Phrases (2017)
Soprano and double bass
Duration: 8’
I. le haut étange fume
II. quand le monde
III. j’ai tendu des cordes
IV. il sonne une cloche
Written for Departure Duo
Premiered February 25, 2017 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, NYC
Charlotte Mundy, soprano, and Doug Balliet, double bass
Technical requirements: double bassist requires a small jingle bell
I wrote this short set of pieces in a week in January when I was feeling very agitated and restless musically — stuck in the middle of a piece but frantic, like tight-knit jittering of molecules in a solid. These songs are in part a reflection of that nervous energy and in part a reminder to myself that writing music can be as much an exercise in lightness and ease of the pen as it can be one of rigorous self-reflection and scrutiny.
The texts are excerpts from Rimbaud’s Phrases, which themselves feel like excerpts or fleeting fragments amidst longer aphorisms in his weird prose-suite Les Illuminations. Their brevity makes them easier for me to translate into my own English (below), but also exemplifies the abstract, ambiguous, but deeply beautiful language used throughout Les Illuminations. I don’t pretend to understand the poems, but rather usurp their words and sounds to reflect this restless quality they stir in me.
