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Description
A more demanding than ever experiment of piano and voice improvisation: the third part of a short poem by greek Nobel prize G. Seferis. A complete analysis of the text would bring us far, suffice to know that third part is divided in two sections, the first describing a sort of descent into the Hades (far parallelism can be found with Odysseus dialogue with the dead), the sunken ship is symbol of the underworld, the voice speaking at the end of the section is clearly that of Socrate. The second section (The Light) is a collection of powerful images related to the dualism light/darkness as parallel to life/death. Here again the sea surface is symbol of the ultimate threshold leading to the underworld. The lyric ends with an invocation to Antigone as a child, calling her to love and life, but immediately presenting a symbolic prefiguration of her death, which is everyone's.
Sung in italian, I give here only english translation fro brevity. As soon as possible I will give a link to a page showing the sung text and the english translation side by side.
Sung in italian, I give here only english translation fro brevity. As soon as possible I will give a link to a page showing the sung text and the english translation side by side.
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Lyrics
G. Seferis, from “The Thrush”
III. The shipwreck of the "Thrush"
"This wood giving refreshment to my front
when the noon burnt the veins
will flower in other hands. Take it, I donate it to you:
it's lemon wood..."
I heard the voice
while I was looking at the sea, to discern
a vessel sunk years before: it was called the "Thrush":
a shipwreck of no importance: the broken masts
floated sidelong the bottom, like tentacles
or memories of dream, pointing to the hull,
murky mouth of a grand, dead cetacean
estinguished in the water. All around
an immense dead calm was spreading.
Other voices, one another, more and more
followed - meagre murmurs, thirsty,
surfacing from the other side of the sun, from darkness -
and seemed anxious to drink blood, a drop:
known voices, but I wasn't able to discern them.
And the old man voice came: I heard it
falling on the heart of the day
quiet, almost unmoved:
"If you will condemn me to drink the hemlock, I thank you:
it'll be, your right, my right: and where to go
travelling in foreign countries, like a round stone?
Death I prefer:
who goes to better fortune, God knows".
Lands of the sun, the sun you can't regard it.
Lands of the man, the man you can't regard it.
(The light)
As years go by
it's getting bigger the number of those judging and sending:
as years go by and you talk with fewer voices,
you gaze the sun with different eyes: You know
those who remained were laughing of you,
craze of the flesh, dance
graceful
shoring to nudity.
As when, at night, going around on the lonely high road,
you suddenly see glinting eyes
of an animal, soon vanished, you sense
your eyes the same.
You gaze at the sun, you get lost in the obscurity;
and the doric tunic
flexing under your fingers' touch like the mountains,
it's a marble statue in the light,
its head in the darkness.
And those who left the training hall and waved the bows
shooting the blow on the plucky marathon runner
(he saw the track sailing
in the blood and becoming void the world as the moon
and bloom past the gardens of victory),
you get a glimpse of them in the sun, rear the sun.
And the boys diving from the pennons
down the go like spindles still spinning,
naked bodies, to the bottom in the black light
with the obolo in the mouth, and they still swim,
while the sun with golden needles seams
sails, wet woods, open sea hues;
they still descend obliquely
to the pebbles of the bottom,
white bowls.
Angel-like and black,
light, waves’ laughter on the high roads
of the vast sea, tearful laughter,
stares at you the old man begging
ready to cross the secret thresholds,
mirrored in his blood
therefrom Etheocles with his brother was born.
Angel-like and black,
day: the brackish taste of the woman
killing by poison the prisoner
comes out of the wave, fresh branch with drops adorned.
Sing on, little Antigone, sing on...
I’m not talking to you about past, I speak
of love: grace your hair
with the sun's thorns,
sombre little girl:
the heart of the Scorpion did set
the tyrant did fled from inside the man,
all the see’s daughters, the Nereids, the Grees
rush to the shimmering light of the anadyomene (Aphrodite):
cras amet qui numquam amavit (*),
in the light:
you are
in a big house
with many wide open windows,
you run from room to room, and you don't know
where to look earlier,
since they will run off the pine trees, the mirrored
mountains, and the peep
of birds,
void will become the sea, shattered glass, to the wind
of North and South,
and will become void your eyes, of light,
as when all of a sudden, altogether,
cicadas shut up.
(*) Latin in the text: Tomorrow she will love, who never loved
III. The shipwreck of the "Thrush"
"This wood giving refreshment to my front
when the noon burnt the veins
will flower in other hands. Take it, I donate it to you:
it's lemon wood..."
I heard the voice
while I was looking at the sea, to discern
a vessel sunk years before: it was called the "Thrush":
a shipwreck of no importance: the broken masts
floated sidelong the bottom, like tentacles
or memories of dream, pointing to the hull,
murky mouth of a grand, dead cetacean
estinguished in the water. All around
an immense dead calm was spreading.
Other voices, one another, more and more
followed - meagre murmurs, thirsty,
surfacing from the other side of the sun, from darkness -
and seemed anxious to drink blood, a drop:
known voices, but I wasn't able to discern them.
And the old man voice came: I heard it
falling on the heart of the day
quiet, almost unmoved:
"If you will condemn me to drink the hemlock, I thank you:
it'll be, your right, my right: and where to go
travelling in foreign countries, like a round stone?
Death I prefer:
who goes to better fortune, God knows".
Lands of the sun, the sun you can't regard it.
Lands of the man, the man you can't regard it.
(The light)
As years go by
it's getting bigger the number of those judging and sending:
as years go by and you talk with fewer voices,
you gaze the sun with different eyes: You know
those who remained were laughing of you,
craze of the flesh, dance
graceful
shoring to nudity.
As when, at night, going around on the lonely high road,
you suddenly see glinting eyes
of an animal, soon vanished, you sense
your eyes the same.
You gaze at the sun, you get lost in the obscurity;
and the doric tunic
flexing under your fingers' touch like the mountains,
it's a marble statue in the light,
its head in the darkness.
And those who left the training hall and waved the bows
shooting the blow on the plucky marathon runner
(he saw the track sailing
in the blood and becoming void the world as the moon
and bloom past the gardens of victory),
you get a glimpse of them in the sun, rear the sun.
And the boys diving from the pennons
down the go like spindles still spinning,
naked bodies, to the bottom in the black light
with the obolo in the mouth, and they still swim,
while the sun with golden needles seams
sails, wet woods, open sea hues;
they still descend obliquely
to the pebbles of the bottom,
white bowls.
Angel-like and black,
light, waves’ laughter on the high roads
of the vast sea, tearful laughter,
stares at you the old man begging
ready to cross the secret thresholds,
mirrored in his blood
therefrom Etheocles with his brother was born.
Angel-like and black,
day: the brackish taste of the woman
killing by poison the prisoner
comes out of the wave, fresh branch with drops adorned.
Sing on, little Antigone, sing on...
I’m not talking to you about past, I speak
of love: grace your hair
with the sun's thorns,
sombre little girl:
the heart of the Scorpion did set
the tyrant did fled from inside the man,
all the see’s daughters, the Nereids, the Grees
rush to the shimmering light of the anadyomene (Aphrodite):
cras amet qui numquam amavit (*),
in the light:
you are
in a big house
with many wide open windows,
you run from room to room, and you don't know
where to look earlier,
since they will run off the pine trees, the mirrored
mountains, and the peep
of birds,
void will become the sea, shattered glass, to the wind
of North and South,
and will become void your eyes, of light,
as when all of a sudden, altogether,
cicadas shut up.
(*) Latin in the text: Tomorrow she will love, who never loved
Morning Light
incredible vocals and piano. Love the emotions, the visions.