SAMUEL BECKETT: STIRRINGS STILL

Samuel Beckett: Stirrings Still - Stirrings Still was Samuel Beckett's last message in prose, completed in 1987, and first published the following year. More monologue than story, it comes from a narrator on the edge between life and what lies beyond, which might be a vast wheatfield seen in black-and-white, or might be a swirl of stumbling memories. Beckett cherished music, in particular the songs and string quartets of Franz Schubert. His writing is musical, in it's meticulous phrasing, it's use of repetition, and often it's form. Stirrings Still is an example: a composition of interweavings and developments. The music, created for this release by composer Trevor Baca, is no accompaniment but rather a parallel stream, heard in alternation with the words, reflecting and contemplating what they have to say. Imagined for the musicianship of the JACK Quartet, it is a stream into which the listener is drawn from time to time, not away from the words but more deeply into them, through another medium.