Into the Heart’s Unknown: Autumn Eurythmy Performance

As the rich colors of fall continue to deepen, the ESV Ensemble will perform, Into the Heart’s Unknown, on the stage of the Threefold Auditorium.

At the heart of this evening performance lies the seed, pregnant with possibilities, which manifests its full potential only through chaos and metamorphosis. We follow a path of initiation that winds its way through many landscapes and atmospheres in search of the well-springs of life.

In Mary Oliver’s poem, “West Wind,” we hear the call to embrace life with all its dangers and pitfalls, to row the boat with all our strength toward the thundering sound of life’s mighty waterfall; for it is only through the torrent of experience that we can discover our higher calling. This journey leads us through barren regions of arid desert, where, in an excerpt from T.S. Eliot’s twentieth century masterpiece, “The Waste Land,” we are told: “Here is no water but only rock.” We seek to find our way through this desolate world until we can hear a “spring, a pool among the rock… / Where the hermit thrush sings in the pine trees.” This journey is echoed and enhanced through an interweaving of music from composers such as Peter Sculthorpe, Samuel Barber, Jean Sibelius, and Zoltán Kodály.

We then begin to find a way forward on our spiritual quest in “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through,” by D. H. Lawrence. The poet writes, “Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!” If we wish to redeem the wasteland, we must learn to become vessels, instruments of a higher world. Through our work with those higher powers, we can realize our humanity’s full potential. As we hear in the final lines of the poem, “What is the knocking at the door in the night?… It is the three strange angels. Admit them, admit them!”

The program will also include a second part with various pieces of a lighter, humorous nature, as well as a grand composition for piano.