Caminante — no hay caminos, hay que caminar … Traveler, there are no paths, you make them by walking
Table of Contents
What is the connection between the paths we create in life and how we listen? How can the act of listening to music inform our daily lives? These are questions which inspired the creation of much of Luigi Nono’s late music, and in turn are the catalyst for Left Coast Chamber Ensemble’s 32nd season.
The centerpiece of the season is our Winter Wandering Festival from January 24-26 in Berkeley, and January 31-February 2 in San Francisco.
The late work of Schubert and Nono frames the festival: their music connects through a preoccupation with wandering and a concern with how the individual interacts with the world. Two new commissions, three world premieres, and collaborations across different disciplines are presented in five concerts across three days.
During the festival, Left Coast will cross paths with the chamber choir Volti, tenor Kyle Stegall, artist Adrian Arias (works featured), and the Berkeley Art and Interreligious Pilgrimage Project.
In Conversation with Left Coast: Schubert’s Winter Journey
Scenes of Sojourn: We sat down with Left Coast Artistic Director, Matilda Hofman, and and tenor, Kyle Stegall, to explore threads connecting Schubert’s Winterreise with the idea of pilgrimage as it has evolved over the centuries, and as it connects to Art. We intersperse our conversation with glimpses into Kyle’s musical journey and rehearsal process with pianist Eric Zivian.
Entering into the Enigmatic …
Matilda: Welcome, Kate; welcome, Kyle; I’m very excited to be here at the beginning of this journey that we have together … which actually has been in low-boil fruition for years but, here this feels like a new beginning; as we start to look towards this Winter Wandering Festival at the end of January 2024
Kyle: … 2025 …
Matilda: (laughs) 2025, that‘s right … 2025
Kyle: Or we can go back in time, and it’s fine. We’ll figure it out.
Kate: We’ll be talking about temporalities (laughs)
Matilda: Yes (laughs) linear time, it’s all perception. But it seems like all these threads started naturally coming together. So I’m very excited to talk today, to have conversations today, about the idea of wandering … and how it has been a motif in art for a long time, and how that ties into ancient ideas of journeys and pilgrimage. Schubert’s Winterreise, or Winter Journey, written in 1828, is such a seminal, and psychologically moving piece, so it seems absolutely natural to put this piece in our first festival; and of course, Kyle, you’ve had such a long artistic relationship with [Left Coast pianist] Eric Zivian…
Kyle: I mean, honestly, that is itself a journey. I don’t know if you will call that collaboration with Eric, a “pilgrimage” — not that you were; just, that I’m thinking about that idea. Like, that — that collaboration has been a long one and continues, continues to journey. And also, I just have to say, this is my first time singing Winterreise; and to prepare a 24-song opus is something you really have to venture into — you have to say: “Okay, now: now’s the time;” and that seems to me, like pilgrimage.
Eric and I have been asked to perform Winterreise for years now, and it’s never felt like the right time; we’ve resisted, we’ve waited, we’ve, we’ve considered. And a big part of the reason now feels right is because of the way it’s intersecting with this festival, and the way it’s intersecting with this project; so, it is a pilgrimage for us.
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A stranger I arrived, a stranger I depart
Setting the Scene …
Matilda: We’ve been talking for a year or so about how music and pilgrimage connects and, you know, exploring that journey, and what it could mean here for our community. So I’m very excited to hear from you about your perspective on that.
Kate: I’m so excited about the opportunity to post an audio pilgrimage onto the website that listeners can spend time with, with headphones alone, or with other people, and really kind of enter into the space of this very moody and evocative piece of music. And I think that this particular piece works on a few different levels.
There’s the poetry and lyrics, which have symbolism we’ll talk about a little bit later that relate to sort of traditional pilgrimage symbols, iconography.
And then there’s the aspect of the piece itself as a kind of pilgrimage, you have the journey of this wanderer, and there’s musical motifs that sound like footsteps or passages or wind moving through the winter trees. And so it becomes a sort of pilgrimage for the listener.
And Kyle already talked about a little bit about how even the preparation of this piece for him and the pianist was a journey, that pilgrimage for them as well.
So, there are multiple levels of meaning here that I think will be really compelling for the Left Coast listenership.
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Revelation in Rehearsal …
Kyle: So, Eric and I have just started rehearsing it. We’ve each, of course, studied it on our own, but this is day three of rehearsing this cycle. And we have this wonderful privilege of rehearsing something … six months ahead of the ahead of the performances. I think that’s also part of why we felt like this was the right time because this isn’t something you can put together, and just, “However it falls out, it falls out.” This music is going to give us an opportunity to – or, this time is giving us an opportunity – to let the music season within us, season with our communication. So we’re looking forward to that
Matilda: Eight months, I think
Kyle: Good. (Laughs) Math. Good. That’s great. Yeah
Matilda: But that’s, isn’t that an amazing length of time, too; because, I mean, this is a piece of music that, as a singer, as a pianist, as a musician – you have lived with, and know many different interpretations. So, although you haven’t sung it yourself, I assume, it’s a part of you …
Kyle: You know, I wish I could say that, but that feels like a wonderful romantic notion. And I was surprised a few days ago, when we started working on it, to find that it didn’t feel that way. It’s not that the music isn’t going to feel that way — it’s that we’re not there yet; it’s revealing itself. The way Eric and I approach this, and I’m not sure if any of this is interesting at all, too.
Matilda: Yes, yes it is.
Kyle: (Laughs) Okay; but the way Eric and I approached our rehearsals, it’s 24 poems. So, in the first two hours of rehearsal, we read through eight; the next two hour rehearsal, we read through eight; then we went to sleep. Then, the next day, we got up and we read through the final eight. And it really wasn’t until halfway through the final eight that we started to get any sense of what this was meant to feel like as performers, or how we were to relate to it. Because in a way, a lot of these poems … feel like they don’t relate to each other — they go here, and then they go here. And indeed, the person, the personage that we’re amplifying through, through these poems, doesn’t always know where he is, doesn’t always know where he’s going. And, so it takes the entirety of the cycle to start to feel like, you relate to it on a personal level. And I think audiences listening might experience that … and I think that’s unique and important.
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Lost in Liminal Spaces …
Kate: I love that idea of being destabilized by entering into the space of wander and uncertainty. Which leads me to a question that we started to talk about earlier: I was thinking about Schubert himself, the composer, and the journey that he was going through when he composed these pieces. Could say a little bit about that, and maybe how it contributes to that sort of liminal space that we live in?
Kyle: Yeah, I mean, anything that any of us offer in that way will be, to some degree, speculative. We have letters, and we have historical accounts of Schubert’s timeline; we know that he was writing this in his final months of life. And, in a way, you could say, “Oh, maybe that’s why all of the piece feels so dark.” But once you get into the piece, you find moments where it doesn’t feel dark, or it feels really hopeful, it feels ecstatic. And it feels … desperate, it feels confused. And maybe that’s even more related to that liminal space. Maybe a winter wandering isn’t just through the dark music. Maybe a winter wandering is … something where we’re always looking for something which maybe isn’t always there.
I know that sounds kind of cryptic; but, one of the things Eric and I are finding is that the poetry keeps bringing this figure back to a desire for peace; that desire for rest – of course, we can think the metaphor of death is that, “final great rest” – and that’s really what we’re finding this person looking for, what this poetry is searching for … and maybe that relates to how Schubert was living his final months writing this piece.
It certainly contrasts from the other major Opus that we think of in terms of [ — ] which is Schöne Müllerin, which has this youthful, bright, excited, energy — and then: ultimately, tragic ending. This, this is a little more mature, this is a little more … somber
Matilda: There are ecstatic moments, and then there are those moments where the sunshine comes back in, as in the Lindenbaum: And then at the end, it was … I mean, for me, when I listen to this cycle, I often end up in the same process each time: for some whatever reason, I’m more familiar with the initial songs, and I travel that journey, and then get quite … lost in that middle section … and then the music comes out into this … much more, visionary place at the end, with the blind man, and then you’re like, “Where, are we?”
Matilda: But it suddenly seems, like a revelatory moment.
Kyle: Totally. … I think that’s a big reason why the rehearsals, at first felt the way they did … you do get lost. You, you go out to get lost. And you get this feeling in the poetry that, the figure … the central figure of this … narrative … ? Is lost partially because he doesn’t even know, what he’s looking for. He’s not fully aware of what he’s looking for. We just keep coming back to that: “Maybe if I could just get some rest; maybe if I could find some peace;” but that “getting lost” feeling is part of the character of this piece, which is so unique.
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Encountering Communitas
Kate: Kyle, can you say something about the places of encounter, and the things along the encounters on this journey, that are formative for him?
Kyle: I would love to, but before I do, I love that phrase “places of encounter;” can you talk to me about that?
Kate: Well, when I think of traditional pilgrimage, there’s often stations along the way where, the pilgrim experiences, moments of transcendence, or, to borrow a phrase from Celtic Christianity, there’s thin spaces, where people feel like they’re connecting to a world beyond this world. And in some cultures, that feels like an ancestral connection.
In my work, I’ve called it communitas, meaning, a kind of connection that we have – all the people that have come before, and all the people that will come together in the future.
And so, I think when we listen to this piece, we are experiencing maybe what Schubert experienced … maybe we’re also coming on a journey with you, through your vocal performance and the pianist.
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Kate: And when I was reading through the poem, I just was struck by the things that the wander encounters: there’s like, the Lindenbaum, for example.
When I think of the Lindenbaum – it could could mean different things for different people – but I think of, again, like untraditional pilgrimage: there’s often trees connected to places where there’s holy water or wells, and sometimes these are kind of pre-Christian, pagan springs, life-giving kind of water sources. And then, when Europe started to Christianize, they become associated with particular saints, and they’re often by Holy trees, and Linden is considered a very Holy tree — it’s very important in German art, because people construct religious statues, and especially Marian images out of this Lindenwood, Limewood, sculptures in Germany.
And, and so in the old days, when you would encounter a well, with a tree – especially if you were on a pilgrimage for healing – you would often take the rag that you had tied around your wound, and you dip it in the water, and kind of ask a prayer of the saint or the sacred, the sacredness of the site, dip the thing in the well, and then you would tie it to the tree, actually. And when that rag decayed, your healing would be complete.
So, I was thinking of how the Lindenbaum is that it is a place of water — but it’s also a joyous moment, right, and the peace; so it’s kind of this moment of renewal, which often comes with a bathing in sacred waters. So, I was kind of finding moments of, sort of — even traditional pilgrimage – even though this is construed as a “wandering” rather than a pilgrimage to a site or a shrine.
Kyle: This is all just so incredibly fabulous. All of these, all of these … intersections of thought, are are just so alive in this piece. I can’t even remember what your question was, because I’m so fascinated with what you said … But, I do want to say that I’m really grateful for this lens of “pilgrimage” as a focus for this piece. It’s helped me so much to, put all the poetry and all the music together in something that I can begin to grasp at. So, thank you for this conversation.
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Mystic Suspense …
Kate: We were just talking about moments, of your moments
Kyle: But you just had a really cool phrase – what was the phrase?
Kate: Spaces… places of encounter? I think, was it?
Kyle: That’s great. How cool is that? So, I relate to a lot of things — and I feel like you do too, Matilda with what she just said.
Matilda: Mhmm
Kyle: So, I mean, jump in, don’t let me just keep going, right? Okay, but one of them is, thin spaces, you said. Okay, there are, there are a number of moments in this. I don’t want to call it a “narrative,” necessarily, right? It’s a, it’s, it’s a … : “moment-to-moment description of … moments.”
It’s not even like —. Okay, so, there are moments of this, this person’s encounter with thin spaces. One is Die Nebensonnen: this hallucination almost, or … illusion of three suns in the sky. This to him is so … is so close to the mystic, that he has to stop. And he stops, and he stares at these three suns. And he gets the sense that they’re staring back. And … so, even though we think of pilgrimage as this “moving,” there are moments, that I think you’re describing, where you have to stop; you stop, and you experience something, and he leaves room for that. This also happens in Irrlicht
Matilda: Will o’the Wisp …
Kyle: Right. … or, what’s it called? “Fool’s Fire” …something like this, you know — where some gasses combust in the air in front of him; so, this is a natural occurrence — I certainly haven’t experienced it, but I’ve read about it. And he follows this … this trick of nature, and it leads him, on a path that he wasn’t expecting to be on. And, that feels almost like the path itself: it pulls him in a direction, pulls him to a section that says: “This is where you’re meant to be right now.” This happens numerous times, and it’s always related in some way to … nature.
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Encounters
Matilda: That’s what I was just thinking: it’s always a natural thing.
Kyle: It’s a natural thing
Matilda: How about the Crow? Do you think that the Crow is one of those thin spaces?
Kyle: So, I think that’s more like communitas …
Kyle: … You know, the Crow feels more like a … fellow wanderer. What other fellow wanderers? He mentions his own shadow, as a fellow wanderer. He mentions this crow …
Matilda: The hurdy-gurdy player …
Kyle: The hurdy-gurdy player … at the end. Yeah, there, he finds this community.
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Kyle: You know: he finds himself needing shelter; and he finds himself at this coal miner’s hut; and, even though the coal miner isn’t there, it’s a representation of a shelter that somebody else has shared — it’s a place in the wilderness, where all of a sudden, you breathe, experience, and stop.
Matilda: And you compare those wilderness places where, it’s in contrast to the village; which he ends up at sometimes, and stuff, and feels like: although there’s all this activity, there’s somehow a … people that are deceiving themselves somehow in their life, the way they are living their life — so, he feels outside of that, and can’t connect back into this, and connects back into himself, and into his journey, whenever he removes himself again, from that space.
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Liminal Rhythms …
Kyle: So, again: what a weird pilgrimage, for this guy to be on; in a big way, his pilgrimage is more interior. It’s more internal. It’s more a pilgrimage of the soul, than it is a literal “pilgrimage” — although, he is constantly moving, and finding himself in different places, and led there by nature itself.
But, these Stations — I really like this idea, because he keeps trying to get away from the city or the village; and then there’s this magnetic pull: where he comes to the edge of the city again, and then he goes away; and then he feels this pull, and he comes back to the edge of the city, and whenever he’s there, he has to reconcile his feelings about what society is versus what he is.
And then, that Lindenbaum is also a station; it’s a literal place that has pulled for him.
Kyle: He tries to get away from it, because it was too comfortable. … And yet, with every step he takes: he feels, this magnetic … spirit energy … pulling, pulling at him, making him think. So, it’s a station almost that, you’re trying to …
Matilda: … escape (laughs)
Kyle: Escape! (laughs)
Kyle: But it’s still a station. It’s still a place that you have to, you know relate to in some important way.
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Kate: To me, it’s also very Dantean; it kind of reminds me of Dante’s pilgrimage, through the, The Divine Comedy
Kyle: Yeah
Kate: … and how Virgil, becomes his guide, you know, and he’s kind of like, doesn’t really know what to do when he sees — You were talking about the three suns, and the Dantean pilgrimage starts in this kind of sun on the horizon, and starts to follow this path. He eventually has this kindly guide, to kind of steer him through, this turmoil, and places where he finds divine beauty – but he’s also very frightened – forests of darkness and so on. And it feels a little bit like that to me.
Kyle: Definitely. This. Again, if we think about that Crow; “Are you friend or foe?”
Kate: (Nods) Mhmm
Kyle: “You’re with me? It feels like you’re either protecting or guiding me but — ”
Matilda: But, perhaps, down into the, into the (gestures) the depths … of Hell (laughs)
Kate: (Laughs)
Kyle: “Into my demise,” yeah. Yeah, he’s not sure.
Matilda: And maybe that’s what Virgil is, as well. I don’t know
Kate: Yeah
Matilda: Some kind of symbolic … symbol of, not symbol of death – but symbol of, of that journey. Some relationship, right, because Dante had that relationship with Virgil’s poetry; and that’s why he was on that journey. … because that was his thin space between … centuries, poetry that was written centuries earlier.
Kate: (Nodding) Mhmm
Matilda: And, and a thin space between Virgil and his own journey … .
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Lunar Pilgrimages …
Kate: And the shadow. I mean, the Shadow, too — just about, just about the kind of, the exterior journey, and how it reflects the inner journey that we’re on, right.
So, this wanderer’s having this, this inner turmoil, but he’s also physically walking, right; which is what — this kind of goes with what we were saying earlier about the different levels that this is working on, and how even the temporalities are holding against itself. So there’s, there’s the journey – Schubert’s journey, the musical journey, the journey of the wanderer, and then and again, his inner experience is reflected in this outer journey.
The Shadow, actually – it’s very interesting – because it’s not quite a reflection, but it’s a way that you can kind of see yourself kind of projected by the sun, on the space of the forest, right
Kyle: Or, in this case, of the moon — a Mondenschein, right. And so, we … understand, in romantic ideology: the moon as related to winter, the moon as a closing – a closing out; and we understand that this is an ending journey: this is a pilgrimage … not of, sort of “Spring discovery,” but unto the depths of the soul, recognizing self.
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Resonance and Creative Compromise
Matilda: Yeah, I’d love to be a fly on the wall in some of your rehearsals. I mean, can you say something about how the flow happens, what you talk about … what you don’t talk about?
Kyle: Sure. I’m not sure how much it will relate to pilgrimage; but I can answer it and we can cut out whatever is not useful. Is that worthwhile?
Kate: Please
Kyle: Okay. So. … I don’t know, I wish Eric were here, because — I think he would agree with what I’m about to say. Eric and I are remarkable partners. Because we have the requisite respect for each other, and care for each other’s music-making. But the lens: his first lens, is dedicated to honoring what the composer has asked for; and my first lens is always honoring what the poet has asked for.
Kyle: And not that he, you know, isn’t focused on poetry as well – and I not also focused on the score; it’s just that our first interaction with the piece always comes from these two different places; in that way, we’re always challenging each other. And, and so there’s compromise, but it’s always, always creative compromise. It’s not: “Somebody doesn’t get what they want;” it’s: “How do we both get what we need?”
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Nono’s Footnotes: We must walk… dreaming
Featured Artist: Adrian Arias
Adrian Arias is a visual artist, poet, performer, curator, activist, and cultural promoter, who brings together multidisciplinary artists to engage in community projects with messages of social justice, racial equality, climate change, peace, beauty, health, and hope in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Winter Wandering Festival, 2025
Three intense days of music explore the human journey and its connections to place, space, and the imagination.
Schubert Quintet — Hay que caminar
Winter Journey
