Voices: Five Songs of Cavafy
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for medium voice and piano
I. Monotony
II. Long Ago
III. Gray
IV. Voices
V. Candles
text by C. P. Cavafy (translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)
Duration: 15'
Premiere: March 23, 2012, Dordt College
Maria Bouwkamp, mezzo-soprano; Jonathan Posthuma, piano
I. Monotony
II. Long Ago
III. Gray
IV. Voices
V. Candles
text by C. P. Cavafy (translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)
Duration: 15'
Premiere: March 23, 2012, Dordt College
Maria Bouwkamp, mezzo-soprano; Jonathan Posthuma, piano
Program Notes:
A five-part song cycle using the poetry of Greek poet C. P. Cavafy, as translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. The cycle traces the emotional and psychology journey from the monotony of life's repetition, the nostalgic, painful, and haunting memories of the past, and the endless cycle of her routine as she spirals towards instability. Each movement introduces unique ideas and motifs, which are often interwoven throughout the cycle.
Lyrics
I. Monotony
One monotonous day follows another
equally monotonous. The same things
will happen again, and then will happen again,
the same moments will come and go.
A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday’s boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.
II. Long Ago
I’d like to speak of this memory...
but it’s so faded now... as though nothing is left--
because it was so long ago, in my early adolescent years.
A skin as though of jasmine...
that August evening—was it August?--
I can still just recall the eyes: blue, I think they were...
Ah yes, blue: a sapphire blue.
III. Gray
While looking at a half-gray opal
I remembered two lovely gray eyes--
it must be twenty years ago I saw them...
........................................
We were lovers for a month.
Then he went away to work, I think in Smyrna,
and we never met again.
Those gray eyes will have lost their beauty—if he’s still alive;
that lovely face will have spoiled.
Memory, keep them the way they were.
And, memory, whatever of that love you can bring back,
whatever you can, bring back tonight.
IV. Voices
Loved, idealized voices
of those who have died, or of those
lost for us like the dead.
Sometimes they speak to us in dreams;
sometimes deep in thought the mind hears them.
And with their sound for a moment return
sounds from our life’s first poetry--
like distant music, fading away at night.
V. Candles
Days to come stand in front of us
like a row of lighted candles--
golden, warm, and vivid candles.
Days gone by fall behind us,
a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles;
the nearest are smoking still,
cold, melted, and bent.
I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me,
and it saddens me to remember their original light.
I look ahead at my lighted candles.
I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified,
how quickly that dark line gets longer,
how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.
~ C.P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
Voices: Five Songs of Cavafy featured on Composer's Circle
Full Score
A five-part song cycle using the poetry of Greek poet C. P. Cavafy, as translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. The cycle traces the emotional and psychology journey from the monotony of life's repetition, the nostalgic, painful, and haunting memories of the past, and the endless cycle of her routine as she spirals towards instability. Each movement introduces unique ideas and motifs, which are often interwoven throughout the cycle.
Lyrics
I. Monotony
One monotonous day follows another
equally monotonous. The same things
will happen again, and then will happen again,
the same moments will come and go.
A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday’s boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.
II. Long Ago
I’d like to speak of this memory...
but it’s so faded now... as though nothing is left--
because it was so long ago, in my early adolescent years.
A skin as though of jasmine...
that August evening—was it August?--
I can still just recall the eyes: blue, I think they were...
Ah yes, blue: a sapphire blue.
III. Gray
While looking at a half-gray opal
I remembered two lovely gray eyes--
it must be twenty years ago I saw them...
........................................
We were lovers for a month.
Then he went away to work, I think in Smyrna,
and we never met again.
Those gray eyes will have lost their beauty—if he’s still alive;
that lovely face will have spoiled.
Memory, keep them the way they were.
And, memory, whatever of that love you can bring back,
whatever you can, bring back tonight.
IV. Voices
Loved, idealized voices
of those who have died, or of those
lost for us like the dead.
Sometimes they speak to us in dreams;
sometimes deep in thought the mind hears them.
And with their sound for a moment return
sounds from our life’s first poetry--
like distant music, fading away at night.
V. Candles
Days to come stand in front of us
like a row of lighted candles--
golden, warm, and vivid candles.
Days gone by fall behind us,
a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles;
the nearest are smoking still,
cold, melted, and bent.
I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me,
and it saddens me to remember their original light.
I look ahead at my lighted candles.
I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified,
how quickly that dark line gets longer,
how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.
~ C.P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
Voices: Five Songs of Cavafy featured on Composer's Circle
Full Score