Graduate Composition Seminar Virtual Concert

Kou Muramatsu: Oku no Hosomichi -introduction- (おくのほそ道 序文)

Texts

月日は百代の過客にして、行かふ年も又旅人也。舟の上に生涯をうかべ、馬の口とらえて老をむかふる物は、日々旅にして旅を栖とす。古人も多く旅に死せるあり。予もいづれの年よりか、片雲の風にさそはれて、漂泊の思ひやまず、海浜にさすらへ、去年の秋江上の破屋に蜘の古巣をはらひて、やゝ年も暮、春立る霞の空に白川の関こえんと、そゞろ神の物につきて心をくるはせ、道祖神のまねきにあひて、取もの手につかず。もゝ引の破をつゞり、笠の緒付かえて、三里に灸すゆるより、松島の月先心にかゝりて、住る方は人に譲り、杉風が別墅に移るに、

　草の戸も  住替る代ぞ  ひなの家

面八句を庵の柱に懸置。

The sun and the moon are eternal voyagers; the years that come and go are travelers too. For those whose lives float away on boats, for those who greet old age with hands clasping the lead ropes of horses, travel is life, travel is home. And many are the men of old who have perished as they journeyed.
       I myself fell prey to wanderlust some years ago, desiring nothing better than to be a vagrant cloud scudding before the wind. Only last autumn, after having drifted along the seashore for a time, had I swept away the old cobwebs from my dilapidated riverside hermitage. But the year ended before I knew it, and I found myself looking at hazy spring skies and thinking of crossing Shirakawa Barrier. Bewitched by the god of restlessness, I lost my peace of mind; summoned by the spirits of the road, I felt unable to settle down to anything. By the time I had mended my torn trousers, put a new cord on my hat, and cauterized my legs with moxa, I was thinking only of the moon at Matsushima. I turned over my dwelling to others, moved to a house belonging to Sanpû, and affixed the initial page of a linked-verse sequence to one of the pillars at my cottage.

            Even my grass-thatched hut
            will have new occupants now:
            a display of dolls.

Translation by Helen Craig McCullough.

Brooks Clarke: I taste a liquor never brewed

Texts

I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro’ endless summer days – From inns of molten Blue –
When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove’s door –
When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” –
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!

Emily Dickinson

Marie Carroll: mountain flower

Texts

yes he said I was a flower of the mountain 
yes so we are flowers all a womans body 
yes that was one true thing he said in his life 
and the sun shines for you today yes

the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses 
and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain 

yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls 
used 
or shall I wear a red yes 
and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall 
and I thought well as well him as another 
and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes 

and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower 
and first I put my arms around him yes 
and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume 
yes and his heart was going like mad 
and yes I said yes I will Yes

Excerpt from Ulysses by James Joyce

SangUn Kang: Mirror for 2 voices and 2 wine glasses

Texts

이상 – 거울

거울속에는소리가없소
저렇게까지조용한세상은참없을것이오
거울속에도내게귀가있소
내말을알아듣는딱한귀가두개나있소
거울속의나는왼손잡이요
내악수를받을줄모르는-악수를모르는왼손이요
거울때문에나는거울속의나를만져보지를못하는구료마는
거울아니었던들내가어찌거울속나를만나보기만이라도했겠소
나는지금거울을안가졌소마는거울속에는늘거울속의내가있소
잘은모르지만외로된사업에골몰할게요
거울속의나는참나와는반대요마는또꽤닮았소
나는거울속의나를근심하고진찰할수없으니퍽섭섭하오

Yi Sang – Mirror

There is no sound in the mirror.
There won’t be a world so quiet.
I have ears in the mirror.
I have two pathetic ears that don’t understand me.
I am left-handed in the mirror,
who don’t know how to accept my handshake and who don’t know what handshake is.
Although I couldn’t touch myself in the mirror because of the mirror,
how could I have met myself in the mirror if it wasn’t for the mirror?
I don’t have a mirror now, but there is always me in the mirror.
I have no idea about this but I will concentrate on a lonely business.
I am the opposite of myself in the mirror, but I am truly much the same.
I am very sad that I cannot worry and examine myself in the mirror.

Translated by SangUn Kang

Fang Xue: Let life be beautiful like summer flowers

Texts

Life, thin and light-off time and time again 
Frivolous tireless 

I heard the echo, from the valleys and the heart 
Open to the lonely soul of sickle harvesting 
Repeat outrightly, but also repeat the well-being of 
Eventually swaying in the desert oasis 
I believe I am 
Born as the bright summer flowers 
Do not withered undefeated fiery demon rule 
Heart rate and breathing to bear the load of the cumbersome 
Bored 

I heard the music, from the moon and carcass 
Auxiliary extreme aestheticism bait to capture misty 
Filling the intense life, but also filling the pure 
There are always memories throughout the earth 
I believe I am 
Died as the quiet beauty of autumn leaves 
No over no chaos, smoke gesture 
Even wilt also retained the clear and the proud  
Occult 

I hear love, I believe in love 
Love is a pool of struggling blue-green algae 
As desolate micro-burst of wind 
Years stationed in the veins 
 
I believe that all can hear 
Even meet discrete, meet another oneself 
Some can not grasp the moment 
Left the East go West to look at the passing of the inevitable extraordinary  
Look at me, with flowers on my head a long the way in full bloom 
Frequently omitted, but also deeply moved by wind, frost, snow or rain 

Prajna Paramita, soon as soon as 
life is florid summer flowers death an sere autumn leave  
What do you care about having

Rabindranath Tagore, from Stray Birds

Kristian Josifoski: Le Vampire

Texts

Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,
De mon esprit humilié
Faire ton lit et ton domaine;
— Infâme à qui je suis lié
Comme le forçat à la chaîne,
Comme au jeu le joueur têtu,
Comme à la bouteille l’ivrogne,
Comme aux vermines la charogne
— Maudite, maudite sois-tu!
J’ai prié le glaive rapide
De conquérir ma liberté,
Et j’ai dit au poison perfide
De secourir ma lâcheté.
Hélas! le poison et le glaive
M’ont pris en dédain et m’ont dit:
«Tu n’es pas digne qu’on t’enlève
À ton esclavage maudit,
Imbécile! — de son empire
Si nos efforts te délivraient,
Tes baisers ressusciteraient
Le cadavre de ton vampire!»

Kati Agócs: Hyacinth Curl, For 2 High Voices/4 Hand-bells (2015)

In Hyacinth Curl I transformed the essence of a ghazal (roughly speaking, the Persian equivalent of highly structured sonnet) into a song in English for two female singers and hand-bells that they play themselves. The hand-bells contribute to the purity of the sound world, playing a ceremonial role and helping the singers to stay in tune. The text, which I wrote myself, paraphrases a ghazal by Bibi Hayati, an early nineteenth-century noblewoman from Bam, in the Kerman province of Iran. Hayati embraced the principles of Sufi Gnosticism, although she adhered to the external principles of Islam, and her poetry reflects her ecstatic communion with God. I set the entire Ghazal in the original Farsi language in 2014, on commission by the Canada Council for the Arts for soprano Anne Harley, as Divani Hayati. I loved the exotic and pure sound world of this piece and wanted to make a version that more singers could perform. Hyacinth Curl was premiered on Hub New Music’s portrait concert of my chamber works in Boston’s Jordan Hall in January 2015. It is seven minutes in duration.

- Kati Agócs

Texts

Is this then the night of Power
Or merely your hair,
Is it the dawn-break, or your radiance?
In Beauty's divan
Is it an eternal first line?
Or just a couplet transcribed from your inky eyebrow?

Is this rose-breath (oh is it rose-breath)
Or your ambrosial perfume?
Is it the tuba tree in paradise (in paradise)
Or your elegant, empathic stature? 

Is it a cypress grove?
Mongolian musk?
A chalice of the red wine of dawn-tide?
Ambergris?

Is this scorching lightning,
Or fire from Mt. Sana'i? 
An earthly paradise,
Or Heaven’s garden?  
Is it your hyacinth curl (hyacinth curl)?
Your Narcissus-eye?
My own burning sigh?

Everyone turns to pray
at a man-made shrine
My soul is a shrine
And it turns towards your face.

Text by Kati Agócs; English paraphrases of Bibi Hayati: Ghazal #96, originally in Farsi