bring us fire

2016 | for cello, marimba, and offstage treble voice | 8’

In the beginning there was myth. Before there was poetry and prose, before there were songs and symphonies, we huddled in caves, crouched around campfires, inventing legends of humans and gods to explain the frightening world to each other and ourselves. Somehow, across centuries and continents, many of these legends share the same universal plots and themes.

For instance, nearly every human society has a fire-bringer myth — the tale of some empathetic trickster who steals some spark of the gods’ power so that humanity may begin its advance. (Of these fire-bringer myths, the most familiar to us in the Western world is the Greek Prometheus myth, wherein the Titan is punished by the ignorant Zeus for his gift of fire with eternal torture.) I love these myths for the courage and cunning of the fire-bringer, whose love for humankind compels them to risk grave danger and unimaginable sacrifice for our betterment. I also love the way they address the ever-relevant truth that those in power are often ignorant of the needs of the many until forced to reckon with them. Even now in the age of science, the message of the fire-bringer feels modern and relevant: the world relies on those who create and who share our gifts, no matter the possible cost.

Here, the cello represents the fire-bringer, the Prometheus-like artist figure who discovers some spark amid the cold. They share this spark with the marimba, who represents the rest of the tribe; the two engage in a dialogue of learning and teaching, synthesizing these newfound ideas into ever more complex forms. These ideas spread like wildfire, and despite the cello’s attempts to rein in the marimba, a riot ensues. In this telling, it is not the gods, but the crowds, who turn on our fire-bringer— using flame to destroy rather than to give life. Was their discovery ultimately worth its terrible cost? Will the flame pass on, or rage and die out forever?

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