Download - Patricia Green, mezzo-soprano

La Voix Nue
Songs for Unaccompanied Voice by Living Composers
Patricia Green Mezzo-Soprano

Jonathan Dove b. 1959
Ariel (1998)
1. Come unto these yellow sands 5:18
2. I boarded the King’s ship! 5:22
3. O,O,O 2:06
4. All hail, great master! 2:02
5. Is there more toil? 3:32
R. Murray Schafer b. 1933
6. Aria of the Princess (1981) 7:09
(Princess of the Stars)
Hilary Tann b. 1947
Arachne: A dramatic song cycle for
soprano solo with crotale (2002)
7. A Primer For Those Who Have Dealings 2:48
with the Gods
8. Arachne’s Boast 2:46
9. Athene’s Song 4:48
10. The Spider’s Valediction 3:42
José Evangelista b. 1943
Exercises de Style (1997) (selections)
11. Recit 1:06
12. Analyse logique 1:28
13. Négativités 1:10
14. Macaronique 1:53
15. Italianismes 1:31
16. Anglicismes 1:06
Gyorgy Kurtag b. 1926
Einige Sätze aus den Sudelbüchern
Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs (1996)
17. Ein Mädchen... 0:18
18. Geständnis 0:33
19. Der gute Ton... 0:21
20. Gebet 0:13
21. Das Mädchen... 0:15
22. Koan 0:34
23. Alpenspitzen 0:30
24. Eine wichtige Bemerkung 0:46
25. ...an die aufgehende Sonne 0:22
Judith Weir b. 1954
King Harald’s Saga (1979)
26. Act One 4:36
27. Act Two 3:49
28. Act Three 4:14
29. Epilogue 1:28
Songs for Unaccompanied Voice
by Living Composers
It all began at the Dartington International Summer
School of the Arts, where I heard an Australian
singer perform Judith Weir’s King Harald’s Saga. I was
fascinated by this intense narrative with so many
characters; all sung by one person, but it was the
strong statement of pacifism which necessitated my
learning and singing it.
One unaccompanied work led to another, and the
immense span of riches for solo voice quickly became
evident. The works collected here represent a small
sample of this wealth. Written within the last thirty
years by living composers from Wales, Scotland,
England, Germany and Canada, each maintains
a connection to the ancient art of storytelling and
poetry; with texts from Shakespeare, Norwegian
history, Ovid, Native Indian legend, aphorisms
(5 th -6 th Century) and surrealist French poetry.
Jonathan Dove, b. 1959, London, U.K.
Few composers today have been embraced by the
modern opera house as consistently and successfully
as Jonathan Dove. His catalogue includes more than
twenty diverse operatic works. Born in London to
architect parents, as a child he played the piano,
organ and viola. He studied composition with Robin
Holloway at Cambridge and worked as a freelance
accompanist, repetiteur, animateur and arranger.
In 1987 he joined the music staff at Glyndebourne,
where four of his community operas were created.
Dove also wrote chamber re-orchestrations of
Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Verdi’s Falstaff and
Rossini’s La Cenerentola for the City of Birmingham
Touring Opera, and a version for 18 players of
Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle. Glyndebourne
commissioned Flight, the airport comedy, garnering
13 productions to date in Europe, the USA and
Australia, and a CD (Chandos). Dove’s commitment
to community development through innovative
musical projects is passionate. The Palace In The Sky
(2000) brought together Turkish Saz players sideby-side
with a Salvation Army Band, a community
choir of elderly singers (Old Spice), children, and
professional singers and instrumentalists. The Hackney
Chronicles is for schoolchildren to perform and
produce. Dove and his librettist Alasdair Middleton
have adapted fairy tale sources such as The Enchanted
Pig, Swanhunter, and The Adventures of Pinocchio to
provide entertainments for children and adults. His
Pinocchio has had more than 80 performances in
the UK, Germany and the USA, and won a British
Composer Award in 2008.
In 1998 Dove was joint winner of the Christopher
Whelen Award for his work in theatre music and
opera, and received the Ivor Novello Award for
Classical Music in 2008. Dove’s song-cycles include
Five Am’rous Sighs, Ariel, All You Who Sleep Tonight,
Out of Winter and All the Future Days. See also http://
www.edition-peters.com/composer/Dove-Jonathan
ARIEL: Jonathan Dove
From The Tempest: W. Shakespeare
I. Ssshhh! Come unto these yellow sands, and
then take hands. Ssshh! Curtsied when you have
and kissed the wild waves whist, come! Come!
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
1

Hark, hark! Bow-wow! the watch-dogs bark.
Hark, hark! I hear the strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry cockadiddledow! Ssshhhhh!
The never surfeited sea...Ssshhh!
II I boarded the King’s ship!
Now on the beak, now in the waist,
The deck, in every cabin
I flamed amazement!
Sometimes I’d divide and burn in many places.
All but mariners plunged in the foaming brine
And quit the vessel
Then all afire with me, I flamed amazement!
III Dong da-dang dong da-da dung
Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Dong da-dang dong da-da dung
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! Now I hear them…ding dong bell!
His tears run down his beard
like winter’s drops from eaves of reeds.
If you now beheld them,
your affections would become tender.
Mine would, sir, were I human.
III. O, o, o, o, o, o,
IV. Ah, ah, ah! All hail, great master!
Grave sir, hail!
I come to answer thy best pleasure,
Be’t to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire
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To ride on the curled clouds
to thy strong bidding, task Ariel,
and all his quality.
What would my noble master?
I am here. What shall I do? Say what!
Do you love me, Master? What’s thy pleasure?
My lord, it shall be done.
V. Is there more toil?
Since thou dost give me pains,
let me remember thee
what thou Hast promised,
which is not yet performed me.
My liberty.
I drink the air before me!
Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I crouch when owls do cry
On the bat’s back I do fly after summer merrily.
Merrily shall I live now, under the blossom
that hangs on the bough
I drink the air before me.
I go, I go, I go Ssshhhh
R. Murray Schafer, b. 1933, Sarnia, Canada
R. Murray Schafer is Canada’s pre-eminent composer,
having gained national and international acclaim for
his immense achievements as a composer as well as an
educator, environmentalist, literary scholar, visual
artist and provocateur. After receiving a Licentiate in
piano through the Royal Schools of Music (England) in
1952, he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music
and the University of Toronto, followed by periods of
autodidactic study in Austria and England encompassing
literature, philosophy, music and journalism.
His enormous compositional range and depth
is reflected by such works as Loving (1965), Lustro
(1972), Music for Wilderness Lake (1979), Flute Concerto
(1984), and his engrossing 12-part Patria music
theatre cycle. His most important book, The Tuning
of the World (1977), documents the findings of his
World Soundscape Project, which united the social,
scientific and artistic aspects of sound and introduced
the concept of acoustic ecology. The concept of
soundscape unifies most of his musical and dramatic
work, as well as his educational and cultural theories.
His other major books include E.T.A. Hoffmann and
Music (1975), Ezra Pound and his Music (1977), On
Canadian Music (1984), and The Thinking Ear: On Music
Education (1986). Look for his autobiography My Life
on Earth and Elsewhere (2012).
R. Murray Schafer has received commissions from
innumerable organizations and many important
awards: the Canadian Music Council’s first Composer
of the Year (1977), the first Jules Léger Prize for
New Chamber Music (1977), the Prix International
Arthur-Honegger (1980); the Banff National Award
in the Arts (1985), the first international Glenn Gould
and Molson Award for distinctive service to the Arts.
In 2005 the Canada Council for the Arts honoured
him with the Walter Carsen Prize. Schafer holds
honourary doctorates from universities in Canada,
France and Argentina. www.patria.org
Program Note: The Dawn aria is excerpted from
The Princess of the Stars (1981), part of the Patria cycle.
It was not written to be performed in the concert hall,
but at dawn on a secluded lake, where the bird songs
and the natural resonance of the water bring about
an entirely different listening (and singing) experience.
The reverberation provided by a body of water is
astounding. The response of the birds is exciting.
This recording took place in Lake Lansing Park, East
Lansing, Michigan. The bird songs you hear are
those accompanying the singing of the aria. Any low
vibrations are the (almost) unavoidable noise of modern life,
with apologies to Murray, and to each listener.
The Legend
This is the story of the Princess of the Stars, daughter
of the Sun-God and herself a Goddess. Her name
is in the stars and you have seen it there. Each night
she looked down on earth, blessing it with kisses of
light. One night she heard a mournful cry coming
up from the forest. It was Wolf, howling at the moon,
his double. The Princess leaned over the forest to see
who was singing, but in leaning down so far she fell
from heaven. Suddenly she appeared before Wolf in
a great flash of light. But Wolf, frightened to see the
stars so close, lashed out at the Princess, wounding
her. She ran bleeding into the forest, leaving dew
wherever she went, which was nearly everywhere,
since she had no idea where to run. By morning she
found herself at the edge of a lake and slipped into
the water to bathe her wounds. But there something
caught her, dragging her down. In vain she struggled.
In the end, the waters closed over her. You may see
the stars of her crown at the tip of your paddle, but
the Princess you will not see. The Three-Horned
Enemy holds her captive at the bottom of the lake,
and the dawn mist is the sign of her struggling.
Hilary Tann, b. 1947, Wales
Through her childhood in Wales, Hilary Tann
developed the love of nature which has inspired
all her music, whether written for performance in
the United States (Adirondack Light for narrator and
orchestra, 1992) or her first home (With the heather and
small birds, commissioned by the 1994 Cardiff Festival).
3

Hilary Tann is the John Howard Payne Professor of
Music at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
She holds degrees in composition from the University
of Wales at Cardiff and from Princeton University.
From 1982-1995, she served in a number of executive
committee positions for the International League of
Women Composers. Numerous organizations have
supported her work, including the Welsh Arts Council,
New York State Council on the Arts, National
Endowment for the Arts, and Meet the Composer/
Arts Endowment Commissioning Music USA.
Her many commissioned works include Here, the
Cliffs (violin; premiere North Carolina Symphony
1997), In the First, Spinning Place (alto saxophone;
premiere University of Arizona Symphony 2000),
and Anecdote, (cello; premiere Newark (DE) Symphony
2000). In July 2001, The Grey Tide and The Green, was
commissioned for the Last Night of the Welsh Proms.
Shakkei, for oboe (or sop. sax) and chamber orchestra,
(premiered at the Presteigne Festival, 2007) has been
performed in Dublin, at the 2008 IAWM Congress in
Beijing, in New York City, in Rio de Janeiro, in San
Francisco, at the 15th World Saxophone Congress in
Bangkok (2009) and at the Eastman Women in Music
Festival (2011) where Hilary Tann was guest composer.
A deep interest in the traditional music of Japan led
to study of the shakuhachi flute from 1985-1991.
Among many works reflecting this special interest
is From afar, premiered in 1996 by the Knoxville
Symphony Orchestra. The European premiere was
by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 2000.
It was also heard at the opening concert of the 2003
International Festival of Women in Music Today at
the Seoul Arts Center, Korea. From Afar is included
in an all-Tann orchestral CD by the Slovak Radio
Symphony orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor .
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Other vocal works by Hilary Tann include Between
Sunsets, Songs of the Cotton Grass, Contemplations (for
women’s voices), and the vocal duet, The Moor. This
beautiful work brought about my interest in this
composer. www.hilarytann.com)
Program note: Arachne is a dramatic song cycle for
solo soprano. The backdrop for Arachne is the myth
as developed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book VI,
lines 0-145. Arachne, a mortal, boasts that her skill
as a weaver is greater than that of Athene, the divine
patron of her craft. Athene challenges Arachne to
prove her claim in a weaving contest. Overpowering
in this confrontation, Athene transforms Arachne
into a spider. This work is in four sections, sung
without break. Ritualistic bell sounds signal character
changes. The Latin quotation separating the third
and fourth songs is an adaptation of the last line of
Ovid’s account. The text was commissioned from
Guggen-heim Award-winning poet Jordan Smith.
Arachne was commissioned in 1987 by Concerted
Effort for singer/actress Julie Kabat. It was revised
for concert performance in 2000 by Anne Z. Turner,
Senior Artist in Residence at Skidmore College, NY.
ARACHNE: Jordan Smith
1. A Primer For Those Who Have Dealings
With The Gods
Say first the cat is stretching in the sun,
Kneading her paws. The low sun streaks the table,
Gilds the loom, the room where work is done.
Tell plainly what you see, the stable
Household. These things are the sunlight’s altars
Unaltered and specific, splendid flecks
Of constancy. For the gods all this is neither
Here nor there. They prefer rhetoric
The breath of force. They take nothing on faith.
Here are the slim margins they reserve
For us. We are the stage-set for their play
Of metamorphosis. They are all nerve –
The sway of branches in your yard.
When they approach, a slipping knot of cunning,
Offer what you can least afford, a shard,
Some loved thing. Show what can’t be undone.
II. Arachne’s Boast
I was a girl when I took to this craft
Of thread entwined with thread,
Athene’s gift. She taught my weft
To follow the shuttle’s lead.
I learned too well for her. More deft,
Surer in skill and speed,
I no longer weave to her design
The landscape where power resides,
Our shimmering coast where the divine
Ruthlessness, like a tide,
Floods and floods. Why waste my fine
Talent to praise a lie?
I’ve learned to grasp the moment when
The gods’ deceits are made plain,
When Zeus’ eagle, bull, and swan
Are gone. See what remains:
Some tangled girl, like a thread that turns
At the selvage, turns again
III. Athene’s Song
Listen Arachne, my old apprentice
Who would reject me
Bold, so impatient to be the master
That you have shirked
The simplest tasks,-- back to work.
In Circe’s house my loom is busy.
Perked ears, broad snouts
On the crew of Odysseus. Perseus hoists
Medusa’s head above the feast.
As my shuttle speeds, and see,
Those gluttons sit stone-still,
Stare rapt at the Gorgon’s woven hair.
So all your habits of greed, desire
Are threads in the web of our greater hunger.
Slay the reed, draw the warp tighter,
My proud, my greedy Handmaid, my spider.
Aranea, exerce antiquas telas.
(Translation: Spider, weave at your loom as before)
IV. The Spider’s Valediction
At the edge of things, I pull a thread
dyed like lichen, like leaves
dwindling, as mortal in its unravellings
as I know I must be.
Athene’s craft is nothing: a tangled skein.
Here in the warp’s tension of drawn
Strands, what is her anger to me?
She wove me to her design:
A spider. As spider I find the skill to render
From nothing my minor necessity.
Who else stirs the web’s heart in the sunlit dew?
Who spins substance from shadow?
I am Arachne, loom of the gods and the god’s
Undoing.
5

José Evangelista, b. 1943, Valencia, Spain
José Evangelista studied both physics and music
(with Vincent Asencio) in Valencia. In 1970, he
moved to Montréal to study composition with André
Prévost and Bruce Mather, receiving his doctorate
in composition from McGill University in 1984.
Since 1979, Evangelista has been a professor at the
University of Montreal, where he established the
Balinese Gamelan Workshop in 1987. From 1993
to 1995 he was Composer-in-Residence for the
Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Evangelista has
founded several concert societies, received many
awards and commissions for his works, and his
music is performed in Canada, the USA, Asia and
Australia. Evangelista’s compositions explore ways
of making music based exclusively on melody and he
has developed a style of writing for small and large
groups that is based on this exploration. His music
draws on his Spanish cultural heritage as well as on
the music of Indonesia and other, contemporary
sounds. www.musiccentre.ca
Program Note: Evangelista created a melody
for nineteen of the ninety-nine Exercises de Style
written by Raymond Queneau. This symbolist poet
was living in Paris when he first heard the Art of the
Fugue by J.S. Bach performed. Hearing this work
inspired him to write his own literary permutations
on a simple text, (the Récit). Since first composing
this work for solo voice in 1997, Evangelista has
written a piano part to accompany the vocal line.
EXERCICES de STYLE: Raymond Queneau
Récit:
Un jour vers midi du côté du parc Monceau, sur
la plate-forme arrière d’un autobus à peu près
complet de la ligne S (aujourd’hui 84), j’aperçus un
personnage au cou fort long qui portait un feutre
mou entouré d’un gallon tressé au lieu de ruban.
Cet individu interpella tout à coup son voisin en
prétendant que celui-ci faisait exprès de lui marcher
sur les pieds chaque fois qu’il montait ou descendait
des voyageurs. Il abandonna d’ailleurs rapidement la
discussion pour se jeter sur une place devenue libre.
Deux heures plus tard, je le revis devant la gare
Saint-Lazare en grande conversation avec un ami
qui lui conseillait de diminuer l’échancrure de son
pardessus en en faisant remonter le bouton supérieur
par quelque tailleur compétent.
Translation:
One day about noon, near the Monceau Park on
the platform behind an almost full bus of the Line
S (today 84), I noticed a very long-necked person
wearing a soft fedora with a braid around it instead
of a ribbon. The individual suddenly accosted his
neighbour inferring that the other purposely stepped
on his toes each time passengers entered or exited the
bus. However, he quickly abandoned the discussion to
jump to a newly available seat.
Two hours later, I saw him again in front of the
Saint-Lazarus station having a big conversation with
a friend, who counseled him to diminish the closure
of his overcoat by having the top bottom moved by a
competent tailor.
Analyse logique
Autobus.
Plate-forme.
Plate-forme d’autobus. C’est le lieu.
Midi. Environ.
Environ midi. C’est le temps.
Voyageurs. Querelle.
Une querelle de voyageurs. C’est l’action.
Homme jeune.
Chapeau. Long cou maigre.
Un jeune homme avec un chapeau et un galon
tressé autour.
C’est le personnage principal.
Quidam. Un quidam.
Un quidam. C’est le personnage second.
Moi, Moi.
Moi. C’est le tiers personnage.
Narrateur.
Mots. Mots. Mots. C’est ce qui fut dit.
Place libre. Place occupée.
Une place libre ensuite occupée. C’est le résultat.
La gare Saint-Lazare. Une heure plus tard.
Un ami. Un bouton.
Autre phrase entendue.
C’est la conclusion.
Conclusion logique.
Négativités
Ce n’était ni un bateau, nu un avion, mais un moyen
de transport terrestre.
Ce n’était ni le matin, ni le soir, mais midi.
Ce n’était ni un bébé, ni un vieillard, mais un
homme jeune.
Ce n’était ni un ruban, ni une ficelle, mais du
galon tressé.
Ce n’était ni une procession, ni une bagarre, mais
une bousculade.
Ce n’était ni un aimable, ni un méchant, mais
un rageur.
Ce n’était ni une vérité, ni un mensonge, mais
un prétexte.
Ce n’était ni un debout, ni un gisant, mais un
voulant-être assis.
Ce n’était ni la veille, ni le lendemain, mais le jour
même.
Ce n’était ni la gare du Nord, ni la gare de Lyon mais
la gare Saint-Lazare.
Ce n’était ni un parent, ni un inconnu, mais un ami.
Ce n’était ni une injure, ni une moquerie, mais un
conseil vestimentaire.
Macaronique
Sol erat in regionem zenithi et calor atmospheri
magnissima. Senatus populusque parisiensis
sudebant. Autobi passebant completi. In uno ex
supradictis audtobibus qui S denominationem
portebat, hominem quasi junum, cum collo multi
elongato et cum chapito a galono tressato cerclato
vidi. Iste junior insultavit alterum hominem qui
proximus erat pietinat, inquit, pedes meos post
deliberationem animae tuae. Tunc sedem libram
vidente, cucurrit là.
Sol duas horas in cœlo habebat descendues. Sancti
Lazari stationem ferrocaminorum passente devant,
junum surpadictum cum altero ejusdem farinae
qui arbiter elegantiarum erat et qui apropos uno ex
boutonis capae junioris consilium donebat vidi.
Italianismes
Oune giorne en pleiné merigge, ié saille sulla
plataforme d’oune otobousse et là quel ouome
ié vidis? ié vidis oune djiovanouome au longué
col avé de la treccie otour dou cappel. Et lé ditto
djiovanouome oltragge ouno pouovre ouome à qui
6
7

il rimproveravait de lui pester les pieds et il ne lui
pestarait noullément les pieds, mais quand il vidit
oune sédie vouote, il corrit por sedersilà. A oune
ouore dè là, ié lé révidis qui ascoltait les consigles
d’oune bellimbouste et zerbinotte a proposto d’oune
bouttoné dé pardéssousse.
Anglicismes
Un dai vers middai, je tèque le beusse et je sie un
jeugne manne avec une grète nèque et un hatte
avec une quainnde de lèsse tressés. Soudainement
ce jeugne manne bi-queumze crézé et acquiouse
un respectable seur de lui trider sur les toses. Puis il
reunna vers un site eunoccupé.
A une lète aoure je le sie égaine; il vouoquait eupe et
daoune devant la Ceinte Lazare stécheunne. Un beau
lui guivait un advice à propos de beutone.
György Kurtág, b. 1926, Hungary/Romania
György Kurtág grew up speaking three languages on
a daily basis: Hungarian, Romanian and German. His
first significant pedagogical influence was his piano
teacher, Magda Kardos. At the Budapest Academy
of Music he studied with Ferenc Farkas, Leó Weiner,
Lajos Bárdos, and Pál Járdányi, graduating in
piano and chamber music (1951) and composition
(1955). From 1957-58, Kurtág studied in Paris with
the art psychologist Marianne Stein as well as with
Darius Milhaud and Oliver Messiaen. As a result,
he rethought his ideas on composition and marked
the first work he wrote after his return to Budapest,
a string quartet, as his opus 1. Compositions before
Opus 33, (the orchestral work Stele), consist mainly
of vocal solo, choral and instrumental music, ranging
from solo pieces to works for ensembles of increasing
size. Kurtag has written more than twenty-five works
for voice. Notable among these are: Kafka-Fragmente
for soprano and violin (1985-1987), József Attilatöredékek
for solo soprano (1981), Három régi felirat
for soprano and piano (1986-1987) and Songs to Poems
by Anna Akhmatova for soprano and ensemble
(1997-2008).
From 1958-80 Kurtág worked as a répétiteur in
Budapest. He was appointed professor of chamber
music at the Budapest Academy of Music in
1968, teaching until his retirement in 1986, and
subsequently until 1993. Since the 1990s he has
worked increasingly outside Hungary, as composer in
residence with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna
Konzerthaus, in the Netherlands, and in Paris.
Kurtág won the prestigious 2006 Grawemeyer Award
for Music Composition for his work ‘...concertante...’.
Most of Kurtág’s music is published by Editio Musica
Budapest, some at Universal Edition, Vienna, some at
Boosey & Hawkes, London.
Program Note: This work is not a song cycle, but
rather a collection of twenty-two musical aphorisms.
Some are titled, others are not. The movements
appear in the score in the order in which they
were composed, but performers are to choose and
prepare a set of their own selection for performance.
Suitably chosen movements, groups of movements,
other works, perhaps by other composers, may play
a part in the choices. In any set, one movement
may be performed several times. There are optional
trombone and double bass accompaniments and
interludes.
The texts were written by the poet Georg Christoph
Lichtenberg (1742–1799), a German scientist, satirist
and Anglophile. He was the first scientist to hold a
professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental
physics in Germany. He is remembered for his
posthumous notebooks, which he called Sudelbücher,
or “Wastebooks”, the source of the texts for Kurtag’s
composition. Each volume was accorded a letter of
the alphabet from A, which was begun in 1765, to L,
which broke off at Lichtenberg’s death in 1799. The
notebooks were published by his sons and brothers
after his death, as the first and second editions of
Lichtenberg’s Vermischte Schriften (1800-06 and
1844-53). Since the initial publications, notebooks
G and H, and most of notebook K, were destroyed
or disappeared. The manuscripts of the remaining
notebooks are now preserved in Göttingen University.
Einige Sätze aus den Sudelbüchern, Op. 37
(1996): Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs
Ein Mädchen kaum zwölf Moden alt.
A young girl scarcely twelve ‘fashions’ old.
Geständnis Confession
Es ist nicht der Geist, sondern das Fleisch,
Was mich zum Nichtkonformisten macht.
It is not the spirit but rather the flesh
that makes me a non-conformist.
Der gute Ton liegt dort um eine Oktave niedriger.
In those parts the right tone lies an octave lower.
Gebet Prayer
Lieber Gott, ich bitte dich um tausend Gotteswillen.
Dear God, I beg you a thousand times, for
God’s sake.
Das Mädchen hatte ein Paar sündlich schöne Hände
The young girl had a pair of sinfully beautiful
hands.
Koan
Ordnung führet zu allen Tugenden!
Aber was führet zur Ordnung?
Order is the source of all virtue,
but what is the source of order?
Alpenspitzen näher der Sonne, aber kalt und
unfruchtbar.
The apex of the Alps is nearer to the sun, but
cold and fruitless
“Eine wichtige Bemerkung”
“An important Remark”
Wer in sich selbst verliebt ist, hat wenigstens bei
seiner Liebe den Vorteil,
dass er nicht viele Nebenbuhler erhalten wird.
He who is in love with himself has at least this
advantage:
he won’t encounter many rivals in his love
…an die aufgehende Sonne …the Sunrise
Was hilft aller Sonnenaufgang, wenn wir nicht
aufstehn.
What use is the sunrise, if we don’t get up?
Translations by Jeff Turco
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Judith Weir, b. 1954, Scotland
Judith Weir’s interests in narrative, folklore and
theatre have found expression in a wide range of
musical invention. She is the composer and librettist
of a series of operas: King Harald’s Saga, The Black
Spider, A Night at the Chinese Opera, The Vanishing
Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert. Folk music from the
British Isles and beyond has influenced an extensive
series of string and piano compositions written. For
many years she has worked with storyteller Vayu
Naidu, and she has devised numerous film and music
collaborations with Margaret Williams, the most
recent being Armida, a one-hour television opera.
In the1990s, as resident composer with the City
of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, she wrote
several new works for orchestra and chorus. The
Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned Music
Untangled and Natural History, the Minnesota Orchestra
The Welcome Arrival of Rain and Carnegie Hall
commissioned woman.life.song, a song cycle written
for Jessye Norman.
Judith Weir was born into a Scottish family in 1954,
but grew up near London. She was an oboist, and
had a few composition lessons with John Tavener
during her schooldays. She attended Cambridge
University, studying with Robin Holloway, and on
leaving spent several years as a community musician
in rural southern England. She returned to Scotland
to teach at Glasgow University and RMSAD. Since
the 1990s she has been based in London, and was
artistic director of the Spitalfields Festival for six
years. In 2007, she was presented with the Queen’s
Medal for Music. Over fifty of her works were
performed in 2008 during Telling The Tale, a threeday
retrospective of her music, hosted by the BBC
Symphony Orchestra. In all, she has written eleven
opera and music theatre works, and thirteen chamber
works for voice. Her newest opera, Miss Fortune,
received its premiere at the Bregenzer Festspiele,
Austria, in 2011. Judith Weir’s music is published
exclusively by Chester Music Ltd. and Novello and
Co. Ltd. www.chesternovello.com
Composer’s note: King Harald’s Saga is a 3-act
opera based, as is a good deal of 19th century opera,
on an actual historical event; the Norwegian invasion
of England in 1066 led by King Harald ‘Hardradi’,
which ended in defeat at the battle of Stamford
Bridge, 19 days before the successful Norman
invasion at the Battle of Hastings. Much of the
detail in the libretto has been taken from the account
of the invasion in the 13th century Icelandic saga
Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241).
The soprano sings 8 solo roles, as well as the part of
the Norwegian army; and none of the work’s musical
items lasts over a minute. Since it would be difficult
to stage a work which progresses so quickly, the
soprano gives a short spoken introduction to each act
to establish the staging, as might happen in a radio
broadcast of a staged opera.
King Harold’s Saga was written in 1979 and
commissioned by Jane Manning with funds provided
by the Arts Council of Great Britain.
KING HARALD’s SAGA: Judith Weir
Act I: Narrator: King Harald’s Saga, act one. It is the
year 1066. In the royal palace at Oslo, King Harald
of Norway recounts his previous triumphs on the field
of battle. To a fanfare of trumpets, Earl Tostig arrives
from England. Tostig is a traitor. He persuades King
Harald to invade England.
Harald: I, Harald, by the grace of almighty God,
King of all the northern lands, mightiest warrior that
ever donned a coat of mail and held a sharp edged
sword, strongest king that ever strode a long ships
prow and sailed the restless sea. Most merciless fighter
that ever killed a living man. Whereas my brother
the blessed and holy man, Olaf the Saint said: Love
thine enemies, I say: sever their limbs until they
cause no trouble. When I was young I raided endless
Russia, my ship sailed past Byzantium, I scourged
the Saracen men in Sicily, I trod the holy ground of
Palestine. They knew my justice on both banks of
the Jordan; wherever I went, men said: may his soul
abide in Christ! All around the orb of the world my
name is feared; by this name am I known: Harald
the merciless.
Fanfare: Hail Tostig. Tell all, Tostig, tell us your tale,
tall Tostig. Treat us to the truth, tempt us with a
truthless trick, trick us in a trance, tall terse Tostig.
Tell us all, tell us all, talk! all hail! hale tell-tale, talk!
tall-tale telling Tostig.
Tostig: Hail, take, kill, win, sail, fight, go. Go.
Act 2: Narrator: It is the middle of the night. King
Harald is asleep. He dreams that he is in Trondheim
and meets his dead brother, St. Olaf, who warns
him that his expedition to England is ill-fated. King
Harald is not afraid of dreams: he leaps from his bed
and orders his navy to make for England. The ships
sail out of the fjord, into the open sea, and out of
sight. Harald’s two wives bid him farewell.
St. Olaf: Sleep Harald, sleep on, I fear that death
awaits, I hear the wolves cry in the mountains, I see
the wolves’ jaws red with blood; I see black ravens,
birds of carrion fly to the west. I died at home a holy
man; to my blessed mem’ry be true; trusty hero.
Harald: Put out to sea. Put out to sea, sail far over sea.
Harald’s wives: Farewell, Harald. Take care, Harald.
God bless Harald.
Act 3: Narrator: King Harald’s army lands at
Scarborough. A messenger reveals that the English
army has been sighted nearby in unexpectedly large
numbers. The two armies fight at Stamford Bridge
in Yorkshire. The Norwegians are slaughtered by the
thousand. Amongst the dead is King Harald.
The Norwegian Army: We gladly leave for Harald, the
land from which we came, beneath his royal standard,
his courage and his fame. We gladly fight for Harald,
we plunder and we steal, our warriors’ strength is
famous, our courage and our zeal. We gladly kill for
Harald, we slaughter all his foes. First we beat them
to the ground, and then we..
Messenger: O Sir! O Harald; I bring fateful news; your
army lies in great peril, the sun in bright but the fates
are black. We thought to meet no danger; but as we
approached the town of York, we saw dust, a cloud
of dust, raised by the hooves of horses; and below it
the gleam of handsome shields and white coats of
mail, and we could see that it was an army, an army
of men; and their glittering weapons, sparkled like a
field of broken ice.
A Soldier: Side by side the armies fought, shoulder to
shoulder their men attacked; the storm of arrows
raged around the King; and all around the clash of
mail, the clang of swords; men running and falling;
the crack of blows, bright weapons flying, hewing
flesh. Grating, glinting, men flinching, kicking, jolting,
flinging axes, breathless they gash and graze and
grate. No room to move, tripping, falling, horses
rearing, a litter of corpses. They shove and stab
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and stub raining blows without purpose; the leaders
cannot command; their shouted orders unheard in
the ripping and crashing. Now Harald the Norwegian
King felt anger and fury; into the thickest knot
of bodies he ran, fighting two handed, swinging
weapons aimlessly. Blood pouring, cramp and sweat,
shouting, roaring, cutting down, moving blindly.
Nearby, a man exhausted fallen in the mud cried;
disaster has befallen us! We have been duped! There
was no cause for Harald to bring his forces west-ward;
we are all as good as dead! At that moment, King
Harald was struck in the throat, and drew his last
breath, his last gasp.
Epilogue: Narrator: Back in Oslo, an ancient
Icelandic sage ponders Harald’s violent end.
Icelandic sage: I have seen this all before; ships
returning to the harbour, unloading not live men,
but corpses. Women weeping, children who have
never seen their fathers: it seems to happen often
and always they say the same thing: since so many
were killed we will never forget and make the same
mistake; but they do! and it happens again. Why did
Harald bother? He should have stayed at home and
made the best of it. I could have told him it would
end like this.
Patricia Green
Praised for her “warm creamy voice” and “singing
with a poignancy and molten resonance”, mezzosoprano
Patricia Green has gained international
renown for her remarkable versatility, three-octave
range, and exceptional musicianship. Her busy
career has taken her to Carnegie Hall, Merkin
Hall, The Kennedy Centre, the National Centre
of the Performing Arts in India, Glazunov Hall
in St. Petersburg, Russia and the Concertgebouw
in Amsterdam performing with the Dutch Radio
Philharmonic, the National Symphony, l’Orchestre
de Radio-France, and Northern Israel Symphony. At
the Yerba Buena Arts Centre, San Francisco, she sang
the role of Marie in Berg’s Wozzeck with Ensemble
Parallele and at the Astoria Festival (Oregon).
As a performer of new music, Patricia Green has
created more than 30 world premieres working
internationally with composers Boulez, Schafer,
Ligeti, Dusapin, Laitman, Eggert, Ran, Thoresen,
Del Tredici, Tann, Schwendinger, Gonneville,
Holliger and Goehr performing with Aventa
Ensemble, New Music Concerts, Robert Helps
Festival (Florida), Vancouver New Music, Esprit
Orchestra, Ensemble Parallele (San Francisco),
Cygnus (New York), Theatre Chamber Players (DC),
Posthoornkerk concerts (Amsterdam), Musica Festival
(Strasbourg), Nouvelles Musiques Montréal and
Continuum in London, UK.
Mezzo-Soprano
In chamber music and oratorio, Ms Green has been
a featured soloist with the Manitoba Chamber
Orchestra, Cathedral Choral Society, Washington
Bach Consort, Library of Congress Concerts,
Washington Choral Arts, Bethlehem Bach Society,
Soundstreams Canada, Westchester Mastersingers,
Russian Chamber Arts, Left Bank Chamber Music,
Baltimore Choral Arts, Toronto’s Opera in Concert,
the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum
Chamber Music series, and at the Wolf Trap Festival,
Elora Festival, Fox River Chamber Music Festival,
the Scotia Festival of Music, and the Michoacan
Tri-National Arts Festival in Mexico.
Her performances have been broadcast nationally
on television and radio across Europe and North
America. Recently released and internationally
reviewed CDs on the Blue Griffin Recording label
are: UNSLEEPING – Songs of Living Composers
and THE ICE AGE and BEYOND – Works of
Canadian Women Composers. She is also featured
on six recordings with Newport Classics, Albany
Records, and Live Unity Productions. A passionate
educator, she is Associate Professor of Voice at
the University of Western Ontario. For more
information, see www.patriciagreenmezzo.com
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