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| 2016/08/31 06:40:32瀏覽317｜回應0｜推薦2 | |
Sowash: “ The Green Knight” for violine, trumpet, cello and piano. Cincinnati, the Queen City, has whimsy. It’s her most lovable trait. When I heard about Green Man Park, our newest, I bicycled over to the Walnut Hills neighborhood to take a look at it. An empty lot on McMillan Street has been transformed into a public green space, featuring a seven-foot tall sculpted stone “Green Man." Do you know about the Green Man? You’ve seen his face, carved, drawn or painted, fashioned from leafy shapes. Twining vines comprise his hair, beard, eyebrows and mustache. From a thicket of facial shrubbery, he peers out at you; his eyes are intense, his expression unreadable. Is he amusing or menacing? Hard to say. If this doesn’t sound familiar, google “Green Man” images and you’ll see him quickly enough. (What times we live in, when it is so easy to do such things!) The carvers who adorned medieval cathedrals routinely rendered depictions of familiar Biblical figures, positioning the likes of Jesus, Joseph, Mary and Moses in lofty niches, plainly visible to the priests and congregations below. But higher yet, way back in the shadowy rafters, hidden from view, some of them covertly carved images of the Green Man. Why hidden from view? Because the Green Man was a pagan remnant; he predated Christianity by thousands of years. The carvers deemed it necessary to include a hidden Green Man in a space that was going to be regarded as sacred for centuries to come. Knowing the clergy would not approve, the carvers did this work in secret. The Green Man is often understood as a symbol of the cycle of growth, death, decay and rebirth. That’s plenty to think about ... but there is much more. He raises questions about our relationship with Nature. Is Nature, in any sense, a mirror? When we gaze into a welter of trees, shrubs and vines, is there, however figuratively, a human face, there in the foliage, gazing back at us? Does Nature, carefully scrutinized, display any aspects of humanity? Which? How? Why? The Green Man seems to assert that we humans, too, are part of Nature. If we believe that, then how shall we order our lives? How well are we doing? How healthy is our relationship with Nature? The Green Man seems poised to address such questions, yet he has no voice; he is only a mute icon after all. His image, whether carven, drawn, or painted, is wordless and moveless. Does he have anything to teach us? Does Nature have anything to teach us? What? A warning? An admonishment? An inspiration? Why is this figure always male? Does he give the lie to “Mother Nature?” “Mother Earth?” I have no answers for such questions. But I love the Green Man because he prompts us to think! The enormous sculpture newly mounted in Green Man Park was carved by one David Hummel, back in 1890, to ornament a building in Walnut Hills. A century later, in 1991, when the building was about to be demolished, the sculpture was rescued by a concerned citizen and was stored in obscurity for twenty-five years, almost forgotten. How fitting it is that now, at last, comes the Green Man's resurrection and rebirth as the centerpiece of his own little park, here in our whimsical city. The Green Man appears in literature, too, most notably as the Green Knight in an anonymous literary masterwork of 14th-century England, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” There he is not mute and moveless; he says and does things! He speaks forcefully, albeit ambiguously. His actions are bold but his motives are obscure. Existing outside the human realm, the Green Knight’s purposes are obscure. He cannot be pinned down. I love this poem and have read it many times. My favorite translation (the original is written in an obscure dialect of ancient English) is the one by J.R.R. Tolkien; it's funny, spooky, mystical, crafted by a master who knows how to tell a story. In 1979, I wrote a five-movement suite depicting scenes and characters from the poem, revising and re-scoring it for trumpet, violin, cello and piano in 2011. Sir Gawain is the hero of the tale but since the Green Knight dominates the opening and closing scenes, I let him have the final movement all to himself. To hear the final movement, entitled “The Green Knight,” performed with heroic gusto by violinist Cheryl Trace, trumpeter Thaddeus Archer, cellist Robert Clemens and pianist Greg Kostraba, click here: http://www.sowash.com/ To see a PDF of the score, click here: http://www.sowash.com/ |
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