Petrified Forest National Park.
Photo: John McDonald
Op. 569a (2015), for solo cello:
- Through Which There Is No Way
- On The Way Or At Home?
Because of my delight upon receiving a commission from cellist Rhonda Rider (early in 2015) for her upcoming stint as Artist in Residence at the Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO), I started thinking and sketching almost right away. The present diptych is the result of that early creative excitement, and serves as a prelude to my own upcoming trip to PEFO.
As of this writing, I can only imagine the experience of the Petrified Forest, with its petropgyphs, wildlife, and storied vastness. It is from that imagined experience that Through Which There Is No Way and On The Way Or At Home? were fashioned.
A curious definition of “petrified” found in my still-trusty two-volume OED (Oxford English Dictionary), “through which there is no way,” suggested phrases like “can’t get there from here,” but also indicated that impenetrable strength and solidity might be a musical goal to consider. Thus, this first response to the idea of the Petrified Forest—of petrification—is made of three muscular, lengthening phrases divided by rock-like, double-stop chords.
To get a little lost and stay lost is essentially the goal of On The Way Or At Home?, an almost entirely pizzicato piece inspired by a phrase from a Zen poem “Wandering” (by poet/monk Musō Soseki [1275-1351]) that I stumbled across while reading The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader (The ECCO Press, 1996):
…Traveling east or west
light and free
on the one road
I don’t know whether
I’m on the way
or at home
I wonder with this piece (and this poem) if I will feel at home hiking in the PEFO, or will I be lost? Or lost and at home? Am I lost at home?
After visiting the park, I hope to offer an afterpiece titled Returns, about the park’s migratory birds, items that park visitors have stolen and returned over the years, and my own return “home.” Stay tuned…
I dedicate these pieces, with admiration, to Rhonda Rider.
John McDonald
October 15, 2015