The Lustful Mother's Heart

Tarkiainen writes: The Lustful Mother’s Heart is a solo work that plumbs the depths of one of the most fundamental human instincts – the tie between a mother and her new-born child that, as day follows day, becomes less part of its mother’s body. The work develops themes from my song cycle The Lustful Mother in which long solo viola passages strike to the very heart of down-to-earth, natural womanhood. The Lustful Mother’s Heart was born at a very special moment in my life when my second child was spending his first weeks in this world. The viola song kept company with us night and day, dark and deep-rooted, at times broadening out into a hymn, weaving into our fate asthrough a dream. The Lustful Mother’s Heart is dedicated to violist Ellen Nisbeth, who also commissioned it.