after the quake —  地震のあとで —  jishin no ato de
for mandolin and guitar

MareDuo —  Annika Hinsche, mandolin •  Fabian Hinsche, guitar

LeVines’ after the quake transforms five prosaic fragments from stories in Haruki Murakami’s "after the quake" into acoustic landscapes. The outer movements describing manmade objects frame three movements depicting images from nature. The intercultural nature of the work — an American writing for a German duo about a Japanese book, incorporating African, European, American, and Asian music — clearly illustrates LeVines’ desire to connect people of different origins through music. MareDuo recorded after the quake in Mallorca, Spain for Naxos Records in 2019.

LeVines appears here as a master of the pacing of silence and sound ... the 20-minute work is a tremendous enrichment of the existing repertoire.
— Concertino Magazin, Fabian Hinsche

after the quake —  地震のあとで —  jishin no ato de
for mandolin and guitar

MareDuo —  Annika Hinsche, mandolin •  Fabian Hinsche, guitar

Track Listing

  1. 1. ... a box like the ones used for human ashes ... 骨箱のようなもの ... kotsu-bako no yo na mono ...

    The story describes a mysterious box a clerk should bring to a far city for his employer, without the content revealed. LeVines ‘opens’ the box musically. The guitar slowly plays remnants of Ghanaian rhythms. The mandolin quotes an Icelandic lament. Seven-note chords of resonance appear. The opening motif reverses, ‘closing’ the box.

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  2. 2. ... the glow from the flames spread strangely unreal shadows ... 炎の照り返しが彼の顔にどことなく非現実的な影を作っていた ... honoo no teri-kaeshi ga kare no kao ni doko to naku hi-genjitsuteki na kage o tsukutte ita ...

    By a bonfire on a nocturnal beach, a drifter tells a woman he fears being swallowed by a refrigerator. A flickering fire becoming suddenly active with leaping flares is depicted by the instruments.

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  3. 3. ... a gust of wind set the leaves of grass to dancing ... が吹き、草の葉を踊らせ ... kaze ga fuki, kusa no ha o odorase ...

    A young man who glimpses an image of his father, follows this, and in an abandoned stadium at night begins to dance. Accents, tremoli, and star-like harmonics create the small musical landscape.

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  4. 4. ... white clouds floated in the sky, birds and dragonflies cut across ... 空には白い雲が浮かび、そこを鳥やとんぼが横切っていった ... sora ni wa shiroi kumo ga ukabi, soko o tori ya tombo ga yokogitte itta ...

    Shifting images are encountered by the protagonist while swimming on her back. LeVines draws from the Japanese aesthetic of ma 間, where silence and sound are co-equal. Impressionist ‘clouds’ form in the guitar, the mandolin suggests dragonflies and sings songs of Japanese birds. A rhythmic network conjures the weightless ease of a summer day.

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  5. 5. ... the locomotive is coming ... 機関車がやってきます ... kikansha ga yatte kimasu ...

    In Murakami’s fifth story, a frog defeats an underground monster to save Tokyo, and the above remark from the frog is the impetus for LeVines' concluding movement. The guitar’s abrupt motive reappears always closer, while the mandolin plays a ‘perpetuum mobilum’ on quotations from J.S. Bach, Olivier Messiaen, Jimi Hendrix, and Japanese shamisen. Figures close in on one another driving to a sforzando ending.

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Publisher: Joachim-Trekel-Musikverlag , Hamburg, GER