Produced by David Kirkland Garner

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Jeff Francis Recorded at the

University of South Carolina School of Music Recital Hall on May 20, 2021

© & ℗ 2023 David Kirkland Garner, All Rights Reserved.

cover: Steffen Thomas, The Face #3, Homage to Lukas

Cranach, the Elder, 1986, Acrylic Painting, © STAR of GA, LP.

Album design by Dan Ruccia

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Eight Songs was composed for the documentary Steffen Thomas: Rock & Chisel by Jesse Freeman. Born in Fürth, Germany, Steffen Thomas (1906–1990) trained as a sculptor before immigrating to the U.S., eventually settling in Atlanta in 1930. While sculpture remained his primary medium, his adventurous spirit extended to painting, printmaking, furniture design, and beyond. His philosophy and personality, it seems, were as dynamic and unpredictable as his art.

 

Growing up in Atlanta, I often passed his iconic Trilon sculpture at the corner of Peachtree and 15th Street, near the Atlanta Symphony Hall—where my love for classical music deepened during high school concerts. In the spring of 2021, I visited the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art outside Madison, GA, where his daughter gave me a tour. Immersed in his vast body of work, I found myself drawn to Eight Songs of Robert Schumann, a four-sided, eight-paneled engraved sculpture. Inspired by my own studies of Schumann’s lieder, I decided to create a set of eight pieces for cello and piano as a tribute to Thomas, using Schumann’s harmonic and voice-leading language as a foundation.

 

I love to reinterpret older music, and in this case, I focused on small passages from Schumann’s piano writing, stretching and reshaping them in new directions. The inspirations for each of my eight pieces are: 1. and if (loosely after Und wüssten’s die Blumen, die Kleinen, Op. 48); 2. you are

(Widmung, Op. 25); 3. in a castle (Auf einer Burg, Op. 39); 4. i hear (Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen, Op. 48); 5. ray falls (Ich grolle nicht, Op. 48); 6. dissolve (Hör ich das Liedchen klingen, Op. 48); 7. during (Du Ring an meinem Finger, Op. 42); 8. after (Die Lotosblume, Op. 25).

 

A quote from Thomas has stayed with me: “This world is too small for less than brotherhood, too dangerous for less than truth.”

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