Lord Lord Lord Caw Caw Caw
for a choir of 10 bass singers
Description
Lord Lord Lord Caw Caw Caw is titled and was written by inspiration from Allan Ginsberg's poem Kaddish.
Using the text of Psalm 10: 1-17, which is a plea and a question of how God can stand injustice and wickedness the virtuosic bass choir develops a complex and formal harmonic and rhythmic language that contrasts two images of the same perceived event. In this way we first perceive a type of stillness, the unmoving mass chord, which hockets between the musicians, creating micromovement within the sound, but at the same time it gives the impression of not moving, but then by treating the sound as a 3D object, the sound is turned and the side views show how our perspective on the stillness is a lie of our sensory apparatus, of perception and, in fact, looking at the sound from multiple angles it is revealed that movement and duration exist and what we thought was happening is merely contained by our point of view.
Two version of this piece exist. One for a virtuosic bass choir and for speaking contrabass ensemble.
Psalm 10[a]
1 Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2 In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.
3 He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
4 In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
5 His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by[b] him;
he sneers at all his enemies.
6 He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”
7 His mouth is full of lies and threats;
trouble and evil are under his tongue.
8 He lies in wait near the villages;
from ambush he murders the innocent.
His eyes watch in secret for his victims;
9 like a lion in cover he lies in wait.
He lies in wait to catch the helpless;
he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.
10 His victims are crushed, they collapse;
they fall under his strength.
11 He says to himself, “God will never notice;
he covers his face and never sees.”
12 Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
13 Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?
14 But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked man;
call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
that would not otherwise be found out.
16 The Lord is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
17 You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that mere earthly mortals
will never again strike terror.
Instrumentation Category
Vocal and Choral Works
LanguageSv
LyricistPsalm 10: 1-17
PDF for promotional use
Archive number
MF36350
