Evening Prayer

Zoltán Kodály’s folk song Esti Dal [Evening Song] provides the impetus for my work, Evening Prayer. I have often used folk material in my pieces, usually from Appalachia, often setting it quite strophically. The song animates the piece on two different planes: the words ask humbly for safe and gentle transit to a foreign land; the narrative arch of the work actively mirrors this transformation and journey. And while the tune itself is quoted several ways throughout, it principally functions as a trope, fragmented and woven into the fabric of a wholly different musical world. Robert Beaser