Eric Nathan: Missing Words
New Focus Recordings (2022)
New Focus Recordings (January 21, 2022 Release)
featuring
Boston Modern Orchestra Project
American Brass Quintet
Parry Karp and Christopher Karp
International Contemporary Ensemble
Neave Trio
Hub New Music
Premiere recordings of the complete Missing Words (2014-2021) series
Missing Words I for clarinet, bassoon, horn, string quartet, double bass
Missing Words II for brass quintet
Missing Words III for violoncello and piano
Missing Words IV for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, violoncello
Missing Words V for violin, violoncello, piano
Missing Words VI for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, violoncello
Total duration: 84 minutes
Download Liner Notes booklet (highly recommended to use when listening!)
“by turns witty and deadly earnest…makes for deeply compelling listening.”
- The Boston Globe
“This is brilliantly original stuff."
- Musical America
Composer’s Note
Missing Words (2014-2021) is inspired by German words invented by writer Ben Schott in his book Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition (Blue Rider Press/Penguin Group). These words illuminate experiences of everyday contemporary life for which English has no synonyms. The words are therefore “missing” from English, and Schott has proposed new German words that English speakers can adopt, in the vein of Doppelgänger, Schadenfreude and Wanderlust. I love the wit, humor, pathos and intimacy of Schott’s words, and use the concepts they evoke as points of departure for the music.
The series as a whole speaks to the complexity of life and human experience, and how all the little bits of the everyday present can help us find deeper meaning in our own. The music speaks to intimate yet shared experiences that range from the tragic and beautiful to the comic and commonplace. Missing Words is comprised of six sections that are each scored for different ensemble types, and are comprised of shorter movements that each reflect on a different German word and their conceptual associations.
The movement titles of Missing Words, and their translations and definitions, quote text from Schottenfreude by Ben Schott. Copyright © 2013 by Ben Schott. Used by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
- Eric Nathan
On the Music
“But Eric’s selected translation — I can think of no better word — is not just unexpected in conception, but remarkable in execution. It does with notes what I attempted with letters — that is, it takes a superficially frivolous idea, and treats it with a seriousness that reveals.
Missing Words is elegant and amusing, personal and public. It takes my tightly wrapped ball of wool, and unravels it in the most marvelous and startling manner. It makes me think that all books deserve the honor of being orchestrated.
Schottenfreude exists because when English is exhausted, we turn to German.
Missing Words exists because when words are exhausted we turn to music.”
- Ben Schott - London 2021
“"Nathan's music captures the range of human experience, and embodies an understanding that life's richness results from the accumulation of all of its facets, from the mundane to the profound… The composition of Missing Words I set in motion a process, familiar to the composer, of seeking out the most direct musical language to express the emotional and narrative content of a succinct idea. Already possessing a strong compositional technique and a large toolkit of resources, Nathan frequently found himself developing new tools and sounds to translate into music the commonplace or surprisingly subtle ideas behind Schott’s linguistic constructions.
“In many interesting ways, both musically and thematically, each of the individual sets of Missing Words pieces exemplifies the whole cycle. At times we’re asked merely to notice something—the way some physical action feels, the way it affects our mood. Other pieces are one-liners, a nudge to the ribs, while others, perhaps unexpectedly given the tiny kernel of their origins, expand and reflect upon much bigger phenomena of human experience. Each of the pieces is complete in itself; at the same time, though, each is a porous little world of sound that grows beyond itself, blends with the memory of the others, and sings to us of a song of humanity.”
- Robert Kirzinger
Director of Program Publications of the Boston Symphony Orchestra
THE TEXTS
The movement titles of Missing Words, and their translations and definitions, quote text from Schottenfreude by Ben Schott. Copyright © 2013 by Ben Schott. Used by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
Missing Words I
I. Eisenbahnscheinbewegung (Railway-Illusion-Motion)
“The false sensation of movement when, looking out from a stationary train, you see another train depart.”
II. Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen (Autumn-Foliage-Strike-Fun)
“Kicking through piles of autumn leaves.”
III. Fingerspitzentanz (Fingertips-Dance)
“Tiny triumphs of nimble-fingered dexterity.”
Missing Words II
I. Leertretung (Void-Stepping)
“Stepping down heavily on a stair that isn’t there.”
II. Kraftfahrzeugsinnenausstattungsneugeruchsgenuss (Automobile-Interior-Furnishing-Aroma-Pleasure)
“New car smell.”
III. Brillenbrillanz (Spectacles-Luminosity)
“The sudden, innervating clarity afforded by new glasses.”
Missing Words III
I. Rollschleppe (Escalator-Schlep)
“The exhausting trudge up a stationary escalator.”
II. Mundphantom (Mouth-Phantom)
“Feeling that the thermometer is still under your tongue after it’s been removed.”
III. Straußmanöver (Ostrich-Maneuver)
“The short-term defense strategy of simply denying reality.”
IV. Schubladenbrief ((Desk-)Drawer-Letter)
“The letter you write, but never send.”
Missing Words IV
I. Erkenntnisspaziergang (Cognition-Stroll)
“A perambulation taken with the specific intention of contemplation.”
II. Dreiecksumgleichung (Triangle-Reorganization)
“When two friends you’ve introduced form a new friendship that excludes you.”
III. Tageslichtspielschock (Daylight-Show-Shock)
“Being startled when exiting a movie theater into broad daylight.”
Missing Words V
I. Ludwigssyndrom (Ludwig’s-Syndrome)
“Discovering an indecipherable note in your own handwriting.”
II. Kissenkühlelabsal (Pillow-Chill-Refreshment)
“The ineffable pleasure, and instant relief, of a cool pillow.”
III. Watzmannwahn (Watzmann-Delusion)
“The impulse to take impetuous risks when tantalizingly close to your goal.”
Missing Words VI
I. Witzbeharrsamkeit (Joke-Insistence) I
“Unashamedly repeating a bon mot until it is properly heard by everyone present.”
II. Betttrug (Bed-Deception)
“The fleeting sense of disorientation on waking in a strange bed.”
III. Witzbeharrsamkeit (Joke-Insistence) II
“Unashamedly repeating a bon mot until it is properly heard by everyone present.”
IV. Dielennystagmus (Hallway-Nystagmus)
“Repeatedly catching and avoiding people’s gazes when, say, approaching them down a long corridor.”
V. Witzbeharrsamkeit (Joke-Insistence) III
“Unashamedly repeating a bon mot until it is properly heard by everyone present.”
VI. Erebusterror (Erebus-Terror)
“Dread at the first indications of a fatal disease.”
VII. Rolleirückblende (Rollei-Flashback)
“The flood of memory released when looking at old photos.”
REVIEWS
“by turns witty and deadly earnest…makes for deeply compelling listening.”
-David Weininger, The Boston Globe
Included in 2022 album highlights
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"There is so much to discover in these elegant miniatures... This is brilliantly original stuff."
-Clive Paget, Musical America
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“What most strikes me about this series of Nathan's works is indeed how fluid, eloquent and assured is each of these works. This to my mind presents a series of works whose importance I suspect will in the years to come be a very memorable part of the music of our time. And it obtains that rather lofty spot in my ears in the most natural of ways... It is most original fare, played with poetic assurance.”
-Grego Applegate Edwards, Classical-Modern Music Review
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“a two-CD trip through the inventive mind of a composer who’s part translator of the human condition, part trickster… a supremely engaging multi-course meal full of dense flights of musical invention… Missing Words is a feast for adventurous listeners and, I think, the friendliest sort of challenge for the avant-averse”
-Jon Sobel, Blogcritics
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“The whole suite, which lasts 84 minutes spread over two CDs, is extremely imaginative … Nathan has done a splendid job of keeping the music varied and fresh throughout. No two pieces are really alike … Nathan avoids the trap of so many modern composers by keeping his techniques fluid and different … it really is a pleasure to hear something that doesn’t fit into a formula or a mold pre-created by others in his field.”
-The Art Music Lounge
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“There are those that are flying so far ahead of the pack that those left behind may never catch up. … This work is deep and thought provoking---far from being pots and pans music to scam dull witted arts councils. Obviously, you have to be in the mood for exploration to get into this, but when the urge strikes, you will be amply rewarded.”
-Midwest Record
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“Nathan’s musical translations of Schott’s words are often witty and always evocative.”
-Avant Music News
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“each episode feels like a vignette, a glimpse into a moment in time felt profoundly by the composer, then dictated into musical form. […] this standout body of work from Eric Nathan is a perfect addition to the pandemic-influenced artistic canon. Even outside of that narrative, the album still succeeds, providing an easy-to-follow linear progression through each Missing Words vignette, woven together by an omnipresent thread—the question of how to bridge the gap of language with abstraction through art. On that note, I will leave you with one final quote by Hans Christian Andersen that this work embodied in my mind since my preliminary read of Ben Schott’s foreword: “Where words fail, music speaks.” With that in mind, Dr. Eric Nathan’s work speaks from a place where even Ben Schott’s profundity with words cannot truly go.”
- Music City Review
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"there are three elements of insight and musical joy combined here. There is the humour of the 'missing' words invented to convey new (hitherto missing) meaning. There is the interpretation of these words in a lighthearted but at the same time musically engaging and compositionally sound manner. And there is the joy of listening to well composed and performed music that would stand by itself, even if voided of its title.”
-Vital Weekly
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“this is likely to be the most fun among the contemporary music recordings one hears from [this] year.”
-AllMusic
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“One of the season’s most elaborate releases”
-A Closer Listen
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“Nathan’s “Missing Words” is a years-long collage that becomes as much an exercise in form and configuration as it is in musical translation... What’s visually disparate is aurally similar. With no movement exceeding six-and-a-half minutes and the average entry lasting half that, “Missing Words” has the appeal of a luxury chocolate sampler.”
-VAN
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“Really engrossing and even touching”
-San Francisco Classical Review
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“A fascinating and engaging project”
-Lark Reviews
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On the Music:
