I Borrow Moonlight: Piano Quintet

The digital download includes:

Full Score

Individual Parts (Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Piano)

Reference audio file of the composer’s original midi demo

Duration: 5.30

More information about the piece can be found here

Listen to the original composer's demo of the work on SoundCloud here

Listen to the Rattle Records recording featuring the Jade Quartet and Jonathan Jung here

i borrow moonlight for this journey of a million miles 

(2024) 

by John Psathas 

for Martin 

During the few treasured gatherings at Waitarere Beach with Martin and Eve (de Castro); gatherings rich in conversation and speculation, I was lucky to witness in Martin an emerging vision of his future. This was a future in which he described himself leaving behind the responsibilities of his university position and focusing entirely on composing. His opera loomed large and I encouraged him to come to the Waitarere beach house to write it. I loved him for the gleam in his eye and the savouring of that future, undistracted immersion in his great work.

I had bought Martin a copy of my favourite book, Japanese Death Poems; a book that has always inspired me with a love of, and appreciation for, life - while it lasts. The consciousness of death is very much a part of life in many cultures, but this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or the "death poem." Such a poem is often written in the very last moments of the poet's life. I’ve found this collection of final thoughts and reflections something to savour while still in the throes of life and living. Not morbid or depressing at all, but deeply inspiring, often profound, and sometimes, even, humorous. I believed Martin would be one of the few people I knew who would feel these haiku in the same way.

And then the news came. And it was too late. 

I will miss him deeply, and will regret never hearing that opera he had nascent within him.

The title of this piece is a translation of the death haiku by the poet Saikaku (written in 1730)