ha… / RIVERSONG

Composer: Orbán György

Notes from the composer:

My ,,Riversong’’ was inspired by Japanese female choirs: it is a difficult and complex composition, but probably evokes what stands in the title: a river… (as in my young years I lived among hills, now I dwell by a river.)

The text is from a Transylvanian folksong: “If I were a cool stream” … an ancient motive. This nature-poetry is well-known in folklore all over the world. It is quite telling, that this old text was put into music by Béla Bartók and György Ligeti.
In my setting, the original folk melody appears as well. In fact it is a rather strange melody, rooted in pentatone, a legacy of Orient in the Hungarian folklore. But the beginning, the first few notes are deeply painful and sore in its chromaticism, and possibly the person who had sung it for the folksong collector wouldn’t have been able to recall it again alike. In all
probability, the starting note was intoned by the singer too high. However, the melody was printed in this way for about 100 years ago, and this is how it remained in my ears as well. Foible? Maybe…
(The text has several melodic versions, by the way.)