Here the weariest
come to rest
in the swirl
of light and time and water
water and air
blues, teals
a twisting wisteria
seems to wrestle
the trellis
of its own trail
tier on tier
climbing its wires
of air

After the war

in his atelier
a fog, a silt
filming each iris
Monet twisted the laws
of landscape and paint to raise

the real
into a kind of stairwell
to tease
his Parisians out of the sterile

trials of war
to rest
not to erase
but ease
let them stare
and stare

-Donna Masini

This video is by David Humphrey, and visually sets the vocal setting. It is called: 1 Stairwell

Kurt Rohde writes: This setting of Donna Masini's "Water Lilies," poems found at the center of her collection of poems "4:30 Movie," were composed at my home in San Francisco during the COVID pandemic for soprano Stephanie Lamprea. The electronics in this recording were produced in collaboration with Joshua Jandreau. The live performance version uses a Max patch created in collaboration with Alex Van Gils.

These poems are abstracted re-tellings of the poet going to MOMA and seeing Monet's "Waterlilies" and coming away thinking about the paintings, the artist, the time the were created, and her sister who was dying of cancer at the time of her visit.

In addition to panning, I use 4 effects in my settings: reverb, delay, hi-pass filters, & granular synthesis. In many cases, I re-order the word of the poems to create an alternative narrative. For the final setting, the singer sings with a fixed media track using a combination of recordings I made of birds, and recitations of the poem by the singer Stephanie Lamprea.

The piece is designed to accommodate the innumerable qualities & abilities of the singers who perform it. It is meant NOT to be the same way with each performance, but rather, should reflect what the singer sees & hears inside of the space of the music I have written.

The piece have 9 movements:

Water Lilies 1
Water Lilies 2
Water Lilies 3
Water Lilies 4
Water Lilies 5
Water Lilies 6
Water Lilies 7
Water Lilies 8
(Water Lilies Floating)

The recording is of Stephanie Lamprea. It was edited, mixed, mastered & produced by Joshua Jandreau.