On Top of a Hill

To mark the 100th birthday of Ursula Mamlok (1923 - 2016), Boosey & Hawkes Bote & Bock, in collaboration with the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Foundation, is publishing a series of works from the composer's estate that were not published during her lifetime.

Mamlok wrote On Top of a Hill in New York in 1944, based on a poem by Robert Nathan (1894 - 1985) from his collection Youth Grows Old, published in 1922. It depicts a summery, quiet landscape spreading out beneath the lyrical self. In a nostalgically swaying 6/8 time, the piano accompanies the melody, which dies away in the voice.

The unusually tonal and folkloristic miniature, which is at the same time a confession to her new home country, the USA, sheds light on the composer's early years before she turned completely to a radically modern tonal language.