "How ruined are we,
       How great is our shame,
       For we have left our land,
       Our homes have been cast down."

Listen, women, to the word of the Lord,
Let your ears receive the word of his mouth.
Teach your daughters a lament,
And one another a dirge.

For Death has climbed in through our windows
And entered our palaces,
Taking the children from the streets
And the young men from the squares.

Corpses lie scattered
Like dung in the fields,
Like sheaves behind the reaper,
With no one to gather them.

The tape part is derived from recorded cello sounds, processed by applications of the so-called fast wavelet transform. Lament Over Jerusalem is dedicated to the cellist Eleanor Lewis, who encouraged its composition and premiered the work.

Performance materials are available from me or from the Australian Music Centre.

Paul Groh, an Australian violist and composer, has made an arrangement of this work for viola and released it on CD.

Performances, etc

"Live Wires" concert (organised by The Australasian Computer Music Association and the Contemporary Performers' and Composers' Fellowship), Old Darlington School, University of Sydney, 10 October 1998, cello Eleanor Lewis;
"Cellomania II" concert, Old Darlington School, University of Sydney, 12 December 1998, cello Eleanor Lewis;
"Plugged In" concert (organised by the Contemporary Performers' and Composers' Fellowship), Old Darlington School, University of Sydney, 15 May 1999, cello Eleanor Lewis;
Australasian Computer Music Conference "Imaginary Space", Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, 9 July 1999, cello Charles Brooks;
National radio broadcast (Australian Broadcasting Corporation FM network), 6 February 2002, cello Eleanor Lewis;
Concert of New Music by (NSW) Central Coast Composers (premiere on the viola: performer Paul Groh), July 2004.
Lament Over Jerusalem, in the arrangement for viola by Paul Groh, is on the CD "Extreme Viola".

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