Tongue and Trace | soprano and contrabass flute

Tongue and Trace engages with ecstasy in its dual form; as sacred rapture and as sensual intensity. The piece moves within this tension, where the voice becomes both vessel and threshold — carrying memory, desire, and rupture in equal measure.

Fragments of text drawn from diverse sources — including Hildegard von Bingen and Anaïs Nin — evoke this polarity: spiritual elevation and embodied longing. Their words, lifted into sound, create a layered texture in which devotion and desire resonate without resolution. The piece unfolds as a multilingual mosaic — in Latin, Italian, Latvian, German, French, and English — where no single language governs. Meaning remains fluid, shaped by breath, by musical form, and by the grain of the voice itself. Ecstasy here is not singular or transcendent, but fractured and intimate — something traced across the tongue, left behind in its wake. Tongue and Trace gives form to this condition: luminous, unstable, and composed from what cannot be fully held.

Performers: Elina Viluma-Helling, Soprano Alessandro Baticci, Contrabass flute

This piece was commissioned by Cantando Admont. www.cantando-admont.com/

Live recording from 28 August 2025, REAKTOR Vienna Recording: Georg Zichy