Anyone familiar with studying music at University knows that throughout our years of training, we musicians are constantly working on our technique: doing exercises, studying music theory, arranging and composition. But sometimes, in the middle of all this routine, inspiration simply arrives.
An idea that suddenly brings together theory and soul, knowledge and practice, all the exercises and everything you have been working on for so long. And little by little, a piece of music begins to take shape.
For me, a composition is, in a way, like a little memory box. It is a combination of lines I once heard or read, poems, pieces of music, impressions, experiences and reflections. All of these things come together, are processed within me, and eventually preserve something deeply personal – my state of mind, my sense of self, a part of who I was at the moment when I created it.
That is what happened with my first composition for quartet – “Dom Pt. I”.
One day, while looking through my grandmother’s library, I came across a collection of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, a Russian poet of the Silver Age. I found a poem called “The Country”, which began with these lines:
“With a lantern, search the whole world beneath the moon —
That country is nowhere on the map, nowhere in space.
Drained like a saucer, its bottom gleams:
Can one return to a home that has been destroyed?”
Something in these lines touched me very deeply at the time. Somehow, they resonated with my own feelings and experiences, which had been a quiet background to my life over the previous years. I felt an urge to pick up my guitar.
And so, in the course of one evening, the first version of this song was born. After that, different melodies continued to sound in my head, and I wanted to develop the idea further, turning it into a piece for quartet. And so I wrote the parts for the girls.
Then, at one point during one of our rehearsals, Liss said, “Why don’t we play this piece together with Lisa and Vlada?” They are members of Trio Lumina, with whom I also play.
I thought it was a wonderful idea! And that was when the dream began: to share this music on stage with these wonderful musicians whom fate brought into my life during my years of studying at the Hochschule für Musik Dresden, and whom I value a lot.
This was happening while I was preparing for my Bachelor’s concert. And for the first time, I imagined how wonderful it would be to one day perform this piece on stage together with these girls.
And that is exactly what happened!
At my Bachelor’s concert, we performed “Dom Pt. I” together for the first time as a full quartet, with bass and vocals. There was something incredibly powerful about being six women on stage together. I felt deeply grateful and incredibly happy to share that moment with them, as well as with my teachers, friends, and everyone who took the time to come to my concert and spend that evening with me!
And that is how my first composition for quartet came into being – from a poem I happened to find in my grandmother’s library, from my own experiences at that time, and from the desire to share this music with the girls and with the people close to me.
