‘Into The Abyss, I Throw Roses’ (2018)
for violin, viola and violoncello
Approx. Duration: 7’
Commissioned by the Park Lane Group with funding provided by the RVW Trust. First performance by the Eblana String Trio in the Southbank Soundstate Sessions, Purcell Room, London (17/01/19)
‘Into The Abyss, I Throw Roses (2018) for string trio is inspired by words from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Posthumous Fragments dating November 1882 to February 1883. ‘You have overcome yourself: but why do you show yourself to me only as the one overcome? I want to see the victor: throw roses into the abyss and say, "Here is my thanks to the monster who didn’t succeed in swallowing me.”’ The piece depicts the imagery within the text by contrasting reflective, sombre moments with more heavy, rhythmic passages as well as delicate descending figures simulating falling roses.’
©G.E.M.2018
©Cover Image: 'I Throw Roses' Painting by Grace-Evangeline Mason 2018
“Across a variety of concert halls at Southbank Centre, there was music addressing all sorts of heavy subjects. Grace-Evangeline Mason’s Into the Abyss, I Throw Roses was a beautiful and muscular piece for a string trio inspired by a Nietzsche quote”
“A gorgeous, emotionally charged piece of music, sensitively performed by the trio of musicians, it had an other-worldly, almost filmic quality which was extremely appealing and drew the listener in.”