La Madre Triste
(Brooklyn Premiere)
La Madre Triste performed with dancers by Habitat Home First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn 124 Henry Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 624-3770 October 20, 2019 at 6:00 PM While strings keen a contrapuntal lament, the sad mother croons a lullaby to the baby swaddled and swaying on her back. Her melody is a paraphrase of a 15th century Sephardic folksong, originally sung by Spanish Jews fleeing their own persecution. Intermittently, children sing along with the strings, echoes of hope and consolation. Originally the middle movement of a larger work, Piececitos, La Madre Triste is a vivid musical meditation on motherhood, migration and exile based on poems by Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. Set in the original Spanish, Piececitos’ five songs for voice, violin, cello and piano interweave Latin American dance rhythms with haunting melodies: lullabies and laments of a mother on her […]