Performance recordings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpnxTi0-UPc&list=PLly22ePCV8pdBUV1pdTCX31sz-oo9e8Q-&index=1Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Verses from the Scroll of Sondering: Six Verses after the Hand Scroll of Taihaku Ishiyama.
Written for Bold City Contemporary Ensemble (Spring 2020)
Commissioned by the Harn Museum of Art (Spring 2020) for the exhibition "Tempus Fugit: Time Flies"
First performance: Sarah Jane Young (flute), Boja Kragulj (clarinet), Philip Pan (violin), Galen Dean Peiskee (piano), Charlotte Mabrey (percussion)
The exhibition in which Ishiyama’s “Landscape” was displayed, Tempus Fugit :: 光陰矢の如し:: Time Flies, is a “reflection on time and its many meanings.” In so doing, the broader concept of time was applied to the Japanese art collections at the Harn Museum as an “investigative tool” to understand three key aspects of time in art: first, how time has been “measured in the visual record;” second, how art objects can embody several moments in time; and third, how artists experience time during the production of their work. Furthermore, the ritualization and celebration of the natural world, often oriented around cycles of life and seasons, and the acknowledgment of mortality are also recurring themes in Japanese art and so were consequently highlighted within this exhibition.
Along with the obvious theme of “tempus” within the exhibition, the idea of “fugit” (flying) also colored the content and structuring of the exhibition, inspiring the curator, Allysa B. Payton, to feature works that to some extent incorporated birds. Thus, the theme of birds emerges continually throughout this musical work, not only in the titles, but in the sounds within and structure of the music. Bird calls are imitated by various means and instruments throughout the verses. The imagery of birds is further musically suggested through the frequent implementation of canonic and fugal writing in the verses, two forms which themselves originally take their names (e.g. “fuga,” Italian for “flight”) and forms from phenomena like birds in flight or animals in chase.
Regardless of the “fugitive” avian motif that embellishes the exhibition and this work, in light of the theme of cycles of time and life, I was immediately drawn to the concept of “sonder” to motivate the purpose of my work generally. “Sonder” is a neologism coined in 2012 by John Koenig in his project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the goal of which is to invent new words for emotions that currently lack words to express them. Sonder, one of these new words, is derived from the German “sonder” (meaning “special”) and the French “sonder” (meaning “to probe”), and is “the profound feeling of realization that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.” While “sonder” is not typically presented as a verb, I have presented it as such here, for I often find that it is important for one to engage with the emotion of sonder by actively “sondering.” Sondering is perhaps one of the most powerful instances of empathy one can have, for it is an active acknowledgement of the profound individuality and complexity of another, recognizing that their life is just as meaningful as your own, if not more so. You take a moment to ponder on the vast details of a life, briefly intersecting your own, and humble yourself by acknowledging that such details are beyond your comprehending in one lifetime because they themselves occupy such a space of time; however, they are not beyond your appreciation and contemplation.
When we sonder about someone (or something), we attempt to grasp the vastness of the details that make a person, but we can never know the complete story, moment by moment, in perfect resolution. Thus, at best, we do not access continuous piece through knowing someone, but fragments of their life; by studying a stranger we only see through the smallest window into their person. Even the person you love most in the world beyond yourself, is still a secret vortex of consciousness wrapped within the enigma of a mind not your own.
Our own memory is also fragmentary, and thus we cannot even clearly understand our own life and the course that took us to where we are today. The person one once was is not necessarily how one is now, in character or appearance; the path of life has many stories that mold us inexorably to ourselves, but the path to that present self is not always clear to others or even ourselves due to the constant imperfect metamorphosis and decay of memory. Ultimately, we apprehend not continuous narratives but rather verses of a life, small kernels of stories, details, events both joyous and tragic; they might seem disjointed, perhaps not clearly related but only through their seemingly arbitrary convergence in a person. However, such a person is proof to some narrative’s existence and the integrity of its path through this cosmos beside your own.
Thus, when I see the hand scroll of Ishiyama, I see the symbolism of “eternal” and transient cycles of time – the seasons, birth and death, the precession of the heavens – but I also see a more complex and unique story, only given through the scantest of details: the work of art. Ishiyama’s scroll is an encapsulation of a life up to the point of that work’s creation and conclusion. Furthermore, the work itself has found a life of its own beyond the preview of Ishiyama, finding its way to the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida to have a work of music written about it nearly a century after the scroll’s inception by a composer also born a century after and a world away from the artist. However, all I can see of such complex narratives is the scroll, in a singular moment, as I stand before it, atemporally enshrined in a prism of glass within the citadel humankind has created against time’s unremitting cycles of decay: the museum. Furthermore, my access to this passage into another’s life is further obscured by the museum’s capacity to only display a third of the scroll at a time, not to mention my meager ability to view only a few inches of the scroll in any moment.
In the face of such barriers to understanding and empathy, should we concede to seemingly intractable demands on our mental and physical capacities? Since I cannot hope to ever apprehend someone’s life and the feeling of fully having lived such a life, should I not attempt understanding since failure is certain? Should I refrain from venturing through a museum because I know that I will not only fail to appreciate all the objects and ideas contained within but also cannot expect to ever deeply understand every constituent aspect of each artifact and concept I encounter? Beyond base and belligerent self-centeredness, the greatest barrier to our expression of empathy is our fear of our own inadequacy in relocating the center of our universe to something other than our self. However, learning to refocus this center better, despite the assurance of ultimate failure in perfect refocusing, is paramount to the progress of the human project. Empathy, however imperfectly executed, is our best aegis against our own self-wrought destruction. Thus, the action of sondering is yet our most well-suited forge to craft such a shield as a bulwark against the uncertain and unforgiving flight of time and chaos of life.
