A work commissioned by the Velvet Curtain Festival in Cracow in 2000. The idea of the festival organisers was to combine music with textual inspirations. In this composition, the relation to the text is indirect and very informal, but still it exists, in harmony with Andrzej Chłopecki’s suggestion and my own intentions. While writing this music I had in mind, among others, the verses of St. Matthew Gospel (26, 36–44), St. Luke Gospel (22, 39–46) and the poem The Garden of Olives by Rainer Maria Rilke. I considered those verses and many other things: Johann Sebastian Bach, landscapes I have seen or only imagined, and my own very personal experiences. It was not my intention, however, to illustrate any of those reflections with the sounds of my music. They remained an inspiration – a region in which music is born, and a stimulus for singing. It is a kind of music that strives to sing, and sing only, or better – to sing out what can be defined as a mixture of desperation and rekindled hope.

Onutė Narbutaitė