history in a
water-glass

4:37 min

here we used the dobro rusty metal guitar

You get up in the morning, walk out into the sunshine, and just those sunrays that reach your skin take eight and a half minutes to reach you.

The sun - and with it the entire solar system - were formed 4.5 billion years ago. The evolution of man has taken place over the last two million years. The history we know of was only the most recent 3000 years - a tiny amount compared to any astro-biological time scale. It seems to us like a " swirl in a glass of water".

The emergence of consciousness on earth happened without guidance and without accompaniment. The starting disorientation and ambiguities were compensated by religion and culture as best as possible.

You can find the lyrics here (pdf).

o antiphone

The composition was inspired by the medieval chant of the O-Antiphone "O Mundi Domina".

"O-Antiphones" are liturgical chants performed in the last days of Advent. The "O-Antiphons" are so called because they begin with the vowel "O". They are all based on the Old Testament and they express with the "O" the hope for the expectation of the Messiah.

The antiphones probably have their origin in the Roman liturgy and are known at least since the 7th century. In the 10th century their number increased to a series of twelve, and up to 23 different texts are known.

The O-Antiphone "O Mundi Domina" was always performed in England on 24.12. - Christmas Eve. This special O-Antiphone comes from the medieval Hungary. The 12th century is assumed to be the time of origin. The earliest verifiable sources are from the year 1710.

o antiphone: o mundi domina

O mundi domina

O mundi domina, regio ex semine orta,
ex tuo iam Christus processit alvo,
tamquam sponsus de thalamo:
hic iacet in praesepio, qui et sidera regit.

choir trinitatis altona

The choral part in "History in a water-glass", however, is a new composition that has hardly anything in common with the ancient O-Antiphone "O Mundi Domina".

Parts of the choir singing were realized by the "Trinitatis Chor Altona". Unfortunately we could not continue this part of the song as planned. The reason for this is the Corona crisis in the first half of 2020, which stopped all work with the choir.

let's look at a bigger scale ...

at a bigger scale

we can see:

Our home, the solar system, is about 4.5 billion years old. The evolution of man began only 2 million years ago. We ourselves, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, have been around for about 200,000 years.

the earth-sun distance is around 8 light-minutes

The light from sun to earth takes 8.5 minutes. So every ray of light that reaches us was created more than 8 minutes ago!

Yet the sun is still "very close". Mars is already 13 light minutes away, Jupiter even 45 minutes. To the outermost planet, Neptune, the light takes 4.5 hours. For Pluto, 5.5 hours.

These are all still tiny distances, because the nearest solar system alone, Alpha Centauri, is 4.5 light years away. The Milky Way has a size of 100,000 light years (diameter), our neighbouring galaxy Andromeda M31 is 2.5 million light years away.

4:37 min 6.3 mb

composed & produced by: andy enroe; vocals, guitars and e-bass: tanja soler zang; other singers: choir trinitatis altona; vocals, dr, ce, gt: andy enroe; executive musical advisor: tanja soler zang.

foto space-art by Roland Pippes (Orlando PRIO4D); graffiti by "harburg connection"; fotos & graphical works: andy enroe.

static pics: "sheet o mundi domina" - Cantus selecti, Solemes, 1957, p.116; "choir" - choir trinitatis altona; "earth and sun" - astronomytrek.com; all licenses of these static pictures are equivalent to "cc by-sa" (creative commons by attribution and share alike); fotos + graphical works: andy enroe.