WILL HAVE BEEN

TRIO WORKS / TRIPTYCH / 2023

  • ‘Will Have Been’ is a musical triptych that meditates on our experience of temporality. It moves with the whisperings of a memory, a salvaged fragment of a fractured past, flows through the present, and dances across the endless possibilities of the future. At once reflection and projection, ephemeral and enduring, ‘Will Have Been’ ebbs and flows, never quite knowing, never quite resting, drawing the outside in, only to cast it out once more.

  • i. What Once Was

    ii. Wind

    iii. Will Have Been

  • MARITHÉ VAN DER AA - voice
    NATASHA JAFFE - cello
    KONSTANTINE MARGARITIS - piano

    words by MARITHÉ VAN DER AA

    music by KONSTANTINE MARGARITIS

    produced by KONSTANTINE MARGARITIS

    supported by the GOETHE-INSTITUT

I. WHAT ONCE WAS

A lasting word not quite heard Hear the world sighing An ancient breath Almost retreated into silence 

Still pressed into the rocks remains her voice Remains, retains a glimmer of life 

A whisper of what once was 

II. WIND

‘Will Have Been’ is a musical triptych that meditates on our experience of temporality. It moves with the whisperings of a memory, a salvaged fragment of a fractured past, flows through the present, and dances across the endless possibilities of the future. At once reflection and projection, ephemeral and enduring, ‘Will Have Been’ ebbs and flows, never quite knowing, never quite resting, drawing the outside in, only to cast it out once more.

III. WILL HAVE BEEN

This will have been the way 
This will have been the day 
That everything changed 
But everything stayed 

This will have been the time 
This will have answered why 
Before becomes behind 
Before becomes behind 

WORDS

— I. WHAT ONCE WAS

She found within her mind so tender 
A ruin withered, wilted, wandering 
A whisper of what once was 

Half forgotten or half remembered 
Fading into a listless maundering 
Pressed into dust 
A quiet echo half lost 
Half withdrawn 
She tries to grasp the crumbling walls 

They chant songs she used to know 
Long ago when 
They were written 
Into stone for her to sing 

A lasting word not quite heard 
Hear the world sighing 
An ancient breath 
Almost retreated into silence 

Still pressed into the rocks remains her voice 
Remains, retains a glimmer of life 

A whisper of what once was

— II. WIND

— III. WILL HAVE BEEN

Then again I branch 
Duplicate myself 
And stretch endlessly 
Forward and Outward 

Then again I split 
Or maybe I’ll bend 
As many I have done 
Before becomes behind 

An action untaken (bar 34) 
A world yet unuttered 
A life unawakened 
A sun that is scattered 
Or shattered across the sky 

This will have been the way 
This will have been the day 
That everything changed 
But everything stayed 

This will have been the time 
This will have answered why 
Before becomes behind 
Before becomes behind 

And even as the scattered suns 
Set within their scattered skies 
Myselves tomorrow will become 
Another self with other eyes 

Then again I’ll branch....