Sean Hickey’s epic solo piano work, Sapiens: A Temporary Historical past of Humankind, in eight sections, is predicated on the ebook of the identical title, 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 it is a fantastic recording of an essential new work of music, we encourage you to take the time to expertise it now. On this article, we wish to discover the way it happened.
What Is the Guide Sapiens: A Temporary Historical past of Humankind by Noah Harari?
First printed in 2011 in Hebrew, after which in 2014 in English, Sapiens: A Temporary Historical past of Humankind has rapidly turn out to be one of the celebrated, influential, and controversial books of our time.
The ebook 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’ve got developed, Harari writes, we handed by means of 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 ebook 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 concerning the concepts we’ve got had that grew to become realities. In different phrases, we’ve got imagined issues that didn’t beforehand exist and made them actual.
How Carefully Does Sean Hickey’s Work Adhere to the Construction of the Guide?
Sean has created his personal distinctive construction for his musical traversal of the matters that Harari covers in Sapiens. He has used a number of historic and narrative options of the ebook, distilled into an unique work for piano. The titles of the sections are under:
- 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 exceptional 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 jot 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 adjustments from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. However frankly, they sound loads like his different classical symphonies, just about the norm. These centuries later, Sean has damaged genuinely new floor.
What Was the Inventive Course of behind Sean Hickey’s Sapiens: A Temporary Historical past of Mankind?
Within the liner notes to the recording, Sean writes, “Nearly instantly after I started the ebook I might 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 chunk stayed with me for a yr, ultimately taking form, like a lot of my works, solely throughout its composition. Under no circumstances have I attempted to create a chapter by chapter illustration of the ebook nor of humankind (!), nor have I intently adopted its total 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 way in which 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 advanced, central part, took almost 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 Temporary Historical past of Mankind by Sean Hickey is obtainable for listening on Classical Archives. It has enriched our sense of what it means to be human, and we all know will probably be simply as significant for you.
Sean Hickey
