SATB, soprano solo, string orchestra
Program Note
The Greek title, Panta rhei, translates as “everything flows”. The texts used in Panta Rhei express the concept of flow and change – beginning with the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who famously wrote “no one steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and they are not the same person”. Other texts are taken from the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, and Plato.
Text
Panta rhei Everything flows (Heraclitus)
Kol han’khalim holkhim el hayam v’hayam eynenu
Malay el mikom shehankhalim holkhim sham heym shavim lalakhet.
All rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.
To the place the rivers flow, there they return again.
Ecclesiastes 1:7
Yordey hayam ba’oniyot osey m’lakha b’mayim rabim
Heyma ra’u ma’asey Adonai v’nifl’otav bimtzula
Vayomer vaya’ameyd ru’akh s’ara vat’romeym galav
Ya’alu shamayim yeyrdu t’homot nafsham b’ra’a titmogag
Yakhogu v’yanu’u kashikor v’khol khokhmatam titbala
Vayitzaku el Adonai batzar lahem umimtzukoteyhem yotzi’eym
Yakeym s’ara lidmama vayekheshu galeyhem
Those who go down to the sea in ships; who do work in mighty waters.
They saw the works of the Lord, the wonderful deeds in the deep.
God spoke and set up a tempest, and it raised its waves.
They went up to the heavens and came down to the depths; their soul melted with trouble.
They were frightened and staggered like drunkards; and all their wisdom was destroyed.
They cried out to the Lord in their trouble, that he take them out of their straits.
God stilled the storm to a calm; the waves (of the sea) were hushed.
Psalm 107
Hineyni oseh khadasha ota titzmakh halo
teyda’uha eyf asim bamidbar derekh bishmon n’harot.
Behold, I am making a new thing; now it shall sprout, now you shall know it.
I will make a road in the desert, rivers in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:18-19
nothing remains still
Plato