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Herstory
II: 13 Japanese Lyrics
for soprano, piano & percussion (1979)
American Composers Alliance, Arsis Press, 19 minutes
Navona CD, & iTunes
"spare, reticent and suggestive" (Boston
Globe)
"delicate and evocative" (Stephen W. Ellis, musicologist)
"The Boston Musica Viva's rendition of Herstory II is exquisite." (Stephen Jay Keyser)
Herstory
II is the second in
a series of highly dramatic song cycles by Elizabeth Vercoe. The
texts are by medieval Japanese women poets. Gardner
Read wrote the following jacket notes for the 1985 Northeastern
Records recording (now on Capstone and Navona CDs):
"Elizabeth Vercoe is a composer whose music reflects great
sensitivity to sound materials... It
was characteristic of this composer that she sought out an exotic
source for
her texts, such as these haiku-like aphorisms by nine female poets of ancient
Japan. Their musings on love—ecstatic, despairing, questioning,
nostalgic—are deftly mirrored in Vercoe's concise and atmospheric settings. Each
of the thirteen brief lyrics is treated in a distinctive manner. The
vocal line is sometimes whispered, sometimes spoken; when sung it is wide-ranging
in its daring leaps from low to high, frequently imparting a tense, even
hysterical, quality to the melodic structure. The
piano and percussion serve largely as sonoric agents rather than providing
conventional accompaniments, creating a fluid environment of rapidly shifting
sound strata. In many ways the percussion instruments seem to be extensions
of the sounds produced in the piano interior, the strings being frequently
rubbed or struck with various mallets, or plucked with the fingers. Piano
and percussion together contribute an always apt and sensitive underpinning
to the melodic vocal flow, the whole of Herstory
II becoming the sum of its diverse but invariably relevant parts."
Originally recorded by the
Boston Musica Viva on a Northeastern LP, the same recording with
soprano Elsa Charleston, pianist Randy Hodgkinson, and percussionist
Dean Anderson is now on both a Capstone CD sponsored by the Society
of Composers and a Navona CD.
| See score
sample & texts below. |
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| To
order the score: elizvercoe@yahoo.com |
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| To
order the recording: www.amazon.com, or iTunes |
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Northeastern LP |
Text
translated by Kenneth
Rexroth
Used with permission of the publisher,
New Directions Publishing Corp.
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| 1. Lady Murasaki Shikibu (974-1031)
Someone passes,
And while I wonder
if it is he,
The midnight moon
is covered with clouds.
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Lady Murasaki Shikibu |
2. Lady Kasa (8th
century)
I love and fear him
Steadily as the surf
Roars on the coast at Ise.
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3. Lady Kasa (8th
century)
I dreamed I held
A sword against my flesh.
What does it mean?
It means I shall see you soon.
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The Poetess Ono No Komachi |
4. Lady Otomo No Sakanoe (8th
century)
Do not smile to yourself
Like a green mountain
With a cloud drifting across it.
People will know we are in love.
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5. Lady Suo (11th
century)
That spring night I spent
Pillowed on your arm
Never really happened
Except in a dream.
Unfortunately I am
Talked about anyway.
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Lady Horikawa |
6. Lady Horikawa (12th
century)
Will he always love me?
I cannot read his heart.
This morning my thoughts
Are as disordered
As my black hair.
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7. Lady Ukon (9th
century)
It does not matter
That I am forgotten,
But I pity
His foresworn heart.
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Lady Ukon |
8. Lady Otomo No Sakanoe (8th
century)
You say, "I will come."
And you do not come.
Now you say, "I will not come."
So I shall expect you.
Have I learned to understand you?
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9. Lady Akazome Emon (11th
century)
I should not have waited.
It would have been better
To have slept and dreamed,
Than to have watched night pass,
And this slow moon sink.
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Lady Akazome Emon |
10. The Mother of the
Commander Michitsuna (10th century)
Have you any idea
How long a night can last, spent
Lying alone and sobbing?
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11. The Poetess Ono No
Komachi (834-890)
Imperceptible
It withers in the world,
This flower-like human heart.
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The Poetess Ono No Komachi |
12. Lady
Izumi Shikibu (11th century)
I go out of the darkness
Onto a road of darkness
Lit only by the far off
Moon on the edge of the mountains.
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13. Lady Izumi Shikibu (11th
century)
Will I cease to be,
Or will I remember
Beyond the world,
Our last meeting together?
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Lady Izumi Shikibu |
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