The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry of

the East Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers the Garden Cafe

remains open for light Refreshments until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

www.nga.gov

COVER: Piet Mondrian, Tableau no. iv; Lozenge Composition with

Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and Black, c. 1924/1925, National Gallery ofArt,

Washington, Gift of Herbert and Nanette Rothschild

I

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,802nd Concert

Great Noise Ensemble

Armando Bayolo, artistic director and conductor

M. Shane Hurst, tenor; Tracy Cowart, soprano

Alexandra Philips, speaker; Pamela Witcher, speaker

Peabody De Materie Chorus

Sean Doyle, chorusmaster

October 24, 2010 

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Atrium

Admissionfree
Program

Washington Premiere Performance

Louis Andriessen (b. 1939)

Dt Materie (1984-1988)

Part One

Part Two: Hadewijch

INTERMISSION

Part Three: De Stijl

Part Four

This concert is supported in part by public funds from the

Netherlands Cultural Services.

The National Gallery ofArt and Great Noise Ensemble extend

their thanks to the music department of Bowie High School in

Bowie, Maryland, for providing rehearsal space for this concert.

The Musicians

GREAT NOISE ENSEMBLE

With nineteen world premieres to its credit, Great Noise Ensemble performs

new American works and promotes local talent in contemporary music. The 

ensemble was formed in the summer of 2005, when a message went out on 

Craigslist from composer and conductor Armando Bayolo. Seven Washingtonarea musicians who were equally passionate about new music answered the

call, and from this core group the ensemble has grown to include numerous

instrumentalists and singers.

In 2006 Great Noise Ensemble served as the ensemble-in-residence for 

the local chapter ofthe American Composers Forum and was nominated

for a Best New Artist award by the Washington Area Music Association. In

2007 the group won that year’s wammie award for best chamber ensemble

and performed the world premiere of a concerto for clarinet and orchestra

by English composer Michael Finnissy. In 2008 Great Noise became the

ensemble-in-residence at The Catholic University ofAmerica, and broadened its mission to include outreach to student audiences and composers.

During the current season, the Ensemble continues its residency at

Catholic University and collaborates with composers John Luther Adams,

Louis Andriessen, and Marc Mellits. Other composers whose works have 

been premiered by Great Noise Ensemble include Armando Bayolo, Joshua

Bornfield, Ryan Brown, Carlos Carillo, Blair Goins, Steve Gorbos, Stephen

Mackey, Kevin McKee, Andrew Earle Simpson, and Mark Sylvester.

3
Members of Great Noise Ensemble performing in this concert are:

Flute Tuba

Sacha Place Blair Goins

Yong Su Clark

Caitlin Boruch Percussion

Chris DeChiara

Oboe Glenn Sewell

Elizabeth Honeyman Erik Plewinslci

Janna Lee Ryon Doug Maiwurm

Ursula Sahagian Tom Harold

Jamie Schneider

Guitar

Clarinet Mark Sylvester

Phyllis Crossen-Richardson Erik Sharar

Lori Sowser

Electric bass

Clarinet/Saxophone Eric Seay

Katherine Kellert

Michelle Acton Harp

Steve Haaser Cara Fleck

Bass clarinet/Saxophone Piano

Charlene McDaniel Molly Orlando

Alan Michels Jennifer Jackson

Contrabass clarinet Synthesizer

Ben Redwine Alec Davis

Emily H. Green

4

Horn Violin

Heidi Littman Andrea Vercoe

Rebecca Ballinger Martha Morrison

Brad Tatum Francis Liu

Andrew Houd Heather MacArthur

Trumpet Viola

Kevin McKee Rebecca Kletzker Steele

Craig Taylor Annelisa Guries

David Kellert

Peter Adam Cello

Ismar Gomes

Trombone Natalie Spehar

Jay Ellis

Brandon Rivera Contrabass

Eugene Bayer Jonathan Steele

Edward Lonsinger

ARMANDO BAYOIO

Born in 1973 in Santurce, Puerto Rico, to Cuban parents, composer Armando

Bayolo began musical studies at age twelve. At sixteen he attended the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he first began the serious study of composition.

He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Yale University, and the

University of Michigan. The Washington Post hailed his work as “radiant and

ethereal, full oflush ideas and a kind offierce grandeur.” His compositions

encompass a wide variety of genres, including works for solo instruments,

voices, music for chamber orchestra, and music for full orchestra. He has

received commissions from the Aspen Music Festival, the Euclid and Degas 

Quartets, the National Gallery ofArt, the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra,

the Syracuse Society for New Music, and the Western Piedmont Symphony

Orchestra, among others.

5
The Composer

LOUIS ANDRIESSEN

Louis Andriessen was bom in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in 1939 into a musical

family—his father Hendrik (1892-1981) and his brother Juriaan (1925-1996)

were established composers in their own right. Andriessen studied with his

father and Kees van Baaren at the Conservatory in The Hague, and from

1962-1964, he studied under Luciano Berio in Milan and Berlin. Since 1974

Andriessen has combined teaching with his work as a composer and pianist.

A central figure in the international new music scene, he is widely regarded

as the leading composer working in The Netherlands today. Coming from a

background ofjazz and avant-garde music, Andriessen takes inspiration from

such varied sources as the music ofCharles Ives (1874-1954), the art ofPiet

Mondrian (1872-1944), medieval poetic visions, writings on shipbuilding, and

atomic theory. He has tackled complex creative issues, exploring the relationship between music and politics in De Staat (The State); the nature oftime and

velocity in De Tijd (Time) and De Snelheid (Velocity); and questions ofmortality 

in Trilogy ofthe Last Day.

Andriessen’s creativity has attracted many leading exponents of contemporary music, including two Dutch groups named after his compositions

De Volharding and Hoketus. Other eminent Dutch performers who have 

presented his music include the asko Ensemble, the Netherlands Chamber

Choir, the Schoenberg Ensemble, and the Schoenberg Quartet, as well as

pianists Gerard Bouwhuis and Cees van Zeeland and conductors Reinbert

de Leeuw and Edo de Waart. Andriessen’s works have been performed outside The Netherlands by the Bang on a Can All Stars, the bbc Symphony

Orchestra, the California ear Unit, Ensemble InterContemporain, Ensemble Modern, Icebreaker, the Kronos Quartet, the London Sinfonietta, and

the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

6

Recent commissions include La Commedia, an operatic setting oftexts 

by Dante; and The Hague Hacking, which was premiered in January 2009 by

the Labeque Sisters and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra conducted

by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Louis Andriessen’s compositions are published by

Boosey & Hawkes.

Biography ofLouis Andriessen provided by Boosey e[ Hawkes. Used by permission.

1

7
Program Notes

Louis Andriessen’s De Materie is ranked by many musicians as among

the most important compositions ofthe last twenty-five years. It represents

both the culmination and juxtaposition of European modernism (by way

of Luciano Berio, with whom Andriessen worked in the mid-1960s) and 

American minimalism (by way of Steve Reich, whose music Andriessen was

instrumental in introducing to The Netherlands). Written in the mid- to

late-i98os, De Materie points the way forward towards the stylistic synthesis 

that has proven to be the first new musical development ofthis century7.

The composer describes De Materie as a “non-opera.” In 1984, when

he showed a synopsis of De Materie to Jan van Vlijmen, then the director 

ofThe Netherlands opera, he was shocked when van Vlijmen said, “that’s

a good idea, we’ll do that.” In 1989 Van Vlimen brought it to the stage,

billed as a “non-opera,” in collaboration with director Robert Wilson.

De Materie may be a “non-opera,” but it is also a non-symphony, having 

little to do with traditional symphonic design, except for its four-movement 

structure. The work does bear some similarity to the vocal symphonies of

Gustav Mahler, a composer who, according to Andriessen, “should simply

have written operas.” It has even more in common with the oratorios 

ofJohann Sebastian Bach, who, again according to Andriessen, was “the 

most interesting composer of operas in history.”

Consisting offour parts, De Materie concerns itselfwith the notion

ofmatter and its relationship to spirit. The initial germ is the juxtaposition 

oftwo instruments—the contrabassoon and the double bass—which,

although made ofthe same material (materie), have contrasting sonic

identities and psychological effects on the listener. Part One uses three

texts from different centuries. The first, the Dutch Act ofAbjuration of 1581,

is the most revolutionary. It withdrew allegiance to King Phillip 11 of Spain

and declared the independence ofThe Netherlands. The second text comes

from the shipbuilding manual Scheepsbouw, written in 1671 by Nicholas

Witsen. For Andriessen, shipbuilding represents a metaphor for intellectual

and physical violence, reflected in the striking, brutal musical setting of Part

One. The third text is from the Ideae physicae, a treatise on particle theory by

David van Goorle (1591-1612). The treatise, published forty years after van

Goorle’s death, challenged the Aristotelian view ofthe world endorsed by the 

Catholic Church, making him a revolutionary.

Part Two: Hadewijch deals with the spiritual world and the confluence 

between spiritual and physical love. Its text comes from a single source, the 

seventh chapter ofthe Book ofVisions by the eponymous thirteenth-century

mystic and poet. The movement is structured after the floor plan for

Rheims Cathedral, representing a hypothetical walk through the cathedral 

by Hadewijch as she rises above the physical world towards an erotic-mystic

union with God in the spiritual world.

In Part Three: De Stijl, text and music are fraught with apparent contradictions that continue to address the dichotomy between the physical world

ofmatter and the abstract world ofthe spirit and intellect. Andriessen 

achieves this by focusing on the painter Piet Mondrian as the central figure.

The chorus sings a text adapted from Matthieu Schoenmaker’s Principles of

Visual Mathematics (1916), which sets forth the tenets that Mondrian and other 

artists ofthe Stijl movement held: total abstraction through the exclusive use 

of primary colors, right angles, straight lines, and other elementary devices.

A second text, delivered by a rhythmic narrator who interrupts the regular 

flow ofthe movement’s structure, contrasts Mondrian’s love of dancing and 

the high life with his severe aesthetic theories. This contrast is further echoed

in the accompanying boogie-woogie and the movement’s funk-inspired 

passacaglia bass.

Part Four juxtaposes three different contrasting elements: a pavane (a

slow dance in duple meter) by the composer’s father, Hendrik Andriessen,

which provides a cantusfirmus for the entire movement; a sonnet by the poet

Willem Kloos (1859-1938), about eternal love and desire; and monologues

from the writings of Marie Curie (1867-1934), including diary entries she 

made upon the death of her husband Pierre (1859-1906). These monologues are left largely unaccompanied and represent the most heart-rending

text in all of De Materie.

9
Taken as a whole, De Materie is about the human existential crisis.

For Andriessen, the crisis is resolved in the acceptance of humanity’s fate

and ambiguous place in the universe. Madame Curie’s griefis ultimately 

redeemed by Kloos’ “dream ofbeautiful death and eternal desire.” The

contemplation on the nature ofmatter in De Materie serves as a metaphor

for the contemplation oflife and death, thoughts that preoccupied Louis

Andriessen in the mid- to late-i98os when he wrote De Materie, and that

continue to engage him to this day.

Program notes by Armando Bayolo

10

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Faure Piano Quartett

Music by Faure, Kirchner, and Mahler

October 27, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

National Gallery ofArt Orchestra

Gillian Anderson, guest conductor

Music by Beethoven, Mozart, Rossini, and other composers

October 31, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium
Great Noise Ensemble

Louis Andriessen: De Materie

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

October 24, 2010

Peabody De Materie Choir

Soprano

Sara MacKimmie

Lisa Perry

Alto

Megan Ihnen

Sonya Knussen

Tenor

Sean Doyle

Joshua Bornfield

Bass

Andrew Sauvageau

Jason Buckwalter
Sources for the texts

Part 1

Excerpt from the Act ofAbjuration, 1581

Nicolas Witsen, Scheepsbouw, (Shipbuilding) 1671

Excerpts from Ideae physicae by by David van Goorle (1591-1612)

Part 2

Hadewijch: "Een bloemlezing uit haar werken" from Book of Visions (13th century)

Part 3

Excerpts from M. H. J. Schoenmaekers, Beginselen der beeidende wiskunde (Principles of

Visual Mathematics) (1916)

M. Van Domselaer-Middelkoop, Herinneringen an Piet Mondriaan (Memories of Piet

Mondrian) (1959-1960)

Part 4

Excerpt from Willem Kloos, Verzen (Verses), 1948

Excerpts from a diary kept by Marie Curie after the death of her husband in 1906

Excerpts from Marie Curie's acceptance speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize in 1911, as

recorded in Frangoise Giroud, Une Femme honorable (1981)

Great Noise Ensemble

National Gallery of Art

October 24, 2010

Texts (translated from the Dutch and French originals)

De Materie (Matter)

Part 1

Chorus:

Let it be known that we, forced by extreme distress, after deliberation and with general

consensus, have declared the King of Spain, and now declare on the basis of this, ipso jure, the

foreswearing of his rule, jurisdiction, and his inherited claim to these lands; and henceforth no

longer recognize the prince as lord in any matter relating to his sovereignty, jurisdiction, and

domains in the aforementioned lands; that we shall no longer use his name as lord nor allow

anyone else to use it. We also declare the following, namely, that all officers, judges,

tradesmen, vassals, and all other inhabitants of the aforementioned lands, of whatever position

or quality they may be, are henceforth discharged from their oaths of allegiance, sworn or

intended to be sworn to the King of Spain having been lord of the aforementioned lands.

Therefore we command all judges, civil officers, and others to which the same relates and

applies, henceforth to renounce the name, title, great and small seals and contra seals, and

signets of the King of Spain and never use them again. Instead, as long as his Highness, the

aforementioned Duke of Anjou, is still absent on urgent business to do with the welfare of the

provinces, they must for the time being accept and use the title and name of Lord and

Landraad. Until the lord and council have actually been appointed and assumed their functions,

our name must be used. With this understanding, that in Holland and Zeeland men shall use the

name of the highborn sovereign, the Prince of Orange and States of the Provinces, until such

time as the Landraad shall truly be established and shall thereafter abide by the instructions

approved by the Landraad and the agreement entered into with his Highness.

* * *

Now follows how one puts together the parts of a ship. Begin with the making of the sternpost,

because the cutting of the keel is made of the same, and the proportion of most of the ship's 

parts follows from the stem post.

1. First one makes the keel.

Thereafter

2. The stem post The lower transom

3. The sternpost The transoms

4. The transom timber The side counter timber.

The fashion frame

The chock
And then one stacks the keel.

Take off the side counter timber and the transoms out.

Build the stem post.

Build the sternpost high, insert the transoms, and add thereto the side counter timber.

Make a knee on the keel and against the sternpost.

Thereafter make the skin tight.

Finish it quickly.

Let the ship fall on its side.

Put it right.

Finish it fully, to let it glide into the water, and when it is finished, launch it.

And when the ship is in the water, make then the stages on both sides and at the back.

Make the chocks above the outside ports, and the timber holes in the hold; then the

nibbing planks.

* * *

Enter Gorlaeus, twenty years old.

Gorloeus: Experience proves that matter is not a part of the essence.

Chorus: With the ceiling on that

The ledges on the deck horse

Carling under that

The step for the capstan, and for the

mizzen mast

The knee of the head

The grated headledge on the deck

Lay the balks of the cabin on cleats, as

those in the forecastle

The balk ceiling under that, with the

other ceilings

The ledges on the deck

Finish the knightheads in the forecastle

Cabin balks in the forecastle, and under

the ledges

Set the bitt standards

The main knighthead and the fore

knighthead

Strike the deck shut.

After that, one makes the crossbeam of

the cabin, and the chamber bulkhead.

The beak

The gallery

The ports

Flawse pipes

The standard knees

The gunwale

The cross beam

Strike the forecastle

Make the washboard on the forecastle

And also the washboard in the cabin; lay

the balks there, with the ledges.

Make the balk ceilings, with the other

ceiling planks underneath.

Strike it, and make the channels.

Close off the cabin, and make bunks in

there.

Finish the bulwark fairleads.

Put the masts in.

And the bowsprit

With the capstan

Make the chain plates fixed.

Also the bulkhead for the steering stand

With the bulkhead of the forecastle 

And the grated headledges.

Make hereafter the hatch covers

The pump boxes and the head

The bulkhead of the cabin

Racks

Range cleats

The bulkhead for the gun room

The buttery

The galley.

Gorlaeus: No whole is distinguishable from the parts, when one has joined these together. If

this were the case, then this difference would become apparent in some thing. This thing

would either be a part of the whole, of the unique essence of the same. Should it be a part,

then the previous tally of the parts would not be complete. If, on the other hand, it is a

particular essence of the whole, then I ask, what may this essence be and how may it have

been brought into existence? Thus, that which is distinguishable from something else can

also be separated. But the whole cannot be separated from all the parts when these are

combined and united, because, that where all the parts are present, so is the whole also

necessary. For the same reason, the size of a body cannot be distinguished from the whole 

body. This size is, after all, inseparable from itself. If they were separable, this would 

constitute a contradiction, because if a body did not have size, it would still be a size. A

body without size, should this size be taken away from it, would nonetheless still be a size,

provided it were divisible, and all that is divisible is one size. It would be divisible, since it

still would possess parts. Because if it did not possess these, so therefore the parts would

have joined together to one indivisible point. But then the bodies would be penetrable. The

Peripatetici say that each body is infinitely divisible, and that because of this one can never

reach the smallest part. I do not share this opinion because I say, when a body is divided

and afterwards the parts of the same and once again the parts of the parts and so forth are

divided, one shall inevitably arrive at the smallest part, which may no longer be divided.

Chorus: Because should every part be infinitely divisible, so the most miniscule grain of sand

would be divisible into a hundred thousand parts, yes even more, a thousand times a

hundred thousand parts could be divided, and yet again in so many parts, which is

incomprehensible and uncountable.

Gorlaeus: It is completely unreasonable that a body, which of itself is finite, should consist

of infinite parts.

Chorus: Because that which can be divided may be put back together again.

Gorlaeus: Therefore we state that a body consists of indivisible small parts, we also say:

these parts have size. We deny therefore that all size is divisible.

Chorus: Saw or handsaw

Jackscrew

Sledgehammers

Iron wedges

Branding iron

Wood ax

Chip pick

A wooden pincer

Tongs

Nail hammer 

Wedge

Cheeks

Tongues

Hold balks

Stem and stern hooks

Siphons and ropes

A crowbar 

Bulkhead ragbolts

Iron hammer

Auger
A wooden rammer

And a big wedge

Tar boiler

Grind stone

A mold

A template

Rye

Wood block

Saw horse

Rafts

A sled

Transverse sled

Capstan

Chisels

Claw hammer 

Rabat iron 

Nail iron

Work chisel

Folding ruler

Scraper

A sledge hammer 

Nail hammer, little

A jack plane

Gerf plane

Carver

Plows

Hand-saw

Cleat nails bit

Ten thumbs bit

Adze

Axe

Part 2: Hadewijch

Hadewijch: ...thereupon, I was hopelessly thrown upon my own poor resources.

One early morning at Pentecost, attending matins sung in church, I received a vision. My 

heart, my veins, and all my body shook and trembled with desire. As so often before, I felt

intensely and frightfully touched, and I was afraid that I would not satisfy my Love, but my

Love did not allow me to die, to die grieving. Gradually, my passion became so terrible and

painful that all my bones seemed to break one by one, and my blood flowed more swiftly

than ever. My desire is inexpressible, both words and people fail, and what I could tell

about it would be absurd to anyone who never learned Love's effect and who was by Love

neglected. This at least I can say: I longed to enjoy my Love to the fullest; to know and taste 

Him through and through; His human nature united with mine, and mine received in His. I

did hope I would have the strength to let myself fall into completeness, so as to prove in

turn to be inexhaustible for Him, pure; I alone would be satisfactorily virtuous in all virtues. 

Therefore, I wished deep inside that He, with His divinity, would elevate me into a unity of

our minds, without withholding anything from me. For this gift I prefer above all other gifts I

ever chose: to satisfy in unending submission. For this is the most perfect thing: to grow

enough to become God with God—because it is endurance and pain, misery and

unprecedented sorrow, and one has to let all this come and go without succumbing, and

without feeling anything bur marvelous love, embraces, and kisses. Thus I wished God

would be for me, as I for Him.

Chorus: While it became unbearable to me, I saw a giant eagle flying toward me from the

altar, and he said to me: "If you desire to be one with God, prepare yourself." I knelt, and

my heart beat in my throat, worshipping His greatness. I know very well that I was not ready

for this, and God knows it too, always to my grief and sorrow. The eagle flew back to the

altar, saying: "Righteous and almighty Lord, now prove your power in the unity with You, in

Your heavenly bliss." Then he came back and told me: "He who came will return, but places

where He never came, He will not come."

Hadewijch: Then He came from the altar, showing Himself in the form of a child, such as He

looked in the first three years of His life. He turned to me, and out of the ciborium He took

His body with His right hand, and with His left He took a goblet that seemed to come from 

the altar, but I do not know that for certain. Then He came to me, now in the clothes and in

the form of the man He was the day when He first gave us His body, enchanting and

beautiful, with a ravishing face, and with the humble attitude of someone who already

belongs to another. Then He gave Himself to me in the form of the Sacrament, and

afterwards He gave me to drink from the goblet: it seemed and tasted as usual. Then He

came very close to me, took me in His arms, and pressed me to His chest. All my limbs felt

His, to their total satisfaction, as my heart and my humanness longed. I felt truly satisfied

and saturated. I had just the power to bear this for a while, but soon I lost sight of this

handsome man, and I saw Him fading and melting away, until I could no longer feel Him

next to me, or perceive Him within myself. At that very moment, I felt that we were one

together, without any difference. All this was real and tangible—as one really tastes and

feels the Sacrament, or the way lovers, taking pleasure in seeing and hearing each other, 

can get lost. After this, I stayed one with my Love, melting with Him, until nothing was left

of me. I was beside myself in exaltation, and in my mind I was raised up to a place where 

many different hours were shown to me.

Part 3: De Stijl

Chorus: The line of a perfect circle is not perfection of the first order. The line of a perfect 

circle is perfect as a line. But it is not perfect without limitations, it is not perfect as an

unending line, it is not perfection of the first order, it is not the perfect line.

The perfect straight line is the perfect line. Why? Because it is the only perfection of the first

order. Likewise its ray, the perfect eternal ray, is perfection of the first order. The perfect 

eternal ray is also the perfect ray. For only it is as ray a perfection of the first order.

The cross-figure

The figure which objectifies the concept of this pair of perfections of the first order is the 

figure of the perfect right-angledness, or, in other words, the cross-figure. This is the figure 

that represents a ray-and-line reduced to perfection of the first order. It characterizes the 

relationship between perfections of the first order as a perfect right-angled relationship, a

"cross" relationship. This figure is actually "open."

Dancer (spoken): In those days, Piet Mondrian sent a message that he was in Holland and

that he could not return to Paris. Mrs. Hannaert invited him to stay, and when one

afternoon I arrived, he was sitting with her at the table. He made a curious impression upon

me, because of his hesitating way of speaking and the nervous motions of his mouth. During

the summer of 1915 he stayed in Laren and rented a small atelier in the Noolse Street. In

the evenings we would go to Hamdorf, because Piet loved dancing. Whenever he made a
date (preferably with a very young girl), he was noticeably good-humored. He danced with a

straight back, looking upwards as he made his "stylized" dance steps. The artists in Laren

soon began to call him the "Dancing Madonna!"

In '29 I was with him one afternoon in Paris and met the Hoyacks in his atelier. After a

while, without saying anything, he put on a small gramophone (which stood as a black spot

on a small white table under a painting of which it seemed to be the extension) and began

quietly and stiffly, with Madame Hoyack, to step around the atelier. I invited him to dine

with me as we used to do in the old days. Walking on the Boulevard Raspail, suddenly I had

the feeling that he had shrunk. It was a strange sensation. In the metro we said goodbye;

when we heard the whistle, he placed his hand on my arm and embraced me. I saw him

slowly walking to the exit, his head slightly to one side, lost in himself, solitary, and alone.

That was our last morning.

Chorus: A "cross" relationship. This figure is really "open." We can prolong it on any side as

long as we wish without changing its essential character, and however far we prolong this

figure, it never attains a perimeter. It never becomes "closed" thereby; it is thereby totally

and utterly boundless: it excludes all boundaries. Because this figure is born from itself in

our conception, it characterizes the concept of perfect opposites of the first order, as a

concept of the essential "open," the actual and real "unbounded."

Part 4

Chorus:

Dreams of beautiful death and eternal desire,

Splendor of catching and feeling in steady arms,

Beauty, pressed to the loudly pounding heart,

Splendor of holding each other in a fiery embrace,

Blessedness released in wordless compassion,

Blessedness itself in the lifting of all pain.

0, desire! The billow break over me,

By the dark spray of the thrilled waves,

To see how life perishes around me.

But not Love, while staring

At the quiet glow of your open face,

United with you, journeying with you to eternity....

Madame Curie (spoken):

...Pierre, my Pierre. There you lie, like a wounded man with bandaged head resting in

sleep....Your lips that I once called greedy are pale and discolored. Your little beard is

turning gray.

...We placed you in your coffin on Saturday morning, and I supported your head as they

carried you. We kissed your cold face for the last time. Then I placed some branches of

periwinkle from the garden in the coffin, together with the little portrait of me that you

called "the diligent student," and that you loved.

...Your coffin is closed and I will never see you again. I forbid them to cover it with the

terrible black drapes. I cover it with flowers and sit near it.

The importance of radium forthe point of view of theories in general has been decisive. The

history of the discovery and isolation of the substance has delivered the proof for the

hypothesis that I formulated, according to which.... The chemical work needed to isolate the

radium in the form of a pure salt, and to characterize it as a new element was above all my

work....And the substances which I have termed radioactive...I have used...I have

accomplished...! have determined...! have obtained....

This work (...) is very closely related to the work which we performed together. I therefore

believe that I correctly interpret the action of the Academy of Sciences when I conclude that

the great distinction that they have bestowed upon me has been motivated by this

collaborative work, and is therefore also an homage to the memory of Pierre Curie.

My dearest Pierre, you are never for one moment out of my thoughts, my head bursts, and

my thoughts are muddled. I cannot comprehend that I must continue to live without seeing

you, without smiling as the dear partner of my life. My Pierre, I arose after sleeping quite

well, relatively calm. It is scarcely a quarter of an hour later, and I wish to shout like a wild

beast.

...The whole world is talking. But I see Pierre on his deathbed.

My little Pierre, I would like to be able to tell you that the golden rain is flowering, that the

wisteria and the hawthorn and the irises are in bloom—you would have loved that. I would

also like to tell you that I have been appointed to your chair, and that there were even some

imbeciles who congratulated me.

I spend all my time in the laboratory. I do not think that there is anything which I will be

able to enjoy apart from perhaps scientific work—and no, not even that. For should I

succeed, I could not bear it if you were not aware of it.