Program Notes
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond is dedicated to Emily Hageman, who asked me to write a price for soprano on this text, which we discovered through The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, who quotes the last lines in the preface to his play. The poem is filled with rich language and symbolism and often contradictory elements such as closing/opening, fragility/intensity, seeing/touching. The accompaniment uses the glockenspiel, which offers a range of expressions from the beautiful to the clashing, the gentle to the aggressive, at times bright and cheerful but also solemn and sad. These moods, as well as attention to phrasing, punctuation, word stress, and text painting, all contributed to this simple setting that expresses a complicated and emotional relationship.
Lyrics
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
-- E.E. Cummings
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond featured on Composer's Circle
Full Score
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond is dedicated to Emily Hageman, who asked me to write a price for soprano on this text, which we discovered through The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, who quotes the last lines in the preface to his play. The poem is filled with rich language and symbolism and often contradictory elements such as closing/opening, fragility/intensity, seeing/touching. The accompaniment uses the glockenspiel, which offers a range of expressions from the beautiful to the clashing, the gentle to the aggressive, at times bright and cheerful but also solemn and sad. These moods, as well as attention to phrasing, punctuation, word stress, and text painting, all contributed to this simple setting that expresses a complicated and emotional relationship.
Lyrics
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
-- E.E. Cummings
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond featured on Composer's Circle
Full Score