Notes by Paul Griffiths

It is a dream that has been shared by one of Berio’s pupils, Betty Olivero, in several pieces based on ancient melodies, including En la mar hai una torre (In the Sea there is a Tower). In Olivero’s piece Trio Mediaeval interweave, echoing one another as they follow lines closely allied in contour and modality, like three mingling reflections in a rippled pool – a pool provided, perhaps, by the harp, which is often echoing them further.
Not only do these fluid musical images mirror one another – with variations, as when one follows another up a fourth but takes a different descent – they also, through such similarities and differences, bring diverse traditions into a confluence. ‘Most of the melodic material’, Olivero has said, ‘is based on traditional melodies from prayers or folk Ladino, Yemenite and Arabic songs.’ Sephardi Jews (of the Ladino-speaking cultural stream to which Olivero belongs), Yemenite Jews and Palestinian Muslims are all here singing the same songs.

The title comes from the first line of a Sephardi folk song, recalling, as the composer has also said, how deeply influenced these songs were by the Song of Songs. ‘Give me your hand, my dove’, the second stanza of this one begins, ‘I want to climb up to your nest.’ The words the singers sing, however, are taken once again from the Song of Songs, this time in the original Hebrew and in Ladino.