Accordion: Matti Pulkki (www.mattipulkki.com)
Composition: Reiko Füting (www.reikofueting.com)
Audio: Ryan Streber (Oktaven Audio http://www.oktavenaudio.com)
Video: Charles Mueller (Oktaven Audio http://www.oktavenaudio.com)
Program Note: ineo, for accordion solo (2019), was commissioned by Ralph Crispino’s I-Park Foundation and is dedicated to Finnish accordionist Matti Pulkki. A quote by St. Augustin, used in the original Latin as well as in its English and German translation, was included as a reference to German American philosopher Hannah Arendt, whose interpretation reaches beyond its Christian context and focuses on the potential for political change represented by the birth of each human being. I think that this shift of focus from the mortality of humans to the nativity of humans is as relevant in our times as it was in the times Hannah Arendt reflected. Musically, the composition references contemporary composers (Sofia Gubaidulina, Arvo Pärt) as well as the music of Josquin Desprez (the chanson Nymphes des bois, also known as La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem, and one excerpt of the Missa Pange lingua (“…et incarnatus est…”/“…and was made man…”).
Initium ut esset, creatus est homo.
Damit ein Anfang sei, wurde der Mensch geschaffen.
That there was a beginning, man was created.
St. Augustin
Men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin.
Hannah Arendt
Matti Pulkki 