My own journey towards writing the journey that is Path of Miracles began one dreary South London afternoon in the late ‘80s when I happened to hear a BBC radio program about choral music of the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan. In those days Radio 3 had a regular ethnomusicology slot (this was before the term “world music” was coined – or at least before the BBC cottoned onto it), and I would assiduously tune in every week in an effort to temporarily escape the confines of my monochromatic suburban teenage existence.
I clearly remember lying on the floor of the attic room in my parents’ house. As the slow, endless glissando of one particular piece – the Bunun tribe’s hauntingly unique Pasiputput – drew me in, I became aware that I was hallucinating that the room’s eaves were bowing outward. It was a moment of alarming intensity. At some point, the idea of trying to recreate something similar in a piece of my own must have lodged at the back of my brain.
A decade and a half later, when Nigel Short of the English choir tenebrae approached me with the idea of writing a piece about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the Pasiputput sprang to mind. Pasiputput is a traditional ritual, sung to celebrate the sowing of the year’s crops, and a successful performance – judged by the purity of the final chord’s intonation – is believed to correlate directly to the success of the resultant harvest.
Likewise, in the nine years since the piece was first planted, Path of
Miracles has grown and grown until it finds itself here, halfway around the world, in the hands of Craig Hella Johnson and the wonderful Conspirare. I hope you enjoy the performance.

– Joby Talbot

Hildegard Kleeb, piano