Une Berceuse Pour Madeleine by Jack Herscowitz published on 2019-08-23T03:17:17Z Commissioned by and performed at the 2019 Atlantic Music Festival by Stephen Lancaster (baritone), Jordan Walsh (percussion), Isidora Nojkovic (cello), Alber Chien (piano), and conducted by Josh Hong. Une Berceuse pour Madeline re-contextualizes the famous "madeleine" scene from Marcel Proust's, À la recherche du temps perdu. Whereas Proust recounts the blossoming apparition of sweet nostalgia, here a petrifying nightmare slowly materializes. For Proust, a madeleine cookie serves as a catalyst for recollection of memories lost in the subconscious of a subject, passing through and recollecting time unconsciously.The ring of the triangle is this piece's "madeleine object," the sensory experience from which the ensuing nightmare unfolds. Recollection here is not a linear process: the subject takes its time reacting to the object's initial impression. Suddenly the subject fully realizes the once lost fear, which slowly metamorphoses into a an all-engrossing cacophony that climaxes in a final chilling ring of the triangle.
