A few words of Ralf Gawlick's O Lungo Drom
I have finally listened to Ralf Gawlick's most recent oratorio, O Lungo Drom, with deep concentration and absorption. I am not sure I have the proper words to convey what this music did to me. In the first place, I cannot begin to comprehend how such music can be created in the first quarter of the 21st Century, and where it comes from. It borders on the miraculous - and the divine.
A never-ending journey in the legacy of Mahler and Schubert, O Lungo Drom is imbued with infinite longing, tenderness, sorrow, pain, regret, joy, and memory. It conveys an aspiration to the infinite and to transcendent, ultimate justice for all humankind with a precise, heart-wrenching, expressive, and universal musical language. The melodies are unforgettable - some of the most beautiful I've ever heard in all music. The theme of the last piece - rightfully placed at the end of the cycle - remains forever imprinted in the heart after one single listening.
I feel this is truly a work that expresses the essence of the human condition, symbolically embodied in the rootlessness and the sorrow of the Sinti and the Roma. It is most certainly the masterwork of this century and I have no doubts that future generations will recognize it as such. Art of this caliber is like a point of center-focus that encompasses everything around it in time and space.
May 31, 2024