Sean Hickey’s epic solo piano work, Sapiens: A Transient Historical past of Humankind, in eight sections, is predicated on the guide of the identical identify, written by Noah Harari. Sean’s Sapiens is performed commandingly in a brand new recording by pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev, launched by Sono Luminus.
As a result of this can be a great recording of an essential new work of music, we encourage you to take the time to expertise it now. On this article, we want to discover the way it happened.
What Is the Ebook Sapiens: A Transient Historical past of Humankind by Noah Harari?
First revealed in 2011 in Hebrew, after which in 2014 in English, Sapiens: A Transient Historical past of Humankind has shortly grow to be one of the celebrated, influential, and controversial books of our time.
The guide explores the journey of homo sapiens – in different phrases, us – ranging from the daybreak of our species 100,000 years in the past.
As we now have developed, Harari writes, we handed by durations which have included a cognitive revolution (together with Adam and Eve and the flood), an agricultural revolution (we cultivated crops and constructed the pyramids), the unification of mankind (we created cash, faith and empires), and the scientific revolution (we married science and empires, created capitalism, and constructed industries).
The guide is fairly heady stuff, an exploration of the evolution of human concepts, not simply of our our bodies and our cities. But Sapiens presents greater than a timeline of historical past. It explores deeper questions in regards to the concepts we now have had that turned realities. In different phrases, we now have imagined issues that didn’t beforehand exist and made them actual.
How Intently Does Sean Hickey’s Work Adhere to the Construction of the Ebook?
Sean has created his personal distinctive construction for his musical traversal of the subjects that Harari covers in Sapiens. He has used a number of historic and narrative options of the guide, distilled into an authentic work for piano. The titles of the sections are beneath:
- Pre-Historical past
- Lascaux
- Fertile Crescent
- Jericho
- Imply Temperament
- Double Helix
- Affirmation Bias
- Commonwealth
The items are dramatically completely different. Some are percussive, others gently lyrical and ruminative. However in sum, listening to them performed by a outstanding pianist like Vladimir Rumyantsev makes for a totally satisfying expertise that resonates deeply with one thing about what it means to be human.
And Sean’s piece is exclusive. Not many composers have endeavored to write down works descriptive of the ages of man. One who tried one thing comparable was Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799), who wrote a sequence of symphonies pertaining to completely different modifications from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. However frankly, they sound lots like his different classical symphonies, just about the norm. These centuries later, Sean has damaged genuinely new floor.
What Was the Artistic Course of behind Sean Hickey’s Sapiens: A Transient Historical past of Mankind?
Within the liner notes to the recording, Sean writes, “Virtually instantly after I started the guide I’d begin to sketch out some concepts for an intensive piece of music, some coping with its broadest ideas. This proved to be ineffective, however the thought for a bit stayed with me for a yr, finally taking form, like a lot of my works, solely throughout its composition. On no account have I attempted to create a chapter by chapter illustration of the guide nor of humankind (!), nor have I intently adopted its general define or timeline. What I’ve tried is a humble musical response to human signposts, ideas, mythms or concepts that we as a species have carried with us, creating alongside the best way these previous couple hundred thousand or so years, breadcrumbs on the trail of humanity.”
Sean explains to Classical Archives: “In some methods, I struggled with the composition of the piece. Fertile Crescent, with its complicated, central part, took practically as lengthy to compose as the remainder of the piece. Composition was additionally interrupted by the pandemic and private crises, and resumed later in 2020. The ultimate 4 sections had been composed in a two-month dash, the reminiscence of the work already considerably fleeting to me.”
We Invite You to Expertise this Exceptional Work
We’re delighted to report that Sapiens: A Transient Historical past of Mankind by Sean Hickey is out there for listening on Classical Archives. It has enriched our sense of what it means to be human, and we all know it will likely be simply as significant for you.
Sean Hickey
