Boosey & Hawkes (Hendon Music)
Canta la Piedra (Tetluikan) (The Stone Sings) is a piece inspired by a poem from the talented Nahua writer Mardonio Carballo, who wrote it for the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, devoted to the art of Africa, the ancient Americas and Oceania.
The four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—have a profound and symbolic significance in Mesoamerican cultures, as they represent a deep connection with nature and their surroundings, reflecting as such their complexity in human existence. Each one is associated with different aspects of life, nature, and cosmovision from these cultures. Earth is sacred and appears as a mother who nurtures and sustains life, water symbolizes flux and renewal, air is associated with wind and the transmission of thought, while fire symbolizes transformation and power.
Within Mardonio’s poem each element repeats like a sacred mantra intermingling with images and symbologies from our human condition and our ancestral wisdom stretching back to life’s origin. Their profound beauty was the point of inspiration in creating a structurally unique musical piece that evokes ritual and dance sensations around nature and the universe’s origin. Stone transforms into a sacred object that unites and sings, in turn the Nahuatl words’ cadence and specific repetitions guide the creation of rhythmic patterns and melodies that conjure up varied sonorous emotions implicit in the poem. My idea was to create multifaceted music where poetry, nature, sacred numerology, and ancestral art intermingle and become enriched by creating diverse sonorous worlds.
—Gabriela Ortiz
About the Librettist
Mardonio Carballo is a Mexican multidisciplinary artist. His work encompasses performance, journalism and literature. His poetry in Nahuatl and Spanish has been translated into French and English. His latest books are Chén che re, a Book Inhabited by Pollen and Ni Xochitl Ni Kuikatl: A Song of Flowers. His documentary series have received numerous awards in Mexico. He is considered one of the greatest advocates for Mexico’s Indigenous languages and cultures. Veracruzana University, one of the most prominent universities in the country, awarded him the Medal of Merit in 2018.