Maria Hu - Patricia Van Ness

Transcription

ABSTRACT
DAUGHTERS OF THE LESBIAN POET: CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST
INTERPRETATION OF SAPPHO’S POEMS THROUGH SONG
By
Maria Theresa Hu
August 2015
This thesis examines the seven song and/or choral settings of Sappho’s poetry by
contemporary women composers Carol Barnett, Sheila Silver, Elizabeth Vercoe, Liza
Lim, Augusta Read Thomas, Mary Ellen Childs, and Patricia Van Ness. Each composer
has set Sappho’s poems in her own creative and artistic interpretation through diverse
modern musical styles, giving the Greek poetess a modern, gendered female voice. This
paper presents connections between the poetry chosen, its themes and interpretations, as
well as the expressive musical devices employed. The various methodological
approaches include historical and textual criticism, sociomusicology, and gender and
sexual studies. The setting of Sappho’s poetry and the commonalities of the poetic
themes set to music help us understand how modern women view Sappho’s image, hear,
and give voice to the poetess of the ancient world.
DAUGHTERS OF THE LESBIAN POET: CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST
INTERPRETATION OF SAPPHO’S POEMS THROUGH SONG
A THESIS
Presented to the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music
California State University, Long Beach
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
Committee Members:
Alicia M. Doyle, Ph.D. (Chair)
Kristine K. Forney, Ph.D.
David Anglin, D.M.A.
College Designee:
Carolyn Bremer, Ph.D.
By Maria Theresa Hu
B.A., 2005, California State University, Long Beach
August 2015
Copyright 2015
Maria Theresa Hu
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following persons:
Dr. Alicia Doyle, Professor of Music at California State University, Long Beach,
Graduate Advisor, and the chair of my Thesis Committee. Her continuous support and
encouragement has greatly inspired me.
Dr. Kristine K. Forney, Professor of Music at California State University, Long
Beach, and member of my thesis panel. I am deeply honored to have been mentored by
Dr. Forney, and I am gratefully indebted to her for the patience, expertise, and guidance
she has extended towards me.
Dr. David Anglin, Professor of Music At California State University, Long
Beach, Associate Director of Opera and Vocal Studies, and member of my Thesis
Committee. His insight and patience is truly appreciated.
Composers Carol Barnett, Sheila Silver, Mary Ellen Childs, and Patricia Van
Ness, for their invaluable information and support. Karen Komar and Rychard Cooper,
for their assistance with recordings of Sheila Silver’s music. Katy Tucker, who provided
me with the score of Augusta Read Thomas’s music. Matt Pogue and Panos
Zoumpoulidis, for their knowledge of ancient Greek which helped me with my studies.
My sincere gratitude to my family and friends for their love, encouragement, and
support especially my husband, Larry Hu, and my mother, Evangelina Velasco.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................................................................
iii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................
vii
LIST OF FIGURES .....................................................................................................
ix
PREFACE .....................................................................................................................
x
CHAPTER
1. SAPPHO (630-570 BCE) ................................................................................
1
Introduction ................................................................................................
Women in Greek Society .....................................................................
Sappho’s Life .......................................................................................
Her School ...........................................................................................
Legends, Lovers, and Death.................................................................
Her Poetry and Music ..........................................................................
The Fragments .....................................................................................
Male Translators ..................................................................................
Female Translators ...............................................................................
Reputation and Influence in Ancient Times ........................................
Reputation and Influence in Early Modern Times ...............................
1
2
3
5
7
10
12
14
16
16
18
2. CAROL BARNETT.........................................................................................
32
Biographical Sketch ...................................................................................
Musical Style and Compositions ...............................................................
Sappho Fragments (2007)..........................................................................
I. Tell Everyone: Text Analysis .........................................................
I. Tell Everyone: Music Analysis .......................................................
II. Cicada: Text Analysis ...................................................................
II. Cicada: Music Analysis ................................................................
III. Whirlwind: Text Analysis ............................................................
III. Whirlwind: Music Analysis..........................................................
IV. Midnight: Text Analysis ..............................................................
IV. Midnight: Music Analysis ...........................................................
V. Hesperos: Text Analysis ...............................................................
iv
32
33
35
35
39
41
43
44
47
48
50
51
CHAPTER
Page
V. Hesperos: Music Analysis ............................................................
53
3. SHEILA SILVER ............................................................................................
55
Chariessa: A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from Sappho (1978) ......
I. Text Analysis ...................................................................................
I. Music Analysis ................................................................................
II. Text Analysis..................................................................................
II. Music Analysis ...............................................................................
III. Text Analysis ................................................................................
III. Music Analysis..............................................................................
IV. Text Analysis ................................................................................
IV. Music Analysis .............................................................................
V. Text Analysis .................................................................................
V. Music Analysis...............................................................................
VI. Text Analysis ................................................................................
VI. Music Analysis .............................................................................
55
56
61
61
67
69
72
73
77
78
80
80
82
82
86
4. ELIZABETH VERCOE...................................................................................
88
Musical Style and Compositions .........................................................
Herstory I, II, and III ............................................................................
Irreveries from Sappho (1981)...................................................................
I. Andromeda Rag: Text Analysis .....................................................
I. Andromeda Rag: Music Analysis ...................................................
II. Older Woman Blues: Text Analysis ..............................................
II. Older Woman Blues: Music Analysis ...........................................
III. Boogie for Leda: Text Analysis ...................................................
III. Boogie for Leda: Music Analysis ................................................
88
90
94
96
98
100
101
104
104
107
5. LIZA LIM ........................................................................................................ 109
Voodoo Child (1989)..................................................................................
Text Analysis .......................................................................................
Music Analysis.....................................................................................
109
111
116
117
121
6. AUGUSTA READ THOMAS......................................................................... 128
Biographical Sketch ................................................................................... 128
Musical Style and Compositions ............................................................... 129
v
CHAPTER
Page
In My Sky at Twilight: Songs of Passion and Love (2002) ....................... 134
Text Analysis ....................................................................................... 135
Music Analysis..................................................................................... 137
7. MARY ELLEN CHILDS ................................................................................ 142
Bright Faces (1990) ...................................................................................
Text Analysis .......................................................................................
Music Analysis.....................................................................................
142
143
145
145
147
8. PATRICIA VAN NESS ................................................................................... 153
The Voice of the Tenth Muse (1998) ..........................................................
I. Text Analysis ...................................................................................
I. Music Analysis ................................................................................
II. Text Analysis..................................................................................
II. Music Analysis ...............................................................................
III. Text Analysis ................................................................................
III. Music Analysis..............................................................................
IV. Text Analysis ................................................................................
IV. Music Analysis .............................................................................
V. Text Analysis .................................................................................
V. Music Analysis...............................................................................
VI. Text Analysis ................................................................................
VI. Music Analysis .............................................................................
VII. Text Analysis...............................................................................
VII. Music Analysis ............................................................................
VIII. Text Analysis .............................................................................
VIII. Music Analysis...........................................................................
IX. Text Analysis ................................................................................
IX. Music Analysis .............................................................................
153
154
156
158
160
161
163
164
167
167
170
172
176
178
183
184
187
188
188
189
194
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................. 196
APPENDICES .............................................................................................................. 202
A. OVERVIEW OF REPERTORY AND POETIC THEMES ............................ 203
B. CONCORDANCE OF POETIC THEMES ..................................................... 207
BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................... 212
vi
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
Page
1. Song Text and Mary Barnard, Frag. 1: Tell Everyone ....................................
36
2. Diane Rayor, Frag. 66 and Jane McIntosh Snyder ..........................................
37
3. Mary Barnard, Frag. 2: We Shall Enjoy It and Other Translations ................
38
4. Song Text and Willis Barnstone, Frag. 135: The Cricket ..............................
41
5. Willis Barnstone, Frag. 121 and Other Translations .......................................
45
6. Mary Barnard, Frag. 64: Tonight I’ve Watched .............................................
49
7. Song Text and Willis Barnstone, Frag. 251: Evening Star.............................
51
8. Mary Barnard, Frag. 37: You Know the Place: Then....................................
62
9. Mary Barnard, Frag. 34: Lament for a Maidenhead .......................................
70
10. Mary Barnard, Frag. 22: In the Spring Twilight ..........................................
73
11. Mary Barnard, Frag. 23: And Their Feet Move ...........................................
74
12. Mary Barnard, Frag. 25: Now, While We Dance .........................................
75
13. Mary Barnard, Frag. 88: Say What You Please and Pindar, Frag. 222 ........
78
14. Mary Barnard, Frag. 64: Tonight I’ve Watched ...........................................
81
15. Mary Barnard, Frag. 44: Without Warning ..................................................
83
16. Mary Barnard, Frag. 45 and Anne Carson, Frag. 46 .....................................
83
17. Mary Barnard, Frag. 53 and Other Translations............................................
85
18. Mary Barnard, Frag. 74 and Willis Barnstone, Frag. 192 .............................
99
19. Mary Barnard, Frag. 72 and Paul Roche, Frag. 124 ...................................... 102
20. Mary Barnard, Frag. 13: People Do Gossip ................................................. 106
vii
TABLE
Page
21. Constantine Trypanis, Frag. ?: To a Young Girl .......................................... 117
22. Movement I: Poetry in Deeper than All Roses ............................................. 135
23. Mary Barnard, Frag. 24: Awed by Her Splendor ......................................... 146
24. Movements I-IX and Greek and English Languages .................................... 157
25. Movements and Diane Rayor, Frag. 9 ........................................................... 159
26. Diane Rayor, Frag. 2 ..................................................................................... 162
27. Diane Rayor, Frag. 67 and Other Translations .............................................. 165
28. Movement IV and Diane Rayor, Frag. 15 ..................................................... 168
29. Diane Rayor, Frag. 8 ..................................................................................... 173
30. Diane Rayor, Frag. 4 ..................................................................................... 178
31. Diane Rayor, Frag. 1 ..................................................................................... 185
32. Movement VIII, I and Diane Rayor, Frag. 9 ................................................. 188
33. Diane Rayor, Frag. 14 and Other Translations .............................................. 190
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE
Page
1. Ancient Island of Lesbos .................................................................................
4
2. Sappho and Alcaeus, Brygos painter (480-470 BCE) .....................................
8
3. Sappho fragments found in Oxyrhynchus (1914) ...........................................
15
4. Manuscript image of Sappho playing a lute and embracing a man .................
20
5. Sappho playing a harp with her attendant ladies .............................................
22
6. Sappho on Mount Parnassus, Raphael (1483-1520)........................................
23
7. Sappho Sings for Homer (1824), Charles Nicholas Lafond (1774-1835) .......
25
8. Sappho (1872), Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) ................................................
27
9. Re-enacting of Sappho’s community of women: Natalie Barney as
Sappho, her lover Eva Palmer, and courtesan Liane de Pourgy in
Barney’s garden in Neuilly (1905 or 1907) ..............................................
29
10. Love triangle................................................................................................... 166
ix
PREFACE
In her lifetime, Sappho, whom Plato proudly called the "Tenth Muse," enjoyed a
great reputation as a poetess and musician. Although today there are only 200 surviving
fragments of her work, Sappho’s poems remain powerful in their expression and imagery,
influencing scholars, poets, writers, and musicians from her time to the present.
Sappho’s writings have drawn in female Greek scholars Mary Barnard and Diane Rayor,
who both translated the poetess, and contemporary women composers Carol Barnett (b.
1949), Mary Ellen Childs (b. 1957), Liza Lim (b. 1966), Sheila Silver (b. 1946), Augusta
Read Thomas (b. 1946), Patricia Van Ness (b. 1951), and Elizabeth Vercoe (b. 1941), all
of whom set Sappho’s words to music. As new advocates of Sappho’s works, these
composers were motivated to write songs, song cycles, and choral works setting Sappho’s
poetic fragments with themes of friendship, love, passion, attraction, lesbian (homoerotic)
love, loss of virginity, marriage, anger, jealousy, lost love, grief, pain, unrequited love,
return of companions, misandry, old age, goddess and moon worship, and sexual
imagery, all distinctly gendered themes that resonate with women. Each composer has
set Sappho’s poems in her own creative and artistic interpretation through diverse modern
musical styles, giving the Greek poetess her voice through song.
This paper will present connections in the poetry chosen, the poetic themes and
interpretation, the musical devices employed, overall stylistic treatment, including
extended vocal techniques and text/word painting. The various methodological
x
approaches include historical and textual criticism, sociomusicology, and gender and
sexual studies. The setting of Sappho’s poetry and the commonalities of the themes help
us understand how modern women view Sappho’s image, hear, and give voice to the
poetess of the ancient world.
The first chapter is an introduction dedicated to Sappho’s biography, works,
reputation, and influence in ancient times as well as later eras. Because of the gendered
and sexual nature in her poems, Sappho has received negative criticism, from ancient and
modern male writers. However, Sappho particularly made strong impressions on
composers, poets, and writers of the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Chapters II through VIII are devoted respectively to the modern women
composers named previously and their Sappho-inspired works, including the following:
song cycles of Carol Barnett’s Sappho Fragments (2007), Sheila Silver’s Chariessa: A
Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from Sappho (1978), and Elizabeth Vercoe’s Irreveries
from Sappho (1985); songs for chamber ensemble of Liza Lim’s Voodoo Child (1989)
and Augusta Read Thomas’s In My Sky at Twilight: Songs of Passion and Love (2002);
and choral works of Mary Ellen Childs’s Bright Faces (1990) and Patricia Van Ness’s
The Voice of the Tenth Muse (1998). These song cycles, songs, and choral works all set
Sappho’s own words, most using the translation of Mary Barnard. This is a chapter-bychapter in depth discussion of poetic themes and scholarly interpretations of Sappho’s
poetry, and analysis of each work by individual female composers. The chapters are
organized by song cycles with piano, solo with chamber ensemble, and choral. Musical
examples are not included due to licensing difficulties. It is suggested that the reader
xi
have scores in hand, some of which are available on the composers’ websites. The
bibliography provides information on score and recording availability.
The last chapter is a thematic and poetric study of the connection between
Sappho’s fragments and the seven compositions by female composers and how each of
them explicate the image of Sappho. In each case, however, Sappho’s poems are set in a
unique, creative interpretation, and each composer gave voice to the ancient poetess
through a modern musical approach. An overview of repertory and poetic themes, and
also a concordance of poetic themes is in the appendix section.
The first goal of this project is to bring awareness to each Sappho-inspired work,
and also discover the connection between Sappho’s influence in music and address the
gender and sexuality issues of each work. The second goal is to contribute to the newer
academic research and approach on gender, sexuality, and gay/lesbian studies in
musicology. The third goal not only offers exposure to modern female composers and
their Sappho-texted works, but it will hopefully open a window of opportunity for other
women composers and their compositions. A final goal is to promote women’s music in
concert repertoires as the composers try to navigate the male-dominated world of
composition; and doing so will provide them an artistic and individual voice of their own.
xii
CHAPTER 1
SAPPHO (630-570 BCE)
Introduction
The mention of the terms "lesbian" and "sapphic" brings erotic thoughts or
homosexuality to mind. However, in antiquity, the word "lesbian" simply referred to a
native of the island Lesbos, where Sappho lived with a community of women. Moreover,
at the time, being a lesbian woman did not imply a female homosexual, but rather a
lustful woman who freely indulged in sexual behavior; the term comes from the Greek
verb "lesbiazein," meaning "to fellate" or "play the whore."1 "Sapphic" refers, of course,
to Sappho and also to a meter she used in lyric poetry.
Although only some 200 fragments survive, Sappho’s poems have elicited
powerful emotions for thousands of years, and she influenced such Roman classical poets
as Catullus (84-54 BCE), Horace (65-5 BCE), and Ovid (43 BCE-18 AD). Plato (427384 BCE) praised her in an epigram in a Greek anthology (7.718), writing: "Some say
1
Anita George, "Sappho," in glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,
Transgender, and Queer Culture, ed. Claude J. Summers (Chicago, IL: glbtq Inc., 2002),
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/sappho,7.html, accessed November 29, 2012.
1
the Muses are nine: how careless! Look, there's Sappho too, from Lesbos, the tenth."2
Others have called her "the mortal muse, the feminine Homer, and the muses’ sister."3
Mesmerized by the beauty of expression and imagery in her works, scholars, poets,
writers, and musicians from her time to the present were inspired to write about Sappho.
Women in Greek Society
In ancient Greece, music was as important as poetry and was considered central to
a good education. Greek women, however, were generally denied an education and were
not allowed to compete in sports or perform in public events in some Greek societies.
Ann Michelini notes that:
Although the roles of Greek women differed widely from city-state to city-
state, in most early Greek cultures, women and men tended to work, play,
and socialize in single-sex groups . . . .Some women were strictly
segregated, which therefore left room for a rich cultural life within female
society, including the production by women and for women of poetry
[accompanied by music].4
On the island of Lesbos, southeast of the Aegean Sea, women, segregated from
men, lived in a community of thiasos, a female community devoted to the worship of
Aphrodite: here, they were educated, interacted in intellectual and social groups, and
enjoyed high social, political, and religious status. Anita George writes that "Lesbos was
2
Plato, cited in Margaret Reynolds, The Sappho Companion (New York:
Palgrave, 2000), 70. Many points made in this chapter are drawn from Reynolds’s fine
study.
3
Aaron I. Cohen, "Sappho," International Encyclopedia of Women Composers 2nd
ed., (New York: Books and Music (USA) Inc., 1987) 2: 617.
4
Ann N. Michelini, "Women and Music in Greece and Rome," in Women and
Music: A History, ed. Karin Pendle (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 3-4.
2
the center of Aeolian culture, and its natives were perceived by the rest of the Greek
world as passionate, intense, and sensual people with great love of nature and of physical
beauty" (see fig. 1).5
Nineteenth-century English poet and early translator of Sappho’s works John
Addington Symonds (1840-93) romanticized life on Lesbos:
The Lesbian ladies applied themselves successfully to literature. They
formed clubs for the cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the arts
of beauty, and sought to refine metrical forms and diction. . . .
Unrestrained by public opinion, and passionate for the beautiful, they
cultivated their senses and emotions, and indulged their wildest passions.6
Sappho’s Life
According to Sophie Drinker, there was no place or time more promising than
Lesbos for the blossoming of "a woman’s creative talent, and in this environment where
Sappho was born, matured, and asserted her leadership."7 Sappho was probably born in
630 BCE to an aristocratic family in Mytilene, where her father Scamadronymus was a
rich wine merchant and her mother was Cleis. She had three brothers: Larichus,
Eurygyus, and Charaxus, the last a wine merchant about whom she wrote a poem
condemning his affair with an Egyptian courtesan. It has been speculated that Sappho
5
George.
6
John Addington Symonds, cited in David M. Robinson, Sappho and Her
Influence (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1963), 25.
7
Sophie Drinker, "The Lyric Poetess," in Music and Women: The Story of
Women in their Relation to Music (New York: Coward-McCann Inc., 1948), 104.
3
was married to Cercylos because they had a daughter also named Cleis. Still, scholars
have disputed, for it is not certain if Sappho was married. However, David Robinson,
FIGURE 1. Ancient Island of Lesbos.8
who contends that "she was a widow who sought for love and companionship among the
girls whom she made members of her salon and instructed in the art" of music, poetry,
beauty, and pleasure.9 Maximus of Tyre, a late second-century AD philosopher,
8
Michael Lahanas, "Ancient Lesbos," http://www.mlahanas.de/Greece/Cities/
Lesbos.html, accessed March 25, 2012.
9
Robinson, 29.
4
describes her as "small and dark."10 Sappho was an independent aristocratic—highly
respected, greatly admired,—and attained a high reputation as a talented singer and
musician not only on Lesbos but in all of Greece.
Ancient Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BCE) mentioned in his writings that
Sappho was a poetess and musician. She played the lyre (kithara) and flute, and is said to
have invented a type of harp called the pectis; she was also reputed to be the first to use a
plectrum to strike the strings of the lyre, mentioned in two of her poems. Due to a violent
coup on Lesbos in a rebellion led by the tyrant Pittacus (640-568 BCE), aristocratic
members of the society, including Sappho, were exiled to the Greek colony of Sicily
between 604 and 594 BCE. There, the people of Syracuse erected a statue in the town
hall in Sappho’s honor, and some scholars believe this was the place where she met
Phaon, the handsome youth with whom she fell in love.11 In 581 BCE, Sappho returned
to Lesbos, where she spent the rest of her life until her death in 570 BCE.
Her School
Sappho’s charismatic personality drew young women from many parts of Greece,
including Athens and Asia Minor, to study the arts of beauty, poetry, music, and dance at
her all-female school. Anne Burnett suggests "Sappho’s female companions and
membership in the circle seems to have been voluntary and to some degree
10
Maximus of Tyre, cited in Robinson, 35.
11
More information will be presented about Phaon on page 7.
5
international."12 Warren Anderson and Thomas Mathiesen assess that "in a sense Sappho
was the leader of the world’s first sorority with female members who were trained in
household activities and the arts before they were given into marriage. Men had no part
in the life of this group; loyalties and passions were intense."13 According to Anne
Carson, some of Sappho’s relationships with her students were quite scandalous;
particularly, her relationship with Atthis was controversial. The evidence is based on the
tenth-century BCE Byzantine lexicographer Suda, who claims that "Sappho had three
companions and friends, Atthis, Telesippa, and Megara. Through her relations with them
she got a reputation for shameful love."14 However, after the young women finished their
studies with Sappho, they returned home and got married. She clearly missed these
women as she wrote about them in some of her poetry. Sappho’s was not the only school
on Lesbos; she had rivals against whom she wrote—Gorgo and Andromeda. Later, we
shall see that Sappho’s rivals and some of her companions and students are mentioned in
her poems are set in music by modern contemporary composers.
12
Anne Pippin Burnett, Three Archaic Poets: Archilocus, Alchaeus, Sappho
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 210.
13
Warren Anderson and Thomas J. Mathiesen, "Sappho," in Grove Music Online
(2007), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com, accessed February 22, 2012.
14
There were other noted companions of Sappho: Gongyla and Abanthis. Sappho
mentions their names in some of her poetry, which will be discussed later in the poetic
interpretations of female contemporary composers. Anne Carson, If Not, Winter:
Fragments of Sappho (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 361.
6
Legends, Lovers, and Death
There are many legends about the life of Sappho. Some scholars say she was a
courtesan, and others considered her a priestess of Aphrodite. According to Christopher
Faraone, "many or most of the small number of female poets from ancient Greece may in
fact have been courtesans . . . and Sappho herself was a courtesan," who held great
independence, wealth and fame.15
The legends and myths about Sappho’s life story are not complete without her
love interests. Sappho’s rumored lover was the poet Alcaeus (620-580 BCE) who
described her as "pure, violet-haired, honey-smiling Sappho" (see fig. 2).16 While there
is no solid evidence they were lovers, it is certain they exchanged poetic verses
frequently in tensos, or debate songs, pertaining to the social and the political aspects of
Greece. The oldest known painting of Sappho and Alcaeus in an attic vase is by the
Brygos painter from 480-470 BCE.
Her most rumored lover is Phaon, an old and unattractive ferryman from
Mytilene. He reportedly ferried a disguised Aphrodite to Asia Minor without accepting
payment. As a reward, the goddess gave him an ointment in an alabaster box that made
him young and handsome. Many women were captivated by his beauty, including
15
Christopher A. Faraone, "The Masculine Arts of the Ancient Greek Courtesan:
Male Fantasy or Female Self-Representation?" in The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-Cultural
Perspectives, ed. Martha Feldman and Bonnie Gordon (London: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 210.
16
Robinson, 27.
7
Sappho, who fell madly in love with him. However, Phaon resented her and Sappho was
deeply distraught by the rejection.
FIGURE 2. Sappho and Alcaeus, Brygos painter (480-470 BCE).17
One of the first significant contributors to the Sappho and Phaon story, and also to
Sappho’s reputed suicide, was Ovid (43 BCE-18 AD), in his poem "Sappho to Phaon,"
17
Gregory Nagy, "Did Sappho and Alcaeus Ever Meet? Symmetries of Myth and
Ritual in Performing the Songs of Ancient Lesbos," http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/
display/2197, accessed December 26, 2012.
8
from Heroides.18 Another reference to the lovers’ legend is from Italian Renaissance
poet Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75). In his book De mulieribus claris or Delle Donne
Famose (Book of Famous Women, 1361-75), he writes:
But, if the story is true, Sappho was unhappy in love as she was happy in
her art. For she fell in love with a young man and was the prey of this
intolerable pestilence either because of his charm and beauty or for other
reasons. He refused to accede to her desires, and, lamenting his obstinate
harshness, Sappho wrote mournful verses. . . . she scorned the verse forms
used by her predecessors and wrote a new kind of verse in a metre
different from others. This kind of verse is still named Sapphic after her.
Are the muses to be blamed? They were able to move the stones of Ogygia
when Amphion played, but they were unwilling to soften the young man’s
heart in spite of Sappho’s songs.19
As a result, Sappho is said to have leaped to her death from the promontory of
Leucadia or Leucas, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. The name of the cliffs is derived
from the Greek leukos, meaning white because of the white cliffs on the island.20 It was
said that this is also where a cult of Apollo, the sun god and god of music and poetry,
performed ritual human sacrifices. According to some scholars, Sappho’s leap to her
death was not because of her unrequited love for Phaon, but to refute rumors of her
homosexuality and as an attempt to heterosexualize herself. Others have argued that it
was another person named Sappho who committed suicide.
18
Ovid, "Sappho to Phaon." Letter XV, in Heroides, cited in Reynolds, 73.
19
Giovanni Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris (Book of Famous Women, 1361-75),
translated by Guido A. Guarino, 1964, quoted in Reynolds, 87.
20
Reynolds, 5.
9
Although Greek comedic poet Antiphanes (408-334 BCE) wrote a play called
Phaon, it is not certain if Phaon ever existed. For years, modern Greek scholars have
debated whether the character of Phaon was a mistaken identity for Adonis, who was not
an actual person but a legendary follower of Aphrodite or one of Aphrodite’s lover.21
Since there is no mention of Phaon in any of Sappho’s fragments, the story of Sappho
and Phaon suggests a myth that was developed by ancient poets two hundred years after
Sappho’s death in 572 BCE.
Her Poetry and Music
Sappho is credited by Aristoxenos to have invented the mixolydian mode and for
"a new style of music by breaking up the meter."22 Sapphic meter is a four-line poetic
form alternating long, stressed syllables and short, unstressed ones (LSL LSSL SLL or - u
- - u - u - -). In ancient Greece, the sound of a poem was important, so that Sappho was
known to be "a master of poetic sound effects, meter, and euphony."23 Her lyric poems
were written in Aeolic dialect and were apparently set to music. They were performed in
religious festivals and her epithalamia songs at weddings. The lyrical poetic form of her
epithalamia was "the model used by other writers for nearly a thousand years in Greece,
Rome, and Europe."24 She not only wrote wedding songs, but also elegies, epigrams,
21
Ibid., 3.
22
Cohen, 617; Anderson and Mathiesen, "Sappho," in Grove Music Online
(2007), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com, accessed February 22, 2012.
23
George.
24
Cohen, 617.
10
hymns, and nine books of lyric poetry. Cohen claims that "her verses were regarded by
contemporaries and critics of the golden age as being perfect."25 Sappho is skilled with
using hidden metaphor, ambiguity, wordplay, wit, irony, and allusion in her poetry.26
The poetic themes she sets are powerful expressions of love, passion, lesbian
(homoerotic) love, jealousy, anger, lost love, grief, and pain, as well as, friendship,
marriage, loss of virginity, and aging. As a matter of fact, Sappho was the first woman
poet to pull attention away from the gods and concentrate on the human feelings. She
spoke in the first person to describe her personal experiences, and she was not afraid to
express her emotions, especially regarding intimate relationships between women.
Although some of her poems are dedicated to her daughter, Cleis. Today, only two
complete poems survive; one of them has sixteen lines: "The Ode to Aphrodite," which
we will see has inspired modern musicians in song.
Three hundred years after Sappho’s death in 572 BCE, ancient scholars compiled
her verses into nine books at the library of Alexandria in Egypt. Some of her poems were
originally hundreds, even a 1000, lines long. However, several unfortunate events took
place at the library: books and scrolls were burned during the Roman conquest of Egypt
led by Julius Caesar in 48 BCE; and works of Sappho, Aristotle (384-322 BCE), Plato
(429-347 BCE), Sophocles (496-406 BCE), and Euripides (480-406 BCE), also suffered
during the Aurelian (214-275 AD) attack in 270 AD and the Muslim conquest in 642 AD.
25
Ibid.
26
George.
11
The Fragments
Modern scholars are astonished that Sappho’s works were even written down;
traditionally, poetry was presented to the public as a memorized recitation. Today, of
nine books of her poetry, 200 fragments survive. Sappho’s poems have "solely lengthbased meters" and they are extremely difficult to translate word for word in English,
which uses "stress-based meters and rhymes."27 There are no punctuation marks or
spaces between words used. Because of the metric nature of Greek poetry, translators
filled in some of the missing words based on the context of the poem, or they used rhyme
to fit into English poetic forms.
In 1895, fragments from scraps of torn papyrus dating from the second to third
century AD were unearthed in the city of Oxyrhynchus, south west of Cairo by British
scientist and Egyptologist Bernard Grenfell (1869-1926) and papyrologist Arthur Hunt
(1871-1934) from Queen’s College, Oxford. Soon after, a great revival in Greek and
Latin studies occurred at Oxford and Cambridge universities. In addition, quotations
from Sappho by ancient authors were added to newly published translations and editions.
One of the most important founders of papyrology was an Italian female scientist Medea
Norsa (1877-1952). She identified fragments of Sappho’s poem in a piece of terracotta
pottery found at the Oxyrhynchus site.28
27
"Sappho, Modern Translations," http://www.reference.com/browse/ Sappho?s=t
s, accessed December 26, 2012.
28
"Medea Norsa," http://www.brown.edu/Research/Breaking_Ground/bios/
Norsa_Medea.pdf, accessed April 10, 2015; Reynolds, 22.
12
Excavations at Oxyrhynchus continued into the twentieth century. A discovery in
1914 produced fifty-six papyrus fragments by Sappho titled "The First Book of Lyrics of
Sappho, 1,332 Lines."29 Hellenistic scholar John Maxwell Edmonds (1865-1958) had the
daunting task of putting the lines together, since the poems were in pieces, and also
translating several. Some of these fragments are now housed in the British Museum,
London and others are in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and in Berlin.
In 2001, experts discovered the Milan Papyrus amongst dismantled mummy
wrappings; these Milan fragments contain some of Sappho’s poems that were quoted by
Hellenistic epigrammatist and poet Posidippus of Pella.30 Another of the Milan fragment
poem was translated by Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) and published in 2004 from the
collection of Cologne University. The latest reconstruction of a papyrus from the
Oxyrhynchus site discovery was translated by Martin Litchfield West (b. 1937) and
published in an article in the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 151 (2005) and
in Times Literary Supplement (June 24, 2005), (see fig. 3).31
29
Joyce Kilmer, “Poem by Sappho, Written 600 B.C., Dug Up in Egypt: Fifty-six
Fragments of Papyrus, Bearing Heretofore Unknown Verses ‘The First Book of the
Lyrics of Sappho, 1,332 Lines,’ Found at Oxyrhynchus,” New York Times, June 14, 1914,
SM7, http://nytimes.com, accessed March 3, 2012.
30
"Sappho, Recent Discoveries," http://www.reference.com/browse/ Sappho?s=ts,
accessed December 26, 2012.
31
"A New Sappho Poem," The Times Literary Supplement: The Leading
International Forum Literary Culture, June 24, 2005, http://www.the-tls.co.uk, accessed
March 25, 2012.
13
The two newest Sappho fragments were discovered in a private collection. The
first translation of one of these poems by British classicist Tim Whitmarsh (b. 1969)
appeared in an article in The Guardian in January of 2014.32 In the past, many scholars
have argued that the fragment about Sappho’s brother, Charaxus, is not her writing.
However, the recent discovery is clear evidence that Sappho penned the poetry about her
oldest brother’s safe return to Mytilene after paying a large sum to be with the courtesan.
Male Translators
The earliest important translators of Sappho’s works were English scholars Joseph
Addison (1672-1719) and Francis Fawkes (1721-77). During the 1900s, translations of
Sappho’s works were published throughout Europe and the United States. Most notable
are modern-era British translators John Addington Symonds (1832-93), Edgar Lobel
(1888-1982), Denys Page (1908-78), and Paul Roche (1916-2007), among others.
American translators soon followed, including Willis Barnstone (b. 1927) and Guy
Davenport (1927-2005) and others.33
32
Tim Whitmarsh, "Read Sappho’s New Poem," The Guardian, January 30,
2014, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/30/read-sappho-new-, accessed
March 20, 2014.
33
Translations by Denys Page, Paul Roche and Willis Barnstone will be
considered later.
14
FIGURE 3. Sappho fragments found in Oxyrhynchus (1914).34
Scholars, critics, and translators have argued for many centuries about Sappho’s
sexuality. Many of them—overwhelmingly male—have tried to repudiate her
homosexual relations with women. Notably, early translators took the liberty of changing
Sappho’s love interest from feminine to masculine. It is not known the precise intentions
of the translators, but censorship may be the reason,35 and their deliberate "gender
switching" clearly forces a heterosexual agenda on Sappho’s works.36
34
"New Papyri of Sappho (600 B.C.): A Great Find at Oxyrhynchus," The
London News, May 23, 1941, http://www.illustratedfirstworldwar.com/item/new-papyri-o
f-sappho-600-b-c-a-great-find-at-oxyrhynchus-iln0-1914-0523-0017-001/, accessed
January 30, 2014.
35
Percy A. Hutchinson, "New Notes from Sappho’s Lyre," New York Times, July
19, 1925, BR4, http://www.nytimes.com, accessed March 3, 2012.
36
George.
15
Female Translators
More recently, women scholars have also become interested in Sappho, including
Mary Barnard, Diane Rayor, and Anne Carson.37 In the 1960s, Mary Barnard was the
first translator not to use rhyme and other poetic forms and devices in her translations.
She allowed "the essence of Sappho’s spirit to be visible through the translated verses."38
Soon, other women translators followed, and they also did not change words to fit a
presumed gender or the context of the poem. In 2002, Anne Carson published If Not,
Winter, an extensive translation of Sappho’s fragments done line-by-line with brackets to
indicate word gaps "to capture both the original’s lyricism and its present fragmentary
nature."39 We will see that modern women composers overwhelming chose female
translations for their song settings of Sappho’s poems.
Reputation and Influence in Ancient Times
Sappho’s poetic expression of her feelings about physical love has been
controversial for epochs. Greek scholar Denys Page states in his book Sappho and
Alcaeus, "the poets of Lesbos have created the most exquisite lyrical poetry the world has
known," yet its sensual content became "a byword for corruption" and "decadent
37
Translations by most of these women will be considered later in the poetic
interpretations.
38
"Sappho, Modern Translations," http://www.reference.com/browse/ Sappho?s=t
s, accessed December 26, 2012.
39
Ibid.
16
sensuality."40 Sappho’s image and reputation have been disdained by many who
condemned her love poetry addressed to women. According to Sophie Drinker,
"Sappho’s relationship with her girlfriends later received an unpleasant interpretation
among the fourth century BCE male intelligentsia of Athens, who were openly carrying
male homosexuality to a high degree of refined exhibitionism and celebrating it even in
works as dignified as the dialogues of Plato."41 As a staunch feminist, Drinker claims
that most modern scholars believed "the so-called ‘Lesbianism’ of Sappho and her girls
to be only the gossip over wine cups in Athens, where middle-aged literary gentlemen
and men about town toasted their own boy flames."42
Two centuries after Sappho’s death, five writers penned ancient comedies called
Sappho; they were Diphilus (342-291 BCE), Ephippus (375-340 BCE), Ameipsias (late
fifth-century BCE), Amphis (mid fourth-century BCE), and Antiphanes (408-334 BCE),
and all parody Sappho’s promiscuousness and homosexuality, thus forever disdaining her
reputation and spoiling her good name. In the third century BCE, Hellenistic biographers
described Sappho’s sexual relations with the term gynerastia, which means the "erotic
love of women."43
40
Denys Page, Sappho and Alcaeus, quoted in George, "The Term ‘Lesbian.’"
41
Drinker, 105.
42
Ibid.
43
George.
17
Reputation and Influence in Early Modern Times
In 140 AD, early Christian theologian Tatian (120-180 AD) condemned the works
of Sappho, calling her "a harlot, love mad, who sang about her own licentiousness."44 At
the end of the second century AD, the archetypal term for a female homosexual in Greek
was the word tribas, which means "to rub" or "to massage."45 The Liddell and Scott
Greek-English Lexicon defines tribas as "a woman who practices unnatural vice with
herself or other women."46 Due to the homoerotic nature of Sappho’s poems, the
Christian Church purposely refused to allow her works to be copied, which led to the
burning of her books in 380 AD, ordered by Gregory Nazianzen (329-90 AD) in 380 AD.
Another burning incident took place in Rome and in Constantinople in 1073 AD, under
Pope Gregory VII.47 Happily, some of Sappho’s work survived, predominantly through
quotation by scholars, writers, and poets. However, as with modern translators, specific
words were changed to describe Sappho’s love as for a man rather than a woman to avoid
further banning of her poems by the Christian Church.
Sappho’s legend and her unrequited love for Phaon became famous during the
Middle Ages. She was simply known as "The Learned Lady," and some of her poems
44
Tatian, quoted in Robinson, 134.
45
George.
46
Ibid.
47
Phillip Kay, "Psappho: Priestess, Prostitute, Poet, Lesbian," Blog: July 14,
2011, http://phillipkay .wordpress.com/2011/07/14/psappho-priestess-prostitute-poetlesbian/, accessed December 26, 2012; Reynolds, 81.
18
became subjects of courtly love.48 The poetry and songs of Countess Beatriz de Dia
(1140-75) were compared to Sappho’s works for she "sang in measures that are
comparable with the best work of the men of her day," and both spoke of their female
sexuality and "bitter outcries against their rivals."49 Sappho’s strong influence became a
model to the development of women’s songs that flourished in Greece, Rome, and
Europe for thousands of years later.
In Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris or Delle Donne Famose (Book of
Famous Women, 1361-75), mentioned earlier, he tells of happy or sad tales about
women. Particularly, the tale of Sappho has a woodcut in which the poetess is depicted
as a medieval woman with a lute; she is also embracing a young man (see fig. 4), yet
Boccaccio says that her poetry was not enough to win over her lover.50 A quote from
Boccaccio’s text shows he was in awe of Sappho:
. . . She had so fine a talent that in the flower of youth and beauty she was
not satisfied with writing solely in prose, but, spurred by the greater
fervour of her soul and mind, with diligent study she ascended the steep
slopes of Parnassus and on that high summit with happy daring joined the
Muses, who did not nod in disapproval. . . . She arrived at the cave of
Apollo . . . and took up Phoebus’s plectrum. [She] . . . did not hesitate to
strike the strings of the cithara and bring forth melody. All these things
48
Reynolds, 2.
49
James J. Wilhelm, "The Countess of Dia, Often Called Beatriz: The Sappho of
the Rhone," in The Creators of Modern Verse (London: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1970), 133, 138.
50
"The Widespread Popularity of Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris (Book of
Famous Women, 1361-75)," http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/detail/
ODLodl~14~14~82896~137957:Thewidespread-popularity-of-Boccac, accessed March
28, 2012.
19
seem very difficult even for well-educated men. . . through her eagerness
she reached such heights that her verses, which according to ancient
testimony were very famous, are still brilliant in our own day. A bronze
statue was erected and consecrated to her name, and she was included
among the famous poets. Certainly neither the crown of kings, the papal
tiara, nor the conqueror’s laurel is more splendid than her glory.51
FIGURE 4. Manuscript image of Sappho playing a lute and embracing a man.52
Writer Christine de Pisan (1363-1431), in her book Le livre de la cité des dames
(The Book of the City of Ladies, 1405), quotes Boccaccio and extends her praise for
Sappho as a highly intellectual woman:
. . . The charm of her profound understanding surpassed all other charms
with which she was endowed, for she was expert and learned in several
arts and sciences, and she was not only well-educated in the works and
writings composed by others but also discovered many new things herself
and wrote many books and poems. . . . Her writings and poems have
survived to this day, most remarkably constructed and composed, and they
serve as illumination and models of consummate poetic craft and
composition to those who have come afterward. She invented different
51
Giovanni Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris (Book of Famous Women, 1361-75),
translated by Guido A. Guarino, 1964, quoted in Reynolds, 87.
52
Giovanni Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris. (Louvain: Aegidius van der
Heerstraten, 1487).
20
genres of lyric and poetry, short narratives, tearful laments, and strange
lamentations about love and other emotions, and these were so well made
and so well ordered that they were named "Sapphic" after her . . . she
would be honoured by all and be remembered forever (see fig. 5).53
Sappho’s works continued to be recognized during the Renaissance. In 1511,
Pope Julius II (1443- 1513) commissioned Renaissance painter Raphael (1483-1520) to
paint a room called Stanze della Segnatura (1511-12) with frescoes in the Vatican. Here,
Raphael illustrates Mount Parnassus, home of Apollo and the Nine Muses, surrounded by
the nine poets from antiquity and nine contemporary poets. In the fresco, Raphael
depicted Sappho as the only mortal woman included with the muses. She wears a laurel
wreath, and her name appears on the scroll in her hand; a lyre is beside her (see fig. 6).
In the following poem, Sappho addresses her lyre, a reference that became a
model for English poet Thomas Wyatt (1503-42):
Come, divine lyre, speak to me; become voiced . . . 54
In comparison, Wyatt paraphrased Sappho’s invocation to a lute, in his famous
poem "My Lute Awake":55
My lute awake! Perfourme the last
Labour that thou and I shall wast
And end that I have now begun
53
Christine de Pisan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 1405, translated by Earle
Jeffrey Richards, 1983; quoted in Reynolds, 89.
54
Transliterated by Eva-Maria Voigt, Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta.
(Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak and Van Gennep, 1971), cited by Roger Harmon. "My
Lute Awake;" Thomas Wyatt, Sappho and Lyric Poetry," The Lute; The Journal of the
Lute Society 39, January 1999, 1.
55
Ibid.
21
For when this song is sung and past,
My lute be still, for I have done.56
FIGURE 5. Sappho playing a harp with her attendant ladies.57
English poet and writer John Lyly (1554-1606) wrote a comedy called Sappho
and Phao (1584). It was loosely based on the legendary love story of Sappho and Phaon,
and an allegorical portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I and François, Duke of Anjou.58
During the Baroque and Classical periods, Sappho’s poetry continued to inspire
writers, artists, and composers. French poet Louise Labé (1520-66) praised Sappho as
the idealized woman poet. In her poem from 1555, she describes how Sappho praises
56
Kenneth Muir, "Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt," London, no. 66
(1963): 49, quoted in Harmon, 1.
57
Reynolds, 88. Wood cut from a Dutch manuscript of Christine de Pisan’s The
Book of the City of Ladies, 1405, The British Museum, Add. 20698 fol. 73.
58
Reynolds, 85.
22
FIGURE 6. Sappho on Mount Parnassus, Raphael (1483-1520).59
Apollo "who gave me the lyre whose verses / so often sang of the Lesbian loves."60 An
international community of novelists and poets was influenced by Sappho and, included
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), Hedvig Charlotte Nordenflycht (aka "The Swedish
Sappho") (1718-67), Anna Louisa Karsch (aka "The German Sappho") (1722-91),
59
Raphael. “Fresco Painting.” Stanze della Segnatura (1511-12), http://www
.christusrex.org/www1/stanzas/Pd-Sappho.jpg, accessed November 29, 2012.
60
Louise Labé, quoted in Reynolds, ibid.
23
Katherine Phillips (aka "The English Sappho") (1631-64), and the other, "British Sappho"
Mary Robinson (1757-1800).
Sappho’s personal expression of emotions became a model for Romantic poets
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), George Gordon "Lord" Byron (1788-1824), Charles
Baudelaire (1821-67), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), Alphonse Daudet
(1840-97), Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Percy MacKaye (1875-1956), and Ezra
Pound (1885-1972), among others. Sappho’s influence suggested the Romantic idea of
the poet as "a creature of feeling, one whose solitary song is overheard, as opposed to the
classical model of the poet as a socially defined craftsperson who speaks to a group."61
In the world of art, Sappho stirred artists’ imagination with her beauty, talent, and
intellect (see fig. 7). As a result, she became an iconic image to Jacques-Louis David
(1748-1825), Charles Nicholas Lafond (1774-1835), Hector Leroux (1829-1900),
Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), among others.
However, a sudden change occurred in the way Romantic artists such as Théodore
Chassériau (1819-1856), symbolist Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), and Charles Mengin
(1853-1933) saw Sappho—they focused on her legendary leap to death and not the
beauty of her poetry. Particularly, Gustav Moreau was fascinated by the tragic story of
61
"Sappho," http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sappho, accessed March 29,
2012.
24
Sappho and produced many drawings, sketches, and paintings of the poetess during his
artistic career (see fig. 8).62
FIGURE 7. Sappho Sings for Homer (1824), Charles Nicholas Lafond (1774-1835).63
Sappho’s influence on Romantic thought was her emphasis on emotions, ideas,
and experiences could be told through song. Composers saw Sappho as a heroine of
62
"Sappho on the Cliff," http://loggia.com/art/19th/moreau09.html, accessed May
22, 2015.
63
"Sappho Sings for Homer," http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Person/
Paintings/en/SapphoSingsForHomerLafond.html, accessed March 31, 2012.
25
romance and an ideal subject for operas. As a result, there are a number of Sappho
operas written about the poetess in Europe. One of them is Italian composer Giovanni
Pacini (1796-1867) wrote Saffo (1840), which was a great success and regarded as his
masterpiece.64 In 1850, French composer Charles Gounod (1818-93) wrote his first opera
Sapho (1851), but it did not receive the success Pacini had.65 However, both composers
focused on the legend of Sappho and Phaon and her suicidal death.
Not only did Sappho’s writing reflect feminist thinking in her own time, it also
made an impression on the feminist movement of the early 1800s and into the twentieth
century. Influential feminist and lesbian women poets included Natalie Barney (18761972), Renée Vivien (1877-1909), Amy Lowell (1874-1925), Virginia Woolf (18821941), Sophia Parnok (aka "The Russian Sappho") (1885-1933), Hilda "H.D." Doolittle
(1886-1961), and Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska (aka "The Polish Sappho") (18911945). In particular, two lesbian women, American poet and novelist Natalie Barney and
British poet and her lover Renée Vivien, revived Sappho’s boudoir with their own
"Sapphic Circle." They were, according to Samuel Dorf, "the most vocal proponents of
Sappho in queer women’s circles in early twentieth century Paris. Barney was founder of
Paris-Lesbos salon in 1905 not only for all queer women in Paris, it became one of the
64
Reynolds, 196.
65
Ibid.
26
most important meeting places for the burgeoning lesbian culture of Paris in the early
years of the twentieth century: and at its center, Sappho herself."66 Barney’s home was
FIGURE 8. Sappho (1872), Gustave Moreau (1826-1898).67
66
Samuel N. Dorf, "Seeing Sappho in Paris: Operatic and Choreographic
Adaptations of Sapphic Lives and Myths," in Music in Art: International Journal for
Music Iconography 34, no. 1-2, March 2009: 298-300. "Queer" refers to sexual identity.
67
"Sappho, Gustave Moreau," http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/438, accessed
March 31, 2012.
27
transformed into the ancient island of Lesbos—in a modern city. The garden was an
intimate setting for women who are dressed in elaborate Greek costumes as ladies and
pageboys and some naked, complete with an altar with burning incense and a bust of
Sappho, where her poetry was read and music played in the background (see fig. 9).
Renée Vivien wrote: "Let us go to Mytilene, re-sing to an intoxicated earth/The hymn of
Lesbos."68 Margaret Reynolds claims that this group celebrated "the modern woman:
free, independent, sensually loving, and self-sufficient."69 As a result, lesbians found
their voice through Sappho, and the lesbian community highly regarded her as the
"archetypal lesbian and their symbolic mother."70 American poet, feminist, and lesbian
supporter Judy Grahn (b. 1940) appropriately asks in her book The Highest Apple:
Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition, "When has a larger group of humans, more
pervasive behavior, and much more than this, the tradition of women’s secret powers that
such names imply, ever been named for a single poet?"71 Virginia Woolf was also an
active advocate for lesbianism and feminism, and according to Dorf, "she studied Greek
in part to recover the works of Sappho from the male academics, inserting a sexual-
68
Renée Vivien, quoted in Reynolds, 293.
69
Reynolds, 291.
70
George.
71
Judy Grahn, The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition (San
Francisco: Spinsters Ink, 1985), quoted in ibid.
28
political reading to the past. She also studied Sappho’s culture in an effort to understand
the social conditions that gave women the necessary freedom to function as artists."72
FIGURE 9. Re-enacting of Sappho’s community of women: Natalie Barney as Sappho,
her lover Eva Palmer, and courtesan Liane de Pourgy in Barney’s garden in Neuilly
(1905 or 1907).73
From 1840 to 1920, women’s rights brought on a new generation of women of
social independence and equality. Moreover, women saw Sappho as "a politicized
feminist heroine" and as "The New Woman."74 English journalist and feminist Lynn
Linton (1822-98) believed that Sappho was the true New Woman, stating she was "a girl
72
Dorf, 299.
73
Ibid., 301. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Archives, Alice Pike Barney Papers
Acc. 96-153, folder 6.193.
74
Reynolds, 3
29
of the period," "breezy, plucky, quick to enjoy, and ready to stand by her sex . . .
intensely alive . . . and brimming over with hopes and aims."75
In the 1930s and 1940s, Sappho became a role model for women interested in
Greek scholarship, including scholars Margaret Williamson, Jane McIntosh Snyder, and
Ellen Greene. By the 1950s, women considered Sappho’s image as homosexual, with
lesbian novels and clubs coming onto the scene. As a result, lesbianism was a stronger
force than ever before, and Sappho’s influence continued to inspire twentieth and twentyfirst century lesbian poets and writers Judy Grahn (b. 1940), Margaret Reynolds (b.
1941), Olga Broumas (b. 1949), and Jeanette Winterson (b. 1959).76 The 1960s and
1970s was a time of sex, drugs, and rock and roll for both men and women. Women then
identified with other women and found themselves entitled to the same freedom of sexual
self-expression. Margaret Reynolds claims that their "female sexuality [was] unleashed,"
therefore, they participated in soft porn activities as swingers and sisters identifying with
Sappho and her companions making it a "happy celebration of feminine sexuality."77 In
the years of sexual revolution, throughout the 80s and 90s, gay and lesbian support
groups thrived. By the year 2000, open sexuality in public for both men and women was
welcomed and Sappho’s voice became socially and politically active in a new world,
75
Lynn Linton, "A Chat with the Girl of the Period," Girl’s Realm I, December
1898, quoted in Reynolds, 260.
76
The poetic interpretations of Margaret Williamson and Jane McIntosh Snyder
will be considered later.
77
Reynolds, 360-61.
30
where "all her attributes held an honorable place."78 Finally, Sappho’s sexuality and her
position as a poet mother came back full circle to all who continued to be moved by her.
Both male and female contemporary composers fully realized and understood
Sappho’s works, and they have set her poetry to music. In particular, Australian
composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-90) wrote the opera Sappho (1960), with a
libretto taken from the verse play of the same name by experimental poet and novelist
Lawrence Durrell (1912-90). Other women composers followed, including Carol Barnett
(b. 1949), Mary Ellen Childs (b. 1957), Liza Lim (b. 1966), Sheila Silver (b. 1946),
Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1946), Patricia Van Ness (b. 1951), and Elizabeth Vercoe (b.
1941), all of whom set Sappho’s words to music.79 In the following chapters, each
contemporary woman composer proves her uniqueness as an individual artist in her own
musical interpretation of Sappho’s poetry.
78
Ibid., 363.
79
Linda Montano, a lesbian composer was also inspired by Sappho in her Portrait
of Sappho (1997); however, her work is not included in this study because she did not set
Sappho’s text but rather her own.
31
CHAPTER 2
CAROL BARNETT
Biographical Sketch
American composer and pianist Carol Edith Barnett is not only known for her
sacred music, but also for a vast body of compositions in other genres. She was born on
May 23, 1949 in Dubuque, Iowa. She studied at the University of Minnesota where she
received her B.A. degree summa cum laude in theory and composition in 1972 and her
M.A. degree in 1976. Barnett studied piano with Bernard Weiser, flute with Emil J.
Niosi, and composition with Dominick Argento and Paul Fetler.
Barnett received commissions from the Minnesota Composers Forum’s
Commissioning Program in 1979 and 1982, and from the Minnesota Music Teachers’
Association in 1981. Since 1984, she was a charter member of the American Composers
Forum in 1984 and she was president from 1993 to 1995. Barnett earned commissions
from the Minnesota Orchestra, Harvard Glee Club, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra,
Minneapolis Children’s Theater Company, and American Guild of Organists.
Besides her commissions, Barnett also received grants from the Camago
Foundation in France in 1991, the Inter-University Research Committee, for travel to
Nicosia, Cyprus in 1999, the Jerome Foundation in 2002, and the McKnight fellowship
grant in 2005. In addition, she was a recipient of numerous honors and awards including
the Roger Wagner Center for Choral Studies Competition for Cinco Poemas de Becquer
32
(1979) and honorable mention of Hodie (1998), the Miriam Gideon Prize International
Alliance for Women in Music for her composition of Ithaka (2001), and winner of the
Nancy Van de Vate International Prize for Opera for her chamber opera, Snow (1992) in
2003. Her composition of Meeting at Seneca Falls (1998, 2006) was featured at the 2006
Diversity Festival in Red Wing, Minnesota.
When not composing, Barnett is busy as a lecturer and a performer. She performs
regularly with the Minneapolis Civic Orchestra since 2001 to the present as a flute and a
piccolo player. Barnett was a lecturer at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota
in 1983 and 1988. Since 2000, she is teaching at Augsburg College in Minneapolis and is
also a visiting composer at Gordon College in Wenham, Maryland since 2002.
Musical Style and Compositions
Barnett’s many commissions, grants, and awards span a wide variety of genres,
including orchestral, chamber, vocal, sacred, and electronic music. She is well-known
for her composition of The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass (2006) and her album
entitled Cyprus, First Impressions, recorded while she was living in Cyprus in 1999. She
was also the composer-in-residence for the Dale Warland Singers for nine years, from
1992 to 2001. Barnett’s music has been described as "audacious and engaging."80 The
root of her compositional growth stems from her extensive familiarity with the
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western classical works, as well as her strong interest
in traditional Jewish music and Greek, Italian, Russian, and Middle Eastern folk music.
80
"Carol Barnett, composer," http://www.carolbarnett.net/index.html, accessed
October 6, 2012.
33
Barnett’s choice of instrumentation in her works is unique. Gyri (1979) is music for
dance with clarinet, piano, and tabla; Verba Ultima (1999), is for SATB chorus with
soprano saxophone; and Aubade (2001), is a duet for percussion and bass trombone.
Like many post-modern composers, Barnett uses quotes from pre-existing music
such as folk melodies, vocal or choral music, and texts from famous poems. Her reason
is to provide the audience accessible music that "communicates a musical language that is
familiar to them."81 Barnett believes in a musical language that is based on nostalgia:
each individual remembers music or a sound that conjures a memory of a place, time, or
emotions.82 After setting this up in her music, she then adds new material which includes
"complex harmonies, elements from foreign musical tradition, or non-traditional Western
formal structure."83 Her harmonic progressions are "flexibly chromatic" and "freely
dissonant" but remain within tonality. Barnett takes her time with her compositions to
ensure a well-balanced structure, making it easier for her to express what she wants to
convey. She incorporates short repeated themes in many textures and timbres which
move smoothly from one section of the piece to the next, as in her Overture to a Greek
Drama (1994) for orchestra. Her choral cycle An Elizabethan Garland (1994) displays
the same treatment of textures with imitation and accompanied by dialogues between
81
Ibid.
82
Ibid.
83
Ibid.
34
voice parts in "closely positioned chords over a deep bass."84 Her lyrics are wideranging, and are set to disjunct melodies.85 By combining these compositional
techniques, Barnett’s music is able to penetrate straight into her audience’s hearts as
every composer aims to do and as we shall see in her song cycle Sappho’s Fragments.
Sappho Fragments (2007)
The song cycle Sappho Fragments was written in 2007 for bassist Peter Paulsen,
his jazz trio Turk’s Head Knot, and for his wife, mezzo soprano Charlotte Paulsen. The
instrumentation includes mezzo-soprano, soprano saxophone, vibraphone, marimba, and
string bass.86 Sappho Fragments consists of five songs: I. Tell Everyone; II. Cicada;
III. Whirlwind; IV. Midnight; and V. Hesperos. Sappho’s texts are Sappho’s poems
about love, loss, and aging, with translations by Mary Barnard, for the first and fourth
songs, and the rest by Willis Barnstone, for the third and fifth songs.
I. Tell Everyone: Text Analysis
In the first song, Barnett sets two Sappho fragments, and she adopts the title from
the translation and sets the whole fragment text, paraphrasing Mary Barnard’s version.
84
Karin Pendle, Grove Music Online (2007), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com,
accessed May 26, 2013.
85
Ibid.
86
Carol Barnett, Sappho Fragments, score, 2007, http://www.carolbarnett.net/
documents/1_perusal_sappho_fragments.pdf, accessed October 6, 2012.
35
TABLE 1. Song Text and Mary Barnard, Frag. 1: Tell Everyone
Mary Barnard, Frag. 1
Song Text
Tell Everyone
Friends, tell everyone:
Now, today, I shall sing Now today, I shall
beautifully for your
sing beautifully for
pleasure.87
my friends’ pleasure88
This poem was quoted in a fifteen-volume work, Deipnosophistae (Scholars at
Dinner) by Athenaeus (230 AD), a rhetorician and grammarian. In this source, Sappho’s
poem was preceded by the writing of Athenaeus, who claimed "Free women and girls call
a friend or acquaintance hetaira as Sappho does: [poem follows]."89 Claude Calame
states that Athenaeus thought hetaira meant to Sappho her close companions who shared
intimate secrets with each other.90 Greek scholars Willis Barnstone and poet and
philosopher Paul Roche both agree, suggesting that the Greek word hetaira as used by
87
Ibid.; song text or translated text used by the composer will be in italics.
88
Mary Barnard, Sappho: A New Translation (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1962); Mary Barnard provides titles to her translations. Each translator
may provide their own titles and number their own fragments.
89
Athenaeus. Deipnosophistae (Scholars at Dinner), cited by Willis Barnstone in
Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets (New York: Schocken Books, 1988), 285.
90
Claude Calame, "Sappho’s Group: An Initiation into Womanhood," in Reading
Sappho: Contemporary Approaches, ed. Ellen Greene. (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1996), 114.
36
Sappho means comrade, not courtesan.91 According to Roche, hetaira later had a
negative undertone, that the highly trained and educated courtesans (like the Japanese
geisha) "entertained Greek men of means."92 It is not known what Sappho sang to her
women friends; however, the term reveals a close friendship connection between Sappho
and her companions. Both Jane McIntosh Snyder and Diane Rayor assert that Sappho’s
companions are her female friends, as shown in their translations.93
TABLE 2. Diane Rayor, Frag. 66 and Jane McIntosh Snyder
Diane Rayor, Frag. 66
Jane McIntosh Snyder
I will now sing this
beautifully to delight my
companions.94
Now I will sing beautifully
to delight my
companions.95
91
Barnstone, 285; Paul Roche, The Love Songs of Sappho (New York: The New
American Library, 1966), 165.
92
Roche, 165.
93
Diane Rayor, Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient
Greece (Oxford: University of California Press, 1991), 169; Rayor defines companions
as "female friends."
94
Ibid., 80.
95
Eva-Maria Voigt, Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta. Amsterdam: AthenaeumPolak and Van Gennep, 1971, cited by Jane McIntosh Snyder in Lesbian Desire in the
Lyrics of Sappho (Columbia University Press, New York, 1997), 215.
37
The second poem is from the Greek encyclopedia Etymologicum Magnum,
compiled in Constantinople by an anonymous lexicographer (1150 AD).96 Barnett used
the poem in its entirety, after Barnard’s exact translation. Others translation are
considered to understand the context of the poem.
TABLE 3. Mary Barnard, Frag. 2: We Shall Enjoy It and Other Translations
Mary
Barnard,
Frag. 2
We shall
enjoy it
Willis
Barnstone,
Frag. 223
Anne
Carson,
Frag. 37
As for him
who finds
fault, may
silliness and
sorrow take
him!
As for him
who blames
me,
let him walk
with
madness
and stumble
through
sorrows.97
in my
dripping
(pain)
the blamer
may winds
and terrors
carry him
off98
Suzy
Groden,
Frag. 14
...
about my
grief . . .
and may
winds blast
him who
attacks
[me], and
[devouring]
cares99
96
Philip Rance, The Etymologicum Magnum and the "Fragment of Urbicius,"
https://web.duke.edu/classics/grbs/FTexts/47/Rance.pdf, accessed November 2, 2014.
97
Barnstone, 87.
98
Carson, 75. Carson arranged Sappho’s fragments by following the translations
of Eva-Maria Voigt.
99
Suzy Q. Groden, The Poems of Sappho (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, Inc., 1966), 16.
38
In Mary Barnard’s translation, the poem raises questions to its meaning. In the
title, what will the women enjoy? A wedding feast, a religious gathering for Aphrodite, or
a grand lesbian orgy? The subject of the poem is not clear. If the third speculation above
is correct, any man "who finds fault" will suffer a consequence. However, there is no
way to determine which activity the women will enjoy. Thus, it is best to leave the
subject hidden or to the audience’s own discretion. Barnstone, on the other hand, seems
to show that if Sappho is blamed for some reason, she wishes the man malaise.
Other translations by Anne Carson, and Suzy Groden, all convey different
interpretations of the poem. According to Anne Carson, the line "in my dripping (pain),"
is quoted in "the Etymologicum Genuinum in a discussion of words for pain: ‘And the
Aeolic writers call pain a dripping . . . because it drips and flows.’"100 Carson does not
offer any comment on Sappho’s pain. But it seems that Sappho is hurt by a man and she
wishes ill will towards him. Perhaps she has been rejected by the legendary Phaon, her
rumored lover. Suzy Groden does not provide notes on the subject of the poem, but she
asserts that Sappho is in grief, and a terrible fate befalls the man, who has wronged her.
I. Tell Everyone: Music Analysis
In Tell Everyone, the string bass opens with repeated ostinatos, followed by the
vibraphone’s C sharp-D dissonance.101 The word "friends," is repeated three times by the
100
Carson, 365.
101
Audio sample is available on the composer’s website. Barnett, "CompositionsAudio Samples, Tell Everyone." www.carolbarnett.net/26_sappho_fragments_1.mp3,
accessed February 2, 2014.
39
mezzo soprano, as if Sappho were calling her friends to come gather together. She is
singing for her friends, the girls and women who surround her, and tells everyone to take
pleasure. The phrase, "I shall sing," is sung extended up to a high D, and the word,
"beautifully" is sung an octave below. This idea is repeated in lower octaves in the
words, "for your pleasure." The tone of the poem is joyful and matches the "happy" or
excited mood of the music—perhaps a "juicy" gossip about Sappho’s enemies. Overall,
the song is highly syncopated and "jazzy" throughout.
Barnett connects the second poem (m. 32), with a vocalise on repeated "ah’s,"
which climaxes (m. 41), before she sings "we shall enjoy it." The "ah’s" seems to
represent building up to an orgasm. Sappho then chides any man who does not share in
their enjoyment. Text painting occurs after the soprano sings the phrase, "as for him who
finds fault," with emphasis on the word "fault" in a clashing C sharp-D sharp-E cluster
(m. 56). More vocalise is heard on repeated syllable "uh," which represents a shift in
vocalization that seems to comment negatively about the man. More text painting takes
place on words such as "silliness" and "sorrow," represented by a tritone B flat-E (m. 68).
Mostly based on G as the tonal center, the song features repeated pizzicato on the
bass. Harmonic chord progressions are not arranged traditionally, but are free and modal.
An exchange between the saxophone and the singer sets up a call-and- response
relationship. More vocalise is used not only to establish the mezzo soprano’s
independent and expressive line, but also to add another color.
The overall motion is linear with few chordal sections. An extended break occurs
where Barnett calls for open improvisation for all instruments in G mixolydian mode as
40
noted by the composer and followed by a short coda. The bass ostinatos are heard again,
reminiscent of its opening solo line, and these are followed by the saxophone’s repeated
riffs. An extended pedal point occurs not in the bass, but in the vocal line (an inverted
pedal point), heard from measures 90-100, in a crescendo poco a poco, leading to the
final orgasmic "ah’s" by the mezzo soprano, ending the first movement.
II. Cicada: Text Analysis
In the score, Barnett adapted Willis Barnstone’s translation in the second song,
making a free translation of the poem and changing the insect from a cricket to a cicada.
TABLE 4. Song Text and Willis Barnstone, Frag. 135: The Cricket
Song Text
Willis Barnstone, Frag. 135
The Cricket
Rubbing its
wings
incessantly
a cicada pours
flaming
summer over
the earth in
luminous song
When sun dazzles the earth
with straight-falling flames,
a cricket rubs its wings scraping
up a shrill song102
The significance of the insect is problematic. Male crickets make their sound by
rubbing their wings to attract a mate, but female crickets can produce this sound as
102
Barnstone, 69. Barnstone arranged the order of his translation of Sappho’s
fragments by following translations of Max Treu, John M. Edmonds, and Denys Page.
41
well.103 Male cicadas make their sound from their abdomen called tymbals, which is also
to attract female cicadas.104 However, there are cicadas that do not produce sound from
the abdomen, but instead they rub their wings together to produce a clicking sound like a
cricket or a grasshopper. Some cicadas emerge out of the ground every thirteen or
seventeen years, and others appear every year in the middle of summer. In some ancient
cultures, the cicada’s life cycle is believed to be a symbol of rebirth.105
Sappho’s poem describes an insect that appears during the summer, perhaps midday. A cricket is nocturnal; however, it comes out during the day to mate in the summer.
A cicada also does come out in the middle of the day. It is therefore not clear if Sappho
means a cricket or a cicada, since both produce a sound to attract a mate and both come
out during the summer. Diane Rayor asserts that "the fragment refers to the sound of
cicadas, perhaps in the heat of summer."106
Mary Barnard believes the poem is not by Sappho, but by the Athenian orator and
grammarian Demetrius Phalereus (350-280 BCE).107 However, Demetrius wrote that
103
"Cricket," http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/orthoptera/
Crick et.shtml, accessed November 17, 2014; "Cricket (insect)," http://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Cr icket_ (insect), accessed November 17, 2014.
104
"Cicada Mania," http://www.cicadamania.com/, accessed November 17, 2014;
W.S. Crenshaw and B. Kondratieff. "Cicadas," http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/
05590.html, accessed November 17, 2014.
105
"Cicadas," http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/cicada/,
accessed November 17, 2014.
106
Rayor, 165.
107
Barnard, 107.
42
"one might adduce many similar instances of charm. There can be charm, too, in the
form of a trope or metaphor, as of the cricket . . . "108 If a cricket is a metaphor for
charm, then the sound it makes to attract a mate which can be compared to a person’s
charm attracting the opposite sex.
II. Cicada: Music Analysis
Sappho describes the cicada rubbing its wings like a song, and cicadas definitely
sound as if they are singing. Generally, the mood of the song reflects the lazy and
relaxed feeling on a hot summer day.109 In the beginning of the song, the music is
charming and seductive, as if calling to attract a mate. The trill by the saxophone imitates
the rubbing of the cicada’s wings, which creates a seductive and attractive sound. The
main melodic line is exceedingly repetitious, matching the text where the mezzo-soprano
sings "Rubbing its wings incessantly." Tone painting and a trill by the vibraphone also
represent the cicada and are repeated in other parts of the song. The singer repeatedly
sings the word "incessantly" in a soft voice. She builds in a crescendo poco a poco and
with the composer’s instruction to perform "quasi overtone singing," reaches a climax
with syllables, "eer" and "ah." In addition, onomatopoeia is incorporated to imitate the
buzzing sound of the cicada, as the mezzo-soprano sings "zz . . . zz . . . " Pedal points
first heard in the vocal line are now transferred to the saxophone, vibraphone, and the
bass, thus creating different colors in the piece.
108
Roche, 186.
109
Barnett, "Compositions- Audio Samples, Cicada," http://www.carolbarnett
.net/27_sappho_fra gments_2.mp3, accessed February 2, 2014.
43
A fragment of the main melodic line is played repeatedly by the saxophone,
which was heard before in the vocal line. After a short saxophone and singer duet, a
saxophone solo occurs and finally rests, when ascending vocal lines return with the words
"in luminous song" as its final statement. The saxophone is heard again ending with
chord tone clusters. The mood of the song then changes from charming and seductive to
lethargic and melancholic. The reason in the mood is not clear, but perhaps it represents
exhaustion, rejection, and disappointment from attracting a mate.
III. Whirlwind: Text Analysis
In Whirlwind, the composer chose Willis Barnstone’s translation over Mary
Barnard’s, perhaps because of his powerful choice of words. Other translations are
considered for context purposes.
According to Anne Carson, the poem was paraphrased by Greek philosopher
Maximus of Tyre.110 Maximus "compares Sappho to Socrates as an eroticist."111
Barnstone also quotes Maximus from his Orations 18.9, where he writes: "Socrates says
110
Carson, 366.
111
Ibid.
44
Eros, the god of love and the son of Aphrodite112 is a sophist,113 Sappho calls him a
weaver of tales. Eros makes Socrates mad for Phaidros,114 and Eros shatters Sappho’s
TABLE 5. Willis Barnstone, Frag. 121 and Other Translations
Willis Barnstone,
Mary Barnard,
Frag. 127
Frag. 44
The Blasts of Love Without Warning
Like a mountain
whirlwind
punishing the oak
trees,
Love shattered my
heart.115
112
As a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my
heart
Paul Roche,
Frag. 21
The Moment I Saw Her
Love like a sudden
breeze tumbling on the
oak-tree leaves left my
heart trembling116
"Eros," http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Eros.html, accessed November 30,
2014.
113
A sophist is a teacher of writing, rhetoric and speech, who travels throughout
Greece in the 5th century BCE. "What is a Sophist?" http://www.wisegeek.com/
what-is-a-sophist.htm, accessed November 30, 2014.
114
Phaidros is a character written by Plato based on dialogues between himself
and aristocrat Phaidros. The work is a rhetoric discussion about erotic love. "Phaedrus
(dialogue)," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phae_edrus_ (dialogue), accessed November 30,
2014.
115
Barnstone, 67; this poem is also set by Sheila Silver, see chapter 3, 82 and
appendix B, 208.
116
Roche, 42. Roche arranged the translations of Sappho’s fragments by
following translations of John M. Edmonds, Denys Page, Charles R. Haines, and others.
He also used the latest of the published Oxyrhynchus Papyri.
45
heart like a mountain whirlwind punishing the oak trees."117 Greek classicist Charles
Segal provides more insight into the subject of Eros and his magical effects, which are a
"magnetic, quasi-magical compulsion and this "magic" is also mysterious peithō118
(goddess of persuasion and seduction; daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite) or thelxis
(refers to enchantment), which the archaic poetess (Sappho) undergoes when gripped by
the beauty of a young girl."119 Paul Roche does not offer any information about the
poem, but he gives it a title which clearly suggests Sappho’s homoerotic attraction to the
beauty of a young woman.
Barnstone’s translation presents the imagery of a whirlwind and its force on
nature. The third line, "love shattered my heart," turns nature’s destructive behavior to
the possible ill effects of love. Sappho frequently juxtaposes symbolic descriptions of
nature and matters of the heart. After the opening description of nature, the last line
finally states the true nature of the poem, the reality of love, like a whirlwind and without
warning, destroys everything in its path, including the heart. Greek scholar David
Robinson affirms the powerful effects of love on Sappho, saying her expression of her
feelings is personal: "she touches almost every field of human experience, so that there is
117
Barnstone, 284.
118
"Peitho: Persuasion as Seduction," http://condor.depaul.edu/dsimpson/pers/
peitho.html, accessed November 30, 2014.
119
Charles Segal, "Eros and Incantation: Sappho and Oral Poetry, "in Reading
Sappho: Contemporary Approaches, ed. Ellen Greene (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1996), 59.
46
much in her scant fragments to bring her near to us."120 According to Margaret
Williamson, there are two interpretations of this poem: first is the violent act of the
whirlwind that may indicate Sappho’s pain caused by a lost love; and second, it may be
her description of what love does to a person who is love-struck, which in turn convey
the power of love and its physical effects, depending on the reader’s interpretation.121
III. Whirlwind: Music Analysis
In Whirlwind, each instrument brings out the somber or reflective mood of the
song. Compared to the first and second songs in the cycle, this is not at all jazzy except
at the instrumental break, where it also sounds somewhat exotic. No clear structure or
form could be extrapolated, except for a recurring thematic idea that is heard in the
beginning and middle section; the rest of the song is through-composed.
The sound of tremolos or rolls on the marimba and the imitation between the
saxophone and the voice emphasizes the word "whirlwind" offering tone painting in the
"spinning" imagery of the whirlwind. The vocalist sings "Like a mountain whirlwind"
four times, but the last time is more embellished and more chromatic. Descending notes
suggest the bending of the oak trees as the wind passes by, in the words "punishing the
oak trees." A short vocalise is followed by a sequence of sixteenth notes which builds up
to a crescendo, reflecting the powerful representation of the whirlwind.
120
Robinson, 58.
121
Margaret Williamson, Sappho’s Immortal Daughters (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995), 157.
47
After the instrumental break, the vocal line returns with the saxophone but an
octave higher than previously heard. The word "punishing" is repeated as if conveying
the painful feeling of a broken heart or perhaps to place emphasis on the powerful, almost
torturing effects of love. Sustained and wide-ranging notes on the marimba set up the
anguished complaint of the mezzo-soprano, when she sings at the top of her lungs, "love
shattered my heart," in high sustained notes. Near the end of the song, the analysis
depends on the two viewpoints by Margaret Williamson as discussed previously: the
effects of love as a strong force that overtakes a person, or the love that shatters the heart.
Considering what is clearly heard in the music, the damage in the heart is done—the
instruments quiet down as well as the vocal line when she sings "shattered my heart" for
the last time. The singer fades out, as if the cruelty of love broke her heart into pieces,
leaving her void and empty inside.
IV. Midnight: Text Analysis
For her fourth song, the composer sets the precise translation by Mary Barnard of
a poem focusing at first on the night sky, but turns to the fading of youth.
The authorship of this poem have been disputed. To begin with, scholars Willis
Barnstone, Anne Carson, Suzy Groden, and Paul Roche all agree that this poem is quoted
by Greek grammarian and metricist Hephaestion of Alexandria, in the second century
AD.122 In addition, Anne Carson states that it has also been cited by Greek teacher
Michael Apostolius and his son, the Greek scholar Arsenius, from the fifteenth
122
Barnstone, 284; Carson, 382; Groden, 142; Roche, 223.
48
TABLE 6. Mary Barnard, Frag. 64: Tonight I’ve Watched
Tonight I’ve Watched
The moon and then
the Pleiades go down
The night is now
half-gone; youth goes;
I am in bed alone123
century.124 Apostolius wrote a collection of Greek proverbs, which included this wellknown poem attributed to Sappho. Paul Roche mentions that this poem and the "Hymn
to Aphrodite" were well-known poems first printed in 1554.125 According to Suzy
Groden, the book Paroemiographi Graeci, published in 1839 with various authors,
attribute the poem to Sappho.126 However, Groden stresses the uncertainty of the
authorship. As a result, the attribution is now repudiated by several modern editors.
Mary Barnard, whose translation the composer chose, recognizes the attribution question
as well. Nevertheless, composer Barnett may well have been unaware of this issue.
123
This poem is also set by Sheila Silver, see Chapter 3, 81 and appendix B, 211.
124
Carson, 382.
125
Roche, 223.
126
Groden, 142.
49
Furthermore, Willis Barnstone affirms the poem is in Sapphic meter, and is a "simple yet
an impeccable example of Sappho’s imagery and ideas."127
The reference to the Pleiades refers to a cluster of seven stars known to be the
brightest. In Greek mythology, these are the seven daughters of Atlas and companions of
Artemis. They rise in the night sky and they move relatively in the same direction and at
the same rate. The image of the night half gone, in the poem in truth, refers to the
passing of youth.
IV. Midnight: Music Analysis
The song Midnight is highly syncopated, with rising vocal lines that are disjunct
and rhythmic. The mood of the song is energetic. The mezzo-soprano’s repeated
reference to the moon emphasizes its descending, and the last time she sings the word
"moon," the notes ascend. Quickly in contrast, she sings the notes descending and sliding
down with tone painting for the idea that "Pleiades go down."
A short interlude by the bass, saxophone, and marimba in syncopated rhythm and
in a crescendo represents the seven stars. The vocal line returns with "the night is now
half gone," signifying the night almost departing to make way for the dawn. She then
sings her complaint that "youth goes," symbolizing beauty slowly fading away or the
onset of middle age. No instruments accompany the last words, "I am in bed alone,"
suggesting her lover, or beauty, or youthfulness have all left her.
127
Barnstone, 284.
50
V. Hesperos: Text Analysis
In the last song, the composer uses the Barnstone translation, which he titled,
"Evening Star." Barnett modifies one word from the translation "disperses," replaced
with the word "scattered."
TABLE 7. Song Text and Willis Barnstone, Frag. 251: Evening Star
Song Text
Hesperos, you
bring home all
the bright dawn
scattered,
bring home the
sheep,
bring home the
goat,
bring the child
home to its mother
Evening Star
Hesperos, you bring home all the
bright dawn disperses,
bring home the sheep,
bring home the goat, bring the child
home to its mother128
Willis Barnstone recognizes the poem is quoted by Greek literary critic
Demetrius, who writes "Sappho also creates charm from the use of anaphora as in this
passage about the Evening Star. Here the charm lies in the repetition of the word
‘bring."129 Anne Carson and Paul Roche suggest that the poem is one of Sappho’s
128
Barnstone, 94.
129
Demetrius, On Style, quoted in Barnstone, 297-298; Anaphora is a literary
device in which a deliberate repetition of a word or phrase for an effective artistic
expression. "Anaphora Definition," http://literarydevices.net/anaphora/, accessed
December 12, 2014.
51
epithalamia, or wedding songs.130 Furthermore, Carson tells us that Catullus imitates this
in a wedding poem; thus "maybe Sappho’s poem is nuptial too—telling of the pathos of
the bride one fine evening when the repetitions of childhood ends. Ancient marriage rites
may have included a burning of the axle of the chariot that brought the bride to her
bridegroom’s house—no going back."131 However, Greek scholar Denys Page thinks that
the poem is not a wedding song because a bride cannot be returned to her parents.132
The poem evokes Hesperos, also known as the evening star, the planet Venus.
The dawn suggests Hesperos’s mother Eos, the goddess of dawn. Night has taken over
Sappho’s city of Lesbos. Sappho sings to the evening star to let the dawn rise and asks
for the return of the sheep, goat, and the child back to the mother. Denys Page asserts
that Hesperos is responsible for gathering back all the flocks that the daytime has
dispersed.133 According to Diane Rayor, the mention of the word "gather" and the
constant repetition of the word "bring" clarifies Sappho’s incantation to Hesperos.134
However, it is not clear why Sappho is calling on Hesperos, perhaps for him to return her
child or her companion.
130
Carson, 373; Roche, 190-191.
131
Carson, ibid.
132
Denys Page, Sappho and Alcaeus: An Introduction to the Study of Ancient
Lesbian Poetry (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1959), 121.
133
Ibid.
134
Rayor, 166.
52
V. Hesperos: Music Analysis
The song, in a dream-like mood, calls for serene and gentle sounds in both
instruments and the vocal line.135 The use of a compound meter and the constant rocking
motion in the vibraphone with eighth notes provides a lullaby-like rhythm. The
saxophone introduces a motivic theme, which the singer repeats at various pitch levels
featuring major/minor thirds and seconds. A short instrumental break occurs with
improvisations by the saxophone divide up the text fragments; this is followed by the
mezzo-soprano’s vocalise. She continues to evoke Hesperos with an incantation on
recurring minor thirds. The vocal line rises as the singer pleads to Hesperos to bring
home the sheep and the goat. As she asks the evening star to "bring the child home to its
mother," the music slows down as if she is finished singing her lullaby to her child or that
Sappho is done with her invocation of Hesperos for the return of her child or lover.
Barnett portrays Sappho as a guide in a journey through poem fragments that
demonstrate a pattern of progressive themes on love and emotion. In the first song, the
theme of friendship introduces Sappho’s relationship with her companions when she calls
and tells them to take pleasure in her singing performance. Barnett conveys a happy and
excited emotion, which represented Sappho and her friends enjoying each other’s
company. The second song focuses on the importance of attracting a mate or having a
companion that is portrayed by charming and seductive moods. In the third song, the
emotion of an overwhelmed feeling embodies a person that is swept away by the power
135
Barnett, "Compositions- Audio Samples, Hesperos," http;//www.carolbarnett
.net/28_sappho_fra gments_5.mp3, accessed February 2, 2014.
53
of love like a whirlwind. The fourth song speaks of growing old shown by the slowing
down, lacking of energy, to the point of exhaustion. Aloneness is denoted by the somber
and reflective mood. The last song, the dream-like mood is exemplified by the desire to
love and be loved again brings happiness and contentment. Sappho and Carol Barnett are
separated by time, but both women are connected by their understanding of love and the
conjuring of emotions through the power of words and beautiful expression in music.
54
CHAPTER 3
SHEILA SILVER
Biographical Sketch
Sheila Silver (born on October 3, 1946 in Seattle, Washington), is a multi-faceted
American composer, pianist, and music educator, as well as a painter. She studied
composition at University of Washington in Seattle (1964-65), in Paris at the Institute for
European Studies (1966-67), and also at the Paris Conservatory. She returned to the U.S.
and studied with Edwin Dugger, earning her B.A. degree at the University of California,
Berkeley in 1968. She went to Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, where she studied with
Erhard Karkoschka (1923-2009) from 1969 to 1971, and with György Ligeti (1923-2006)
in Berlin and Hamburg; she also attended summer courses at Darmstadt in 1970. She
came back to the U.S. and participated at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox,
Massachusetts in 1972, studying there with Jacob Druckman (1928-1996). Other
mentors included Arthur Berger (1912- 2003), Harold Shapero (1920-2013), Martin
Boykan (b. 1931), and Seymour Shifrin (1926-1979) at Brandeis University (1971-74),
where she earned her Ph.D. in composition in 1976.
Because of her numerous awards, prizes, and grants, Silver traveled in Europe,
including to London, Paris, and in Italy. Among her awards were the George Ladd "Prix
de Paris" (1969-71); the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1974; and the Rockefeller
Fellowship; and the Koussevitzky Fellowship. She was a two-time winner of the
55
International Society of Contempoary Music (ISCM) National Composers Competition;
and the Composer Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
(1978-79, 2007); this award described Silver as "a creative dynamo and her music is
vital, with a conviction that obliterates fashion and speaks its own language."136 In 2013,
Silver received the coveted Guggenheim award.
Silver has received commissions and performance by various orchestras, chamber
ensembles, and soloists throughout the United States and Europe, including the RAI
Orchestra of Rome, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the American Composers
Orchestras, the Gregg Smith Singers, and the Muir and Ying Quartets. She has published
music and recordings on various labels, including Naxos with performances by pianist
Alexander Paley, and several symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles. She was
appointed professor in composition at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg,
Virginia. In 1979, Silver took a position at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook as the director of undergraduate studies and professor in composition, theory, and
instrumentation, where she continues to teach and compose productively. She lives in
Spencertown, New York, with her husband and their nine year old son.
The music of Sheila Silver is influenced by Debussy, Bartók, and Stravinsky,
among others. Her music is also inspired by classical Greek, Roman, and Eastern Indian
mythology, American jazz, and Jewish chant. Her style was considered by Dennis
136
Review of Sheila Silver’s music. "Sheila Silver, composer," http://www
.sheilasilver.com/reviews/, accessed May 26, 2013.
56
McIntire to be "as enlightened dissonance devoid of ostensible disharmonies."137 A
scholar described one of her compositions as "impressive transcultural work with
Buddhist chanting are worked into Western-style textures."138 Her works present both
tonal and atonal qualities, highly complex rhythmic systems, and cross-cultural textures
of Western and non-Western musical styles. The German newspaper Wetterauer Zeitung
states of Silver, "There will always be lots of promising careers of young musicians.
Many end up, after brilliant educations, in oblivion. Some, with enormous energy, gain
acceptance into ranks of the establishments; but only a few of them in any generation will
enliven the art form with their musical language and herald new directions in music.
Sheila Silver is such a visionary."139
Silver has written in a wide variety of genres from chamber music to orchestral
works and dramatic music ranging from opera to film scores. Shirat Sarah (Song of
Sarah) (1987), for string orchestra in three movements, is based on the Old Testament
story of Sarah. According to music critic John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune, there
were obvious Jewish elements in the music and as well as some Bartókian influences; he
137
Dennis McIntire, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Centennial
ed. vol. 1, eds. Nicolas Slonimsky and Laura Kuhn (New York: Schirmer Books, 2001),
3332.
138
Cynthia Green Libby, The Norton Grove Dictionary of Women Composers,
eds. Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994),
424.
139
Review of Naxos CD of Piano Concerto and Piano Preludes, 2003,
Wetterauer Zeitung, Germany 2004, http://www.sheilasilver.com/reviews/, accessed May
26, 2013.
57
states, "Silver speaks a musical language of her own, one rich in sonority, lyrical intensity
and poetic feeling. It interweaves individual voices notably the ecstatic sprays and spirals
of solo violin, beautifully taken by concertmaster Virginia-Graham with the multi-layered
string body. Apart from some edgy ensemble in the finale, the performance seemed to
give this gorgeous score everything it demanded."140 Her orchestral work Midnight
Prayer (2003) was commissioned and premiered by the Stockton Symphony Orchestra.
According to John Pitcher, Silver described her work as "an important and substantial
piece and a prayer for world peace, but it is no quiet, passive meditation. Rather, it is a
remarkable twelve-minute tone poem that conveys a sense of urgency through its
ingenious use of harmonic tension and orchestral color."141
Her Piano Concerto (1996) was commissioned by the American Composers
Orchestra and was premiered at Carnegie Hall with Alexander Paley as the soloist in
1997. A reviewer for the Richmond Times Dispatch calls it "a modern work, extremely
dissonant, and almost savage at times, reminding one of Prokofiev gone wild. Lovely,
lyric moments are offset by stormy passages that utilize the entire orchestra . . . chances
are it could enter the standard repertory and stay there for a long time."142 Silver’s To the
140
Jon von Rhein, "String Ensemble Accepts Challenge, Rewards Ear, Mind."
Chicago Tribune, January 13, 1991, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-0113/
features/9101040330, accessed May 26, 2013.
141
John Pitcher, review of Midnight Prayer, 2003. Democrat and Chronicle,
Rochester, http://www.sheilasilver.com/reviews/, accessed May 26, 2013.
142
Review of Piano Concerto, 1996. Richmond Times Dispatch, http://www
.sheilas ilver.com/reviews/, accessed May 26, 2013.
58
Spirit Unconquered (1992) is a trio for piano, violin, and cello. Silver states the music is
"about the ability of the human spirit to transcend the most devastating of circumstances,
to survive, and to bear witness,"143 and it was inspired by Primo Levi’s writings about the
Holocaust. Silver has also ventured into composing for three films written and directed
by her husband John Feldman, including Who the Hell is Bobby Ross? (2002), which won
the New American Cinema award at the Seattle International Film Festival.
Silver has written two operas: The Thief of Love (1986) and The Wooden Sword
(2007). The Thief of Love, composed between 1981 and 1986 and revised in 2000, is
based on a seventeenth-century Bengali tale with influences from Indian erotic poetry,
prayer mantras, and other Indian writings. The lyric-comic opera in three acts is a comic
adaptation of Puccini’s Turandot. The chamber opera The Wooden Sword (2007) is
written in one act for five principals, chorus, and a chamber ensemble of eleven
instruments. It is based on Afghan and Jewish folktales, and "the score incorporates the
exotic and lively rhythms of the Near East, straight tone chant, and a contemporary
lyricism making it engaging to audiences of all ages."144
Silver’s vocal music includes diverse settings. Canto (1979) for baritone and
chamber ensemble is inspired by Ezra Pound’s "Canto XXXIX" about Ulysses and was
commissioned by the Berkshire Music Center. Richard Dyer from The Boston Globe
143
Cynthia Libby, "Sheila Silver." Oxford Music Online (2007), http://www
.oxfordmusiconline.com, accessed 26 May 2013.
144
"The Wooden Sword," http://www.sheilasilver.com/the-wooden-sword/,
59
writes, "Sheila Silver’s Canto matches Pound’s text with music of comparably audacious
directness, simplicity, and specificity and therefore boldly occupies a psycho-spiritual
region that few other composers have cared to approach; it is a beautiful work."145 The
White Rooster, A Tale of Compassion (2010) is a cantata for women’s vocal quartet, six
Tibetan singing bowls, percussion, and with traditional Tibetan melodic chants. A
review from the Albany Times Union by Priscilla McClean states that "the music was
fascinating, using Tibetan chants, modern harmonies and interweaving original melodies
with much variety."146
In the 1970s, with the help of a travel grant, Silver journeyed to Greece to study
Greek music and culture. After her return to the U.S., she was inspired to set several of
Sappho’s text in Chariessa: Cycle of 6 Songs of Sappho (1978), for soprano and small
ensemble.147 Another arrangement of Chariessa (1980) for soprano and orchestra was
commissioned by the American Academy in Rome for the RAI National Symphony
Orchestra of Rome in 1980, and it won the International Society of Contemporary Music
award in 1981. A reviewer for La Repubblica writes, "The message of Sappho in Sheila
Silver’s Chariessa is submerged in an expressionistic atmosphere of struggle and
tenderness . . . . The incandescent chromaticism of the score by Silver is contained and
145
Richard Dyer, review of Canto, 1979. The Boston Globe, http://www
.sheilasilver.com/reviews/, accessed May 26, 2013.
146
Priscilla McClean, review of The White Rooster, A Tale of Compassion, 2010.
Albany Times Union, http://www.sheilasilver.com/reviews/, accessed May 26, 2013.
147
This arrangement will be analyzed later.
60
controlled within highly calculated limits and sustained through a highly expert
instrumentation."148 We now turn to this richly expressive song cycle.
Chariessa: A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from Sappho (1978)
Chariessa is a cycle of six songs based on the poetic fragments of Sappho, with
translations by Mary Barnard. This work was composed by Silver while in residence at
the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. It was written for soprano Karen Komar,
who premiered it on May 16, 1978 at the Boston Conservatory of Music. The composer
may well have chosen the title for her song cycle because of the place where Sappho
supposedly took her life.149
I. Text Analysis
Several scholars believe that the poem set in the first song cycle of Chariessa is
one of the oldest surviving text fragments of Sappho. In the 1930s, the poem was found
on a potsherd dating from the third century B.C.E.150 Although the identity of the author
is unclear, scholars find that the handwriting suggest it was copied by a student and the
poem is incomplete. Several Greek rhetoricians quoted parts of the fragment: among
148
Review of Chariessa: A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from Sappho, 1978.
La Repubblica, http://www.sheilasilver.com/reviews/, accessed May 26, 2013.
149
The city of Chariessa is north of Greece and west of Lefkadia, where the
Lefkadian cliffs are located and according to the legend of Ovid is where Sappho
committed suicide.
150
Page, 35; Roche, 180; Barnstone, 287.
61
them were Hermogenes of Tarsus, in his work Kinds of Style from 170 A.D., and
Athenaeus in Doctors at Dinner from 230 A.D.151
TABLE 8. Mary Barnard, Frag. 37: You Know the Place: Then
You know the place: then
Leave Crete and come to us
waiting where the grove is
pleasantest, by precincts
sacred to you; incense
smokes on the altar, cold
streams murmur through the
apple branches, a young
rose thicket shades the ground
and quivering leaves pour
down deep sleep; in meadows
where horses have grown sleek
among spring flowers, dill
scents the air. Queen!
Cyprian!152
Fill our gold cups with love
stirred into clear nectar153
151
Roche, 180; Groden, 141.
152
Cyprian or Cypris is another name for Aphrodite. Guy Davenport, Sappho:
Poems and Fragments (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1957), 71.
153
This poem is also set by Patricia Van Ness, see chapter 8, 162 and appendix B,
208.
62
The poem is an invocation for Aphrodite to come from Crete, to the sacred grove
where Sappho and her followers are gathered. According to Barnstone, the island of
Crete was thought to be the original place of Aphrodite worship.154 Anne Carson
suggests that this poem is a kletic hymn, which is "a calling hymn, an invocation to a god
to come from where she is to where" [her worshippers are celebrating].155 This is also a
typical poetic device used by ancient Greek poets to describe rivers, meadows, and
altars.156 In Greek antiquity, there are two kinds of kletic hymns: a public call, usually
from a chorus who represents their residential city that is part of a religious ritual; and "a
private individual summons the god to come to himself or to another private
individual."157 In the poem, the ceremony seems to be in a private setting.
Margaret Williamson considers that the women are in the sacred temple to
celebrate love and "to call forth divine power, [that] no earthly sanctuary could possess
the magical qualities evoked in this poem."158 Williamson further assumes that the place
of worship described in the poem is "a kind of supernatural paradise. The natural world
is caught in a moment that combines the perfection of all the seasons: spring flowers
154
Barnstone, 288.
155
Carson, 358.
156
Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Melic Poets (New York: Macmillan and Co.
Limited, 1900), Xxxii.
157
Francis Cairns, Roman Lyric: Collected Papers on Catullus and Horace
(Walterr de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin, 2012), 199-200.
158
Williamson, 140.
63
with roses and apples, cool shade with gentle breezes. The scene is rich in appeal to the
senses, Sappho’s hymn summons up a mythic scene that is mysterious: the altar’s
smoking with incense and the water heard from a distance through apple trees."159 Jane
McIntosh Snyder states that perhaps the ritual setting takes place at night in spring
time.160 Williamson agrees that this celebration is certainly performed at night when the
moon is high, and she affirms that "Aphrodite’s power to nurture plants is symbolized by
her progeny: Dew is the daughter of Zeus and Selene, the moon goddess. The dew
makes flowers flourish, including the roses that are Sappho’s hallmark as well as
Aphrodite’s. This supernatural fertility is similar to that which accompanies Hera’s and
Zeus’s lovemaking in the Iliad or to the grass that springs up under Aphrodite’s feet as
she first steps on the shores of Cyprus."161
Sappho’s mention of "deep sleep" evokes a reference in the Iliad. In that story, to
divert Zeus from the Trojan War, Hera invokes the help of Aphrodite, representing love
and seduction, and Hypnus (the god of sleep), representing sleep or trance-like sleep.162
As a result, she was successful in seducing and making Zeus fall asleep. Anne Carson
159
Ibid., 141.
160
Jane McIntosh Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical
Greece and Rome (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Illinois: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1989), 16.
161
Williamson, 152.
162
The word "hypnosis" is derived from his name, which means to be induced or
to be subjected into a sleep-like state. "Hypnos," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnos,
64
states that falling asleep resulted from Zeus and Hera’s lovemaking.163 Another mention
of Aphrodite’s and Hypnus’s powers being unified is in Homer’s Odyssey. Here, Athena
wants Penelope to be enticing to her suitors, so Athena asks Aphrodite to bathe Penelope
in ambrosia and Hypnus to cause her to sleep in a "kōma, a state of trance" or deep
sleep.164 In Sappho’s poem, Williamson finds that "Sappho uses the same word for
drowsiness which is not ordinary sleep: it is a trance induced by a divine power, whose
effects embrace love as well as sleep."165 Diane Rayor also suggests that sleep is
"associated with sexuality and trickery, induced by supernatural forces."166 The state of
trance-like sleep is artificially induced by the fragrant smell of incense and the calming
sounds of the water and rustling leaves.
Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality. In addition, the sea, the
meadows, flowers, fruits, sparrows, and horses are considered sacred to her. Barnstone
claims that the apples and horses mentioned in the poem are both symbols associated to
her, known as "Aphrodite of the Apples" and "Aphrodite of the Horses."167 According to
Greek mythology, Poseidon, one of Aphrodite’s lovers, after being drunk with wine and
163
Carson, 359.
164
Williamson, 142. Athena wanted to stop Penelope from fornicating, for she is
married to Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca. "The Goddess Athena in Homer’s
Odyssey," www.goddess-athena.org/Museum/Texts/Odyssey.htm, accessed May 5, 2015.
165
Williamson, 143.
166
Rayor, 161.
167
Barnstone, 288.
65
sexual intercourse, had fallen asleep on a rock, and ejaculated semen; the earth received
the semen and produced the first horse, making him a god of horses.168 Roses, spring
flowers, and meadows often represent the sexual anatomy of the female in Greek
literature. The sensual imagery in the poem, and the ambient setting of the sacred grove
provides Sappho and the women an aphrodisiac which may suggests a lesbian orgy.
This poem is perhaps both a religious and erotic cult song supporting a ritual
occasion led by Sappho. Jack Winkler believes that this is not held as a public ceremony,
but a private one for Sappho, who wants to create lasting memories of lesbian
relationships between herself and her students.169 Sappho’s calling on to Aphrodite
confirms her personal relationship with the goddess. She most likely considers herself to
be favored by the deity, for she wrote another prayer to the goddess, which was set by
Patricia Van Ness (to be discussed later). Yet beyond this, Sappho intercedes for all the
women, her poem providing a lovely description of the surrounding: "The altars are
filled with smoke and aroma of frankincense;" "cold ripples of water" produce a clear
sound, and "the murmuring" or the rustling sound of the leaves creates an ambiance that
causes one to relax and fall into a "deep sleep."
168
Gregory Nagy, "Phaethon, Sappho’s Phaon, and the White Rock of Leukas:
"Reading" the Symbols of Greek Lyric," in Reading Sappho: Contemporary
Approaches, ed. by Ellen Greene (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996),
43-44.
169
Jack Winkler, "Gardens of Nymphs: Public and Private in Sappho’s Lyrics,"
in Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches, ed. by Ellen Greene (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1996), 108.
66
According to Anne Carson, the "gold cups" and the nectar mentioned at the close
of the fragment are not ordinary tableware and drink for mortals, but rather they are
enjoyed by the gods.170 The worshippers of Aphrodite ask her to fill their cups with
nectar suggesting their plea to make them fertile. The cup represents the woman’s womb
and the flowing nectar as vaginal discharge. Williamson asserts that Aphrodite’s "power
is felt by mortals in the erotic spell pervading the grove, but it is not visualized until the
last stanza. Her influence is finally embodied . . . filling their cups not with wine but with
nectar, and thus granting them their epiphany, a fleeting touch of the divine."171 It is
clear the poem is a festive celebration of worship with music, singing, and the offering of
flowers, incense, and golden cups at the altar as sacrifices to the goddess of love.
Marilyn Tucker, from the San Francisco Chronicle, has written a review of Silver’s
Chariessa stating, "Silver’s attempt to depict such textual phrases as ‘cold streams
murmur,’ ‘quivering leaves,’ ‘deep sleep,’ and ‘full moon shining’ in musical fashion as
picturesque as a landscape was quite successful."172
I. Music Analysis
The overall style of the first song is disjunct-sounding with many chromatic notes,
obscuring any sense of tonality. The tempo is slow with mixed meters. The composer
170
Carson, 359.
171
Williamson, 143.
172
Marilyn Tucker, "Adventurous Program from Earplay." San Francisco
Chronicle, February 12, 1986, 58.
67
asks that the music be "graceful and tranquil,"173 which matches the poem’s
mysteriousness and goes well with the exotic sound and serene mood of the music. Pedal
tones are focused on B-flat, with the tritones B-flat, F-sharp, and A, against the soprano’s
B naturals. Silver include chords around the circle of fifths: B-flat, E-flat, A-flat, Csharp/D-flat, which provides the listener a hint of tonality. The tempo speeds up as both
the soprano and piano suggest anticipation of waiting on Aphrodite’s appearance.
Silver’s setting of Sappho’s powerful invocation to Aphrodite makes effective use of text
painting throughout, achieving a mysterious sound worthy of a goddess.
Along with Sappho’s sexually-gendered metaphors, such as apples and meadows,
Silver uses word painting on "streams murmur," set with sequential flowing passages,
and on the words, "pour down," starting from a high G natural and descending quickly
down to B, F-sharp and D-sharp, in a disjunct line. Although the bass chord starts with a
B-flat, the chords are no longer following the circle of fifths, but are now chord clusters.
The words "deep, deep sleep" convey a relaxed state after sexual activity, are presented
by dramatic dynamic changes from forte to pianissimo, slowing the tempo to serenity.
The "serene" sound aids the soprano, who becomes silent here as if she herself falls
asleep or into a trance-like sleep. The mysterious sound of the piano accompaniment,
complete with the previous B-flat pedal tones and tritone, returns. At the end of the song,
173
Sheila Silver, Chariessa: A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from Sappho, for
a woman’s voice and piano, score (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1978),
1.
68
the mortal followers of Aphrodite are finally satisfied with her presence as they drink
their "golden cups filled with love" and the sweet "touch of the divine nectar."174
II. Text Analysis
Scholars Diane Rayor and Jane McIntosh Snyder both agree that the second poem
of the Chariessa set is a wedding song.175 It is about a beautiful virgin—a waiting brideto-be—who is desired by men. Once more, Sappho’s mention of an apple and a hyacinth
can be connected to female sexuality. In Marilyn Tucker’s review of the song cycle, she
confirms that Sappho’s poems are "luxuriating in their dramatic and sensual essence."176
Several Greek rhetoricians have quoted this fragment, including Demetrius of
Phalerum (350-280 B.C.E.) in On Style; Hermogenes in Kinds of Style (170 A.D.); and
Himerius (315-386 A.D.). Willis Barnstone notes that, according to Himerius, Sappho
associates a virgin maiden with an apple that should not be plucked or touched before it
ripens. However, hand-picked at the right time, she would blossom into a beautiful
maiden.177 Diane Rayor suggests that "this is a poem about desire; some scholars say
‘the quince or sweet apple’ represents virginity or a bride. Sappho uses a technique: the
second stanza says the harvesters or the pickers missed the apple, the third line corrects
174
Williamson, 143.
175
Rayor, 167; Snyder, in The Woman and the Lyre, 31-32.
176
Marilyn Tucker, "Earplay Concert Puts Convention in Modern Mix." San
Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 1988, E2.
177
Barnstone, 290.
69
that—they wanted to pick it but could not reach (touch) it. The third stanza refers to the
unobservant men [who] trample on delicate beauty; this poem may also refer to
TABLE 9. Mary Barnard, Frag. 34: Lament for a Maidenhead
Like a quince-apple
ripening on a top
branch in a tree top
not once noticed by
harvesters or if
not unnoticed, not reached
Like a hyacinth in
the mountains, trampled
by shepherds until
only a purple stain
remains on the ground
virginity."178 Jane McIntosh Snyder provides a similar interpretation: the young virgin is
a beautiful, ripened, red apple on top of a tree. She is desirable and in a perfect, beautiful
state only because she is unreachable to the apple-pickers, "who could not fulfill their
desire to pluck the ripened fruit." The virgin bride is perfectly safe on top of the tree but
for only a moment, until she is hand-picked by the groom.179 Contemporary American
poet Judy Grahn views the apple as "the centrality of women to themselves, to each other,
178
Rayor, 167.
179
Snyder, Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho, 104.
70
and to their society. The apple remained, intact, safe from colonization and suppression,
on the topmost branch, and in the fragmented history of a Lesbian poet and her
underground descendants."180
As noted before, the apple is a sacred fruit to Aphrodite (she is also known as the
goddess of procreation), for it is a symbol of love.181 Here, Sappho uses the apple as a
sexual metaphor for the vagina. According to Jack Winkler, the apple is also a symbol in
courtship and marriage rites, the apple core and its seed providing a sexual image of the
clitoris.182 He further notes the apple is presumably red—as blood rushes around the
vagina when aroused and causes it to swell. David Robinson interprets the hyacinth
mentioned in the poem as a married woman,183 who lost her virginity: [she] had been
"trampled by shepherds until only a purple stain remains on the ground." However,
Snyder believes the hyacinth in the mountain represents a beautiful virgin bride. She will
be trampled by the shepherds—a "deflowering" imagery in a wedding song by the
Roman poet Catullus, in which "the chorus of young girls compare themselves to a
hidden flower that is about to be plucked and stained."184 Sappho may not only be
implying loss of virginity, but she may also be conveying a woman’s beauty as well.
180
Judy Grahn, The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition,
cited by Snyder, Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho, 104.
181
Roche, 199.
182
Winkler, 104.
183
Robinson, 93.
184
71
II. Music Analysis
The composer asks both the singer and the pianist to perform "with spirit and
humor – like a nursery rhyme."185 Perhaps she wanted to emphasize the maiden’s
innocence before she loses her virginity. The soprano rapidly and rhythmically sings a
speech-like recitation "secco" on the words "like a quince apple ripening," focused on a
dissonant D-flat, over an E-flat continuo accompaniment by the piano, disjunct and
syncopated. Word painting is featured in "on a top branch" and "in a tree top," with wide
leaps of a seventh D-flat to C. The second rubric calls for "less secco but still very
rhythmic."186 The texture of the song changes from minimal accompaniment denser, to
more active chord clusters. Another example of word painting on "not reached" extends
from high D to E as if the notes are on the tree top and cannot be reached.
The piano returns still disjunct and syncopated, introducing the soprano’s static
recitation on "trampled by shepherds" near the end, which is not as prominent as before
but still rhythmic. On the word "remains," the soprano sings a broken A diminished
seventh chord, perhaps to convey the ruined hyacinths on the ground that were trampled
by the shepherds—the maiden’s virginity now gone. At the end of the piece, the chord
clusters with an extended G-flat seventh chord with pedal point, leaves the listener with a
sense of incompleteness as the virgin bride waits on top of the tree until she is picked at
the right time by the bridegroom.
185
Silver, 9.
186
Ibid., 10.
72
III. Text Analysis
Silver set three Sappho fragments in the third song. According to Paul Roche, all
poems are quoted by Greek grammarian Hephaestion of Alexandria, in his Handbook of
Meters from the second century A.D.187 The first poem refers to Sappho’s girls gathering
around an altar (perhaps dedicated to Aphrodite) at night during a full moon.
TABLE 10. Mary Barnard, Frag. 22: In the Spring Twilight
In the spring twilight
The full moon is shining;
Girls take their places
as though around an altar
Jane McIntosh Snyder notes that fragment 22 is incomplete: there is no mention
what happened after the girls stood around the altar. However, Snyder believes this
fragment reveals "an interconnectedness between friendship and rituals which involve
song, remembrance, and nature."188 Furthermore, the striking imagery and radiance of
the moon can also be related to a woman’s reproductive cycle, her glowing image, and
sensual beauty. The second fragment is about the girls’ dancing feet, around an altar.189
187
Roche, 216.
188
Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre, 29.
189
It appears that this is a continuation from the previous fragment. According to
Barnard’s footnote on her translations, the fragments are arranged thematically: Sappho
and her students, wedding songs, and old age.
73
TABLE 11. Mary Barnard, Frag. 23: And Their Feet Move
And their feet move190
Rhythmically, as tender
feet of Cretan girls
danced once around an
altar of love, crushing
a circle in the soft
smooth flowering grass
Fragment 23, with Sappho’s girls dancing and circling "around an altar of love,"
is suggestive of ritual Aphrodite worship at night. Margaret Williamson suggests "it is
through worship alone that mortals can apprehend divine power and grace." The allfemale gathering could perhaps be a wedding celebration where "adult women and girls
were among the participants who join in the festivity as singers, spectators of the
procession, and as dancers at the party."191 It is possible that the party could also be an
initiation to a rite of passage for a young adolescent girl entering into adulthood, about to
be given away in marriage. Alternately, Jack Winkler proposes that Sappho is describing
a sexual orgy: women are sensuously dancing and circling their hands and moving their
feet "around the erotic altar" and combing through the grass, was common practice in
Crete for centuries. Perhaps his opinion is credible, for the mention of "flowering grass"
190
Silver included Barnard’s title in the song.
191
Williamson, 153, 75.
74
has sexual overtones relating to the vagina. The last poem describes the girls inviting the
Graces and the Muses to partake in the celebration.
TABLE 12. Mary Barnard, Frag. 25: Now, While We Dance
Now, while we dance
Come here to us
gentle Gaiety,
Revelry, Radiance
and you, Muses
with lovely hair
In fragment 25, the girls summon the goddesses (the Graces or the Charites,
another name for them), "Gaiety (joyous), Revelry (celebration), and Radiance
(exuberance, joie de vivre)." From the word Charites, charis means pleasure, favor.192
Bonnie MacLachlan states "the inherently reciprocal nature of charis, which to the
Archaic Greek way of thinking implies not just "grace" or "pleasure" or "favor" but also
an exchange of favors. The word suggests a symmetrical [symbiotic] relationship
between the giver and receiver of pleasure. She further notes that it was founded upon a
very general psychological phenomenon, the disposition to return pleasure to someone
192
75
who has given it."193 The giving of pleasure or returning of favor to the other person
suggests a sexual connotation. Charis is also used as salutation for someone’s arrival or
departure, mostly wishing a joyous farewell,194 which could very much applies to a girl’s
wedding send-off. It is possible that the Muses "with lovely hair" could simply refer to
Sappho’s young muses, from her all-girls school for the arts. In Greek mythology, the
Graces are the dancers and the Muses are the singers. According to Williamson, "The
three Charites shed their charms to work together with Eros (the god of sexual desire)
and the Muses to bring about both desire and song. The Graces and the Muses symbolize
poetry and beauty respectively and are themselves represented as parthenoi."195 In her
book Pandora, Ellen Reeder speaks of parthenoi, "young girls who are enchanting and
possess extreme sexual curiosity, with almost uncontrollable spirit, and irresistibility to
men."196 The gathering celebrants under a full moon seems sensible as the goddesses
"radiate beams of erotic desires" towards Sappho’s girls. Moreover, the girls’ joint
193
Bonnie MacLachlan, The Age of Grace: Charis in Early Greek Poetry
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), cited in Snyder, Lesbian Desire in the
Lyrics of Sappho, 83.
194
195
Williamson, 76, 85.
196
Parthenoi are physically matured young adolescent girls. Ellen D. Reeder,
Pandora (Princeton University Press, 1995), cited in Christina Salowey, "The Complete
Athenian Woman: Portrayal of Women Throughout Greece," http://www1.hollins.edu/fa
culty/saloweyca/Athenian Woman/Nadia Manifold/Portrayal of Women Throughout
Greece.htm, accessed March 15, 2014.
76
invitation of the Graces and the Muses seem to "suggest their prominent role in Sappho’s
poems and songs as the inspirers of desire and poetry."197
III. Music Analysis
From the beginning, Silver requests for the singer and the pianist to make this
song sound "evocative, yet withholding."198 Why "evocative" and "withholding?"
Perhaps the young girls are taking their places around the altar before they start to dance
and sing. A secco style for the piano is indicated; the pitch is centered on an E pedal
point, which provides a strong tonal effect against a disjunct vocal line. Silver set the
stage for the young singers and dancers to begin their performance with repeated
sixteenth notes and sextuplets played staccato, and sequences prominent in the piano part.
The soprano’s melodic line is rhythmic, which corresponds to the girls, whose
"feet move rhythmically" with poco stringendo or quickening tempo and animato
movement for both singer and pianist. There are no obvious signs of word painting,
which is unusual in the song cycle. There is, however, a strong emphasis on the words
"altar of love" on a high sustained pitch, growing gradually to forte. An abrupt
ritardando, sounded "mysteriously," introduces the next section, with a piano dynamic
matching the text, "soft smooth flowering grass," a strong erotic image of the female
sexual organ. The soprano and the piano present the last hint of liveliness—in the score
197
Snyder, Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho, 81, 83.
198
Silver, 13.
77
marked "sprightly,"199 but at pianissimo. The third movement closes with crushing
chord clusters, ending the girls’ dance and awaiting the Graces and Muses to appear.
IV. Text Analysis
The text of the fourth song in the cycle refers to the most precious metal on earth,
gold. It is a symbol of nobility, wealth, power, and strength.
TABLE 13. Mary Barnard, Frag. 88: Say What You Please and Pindar, Frag. 222
Say what you please
Pindar, Frag. 222
Gold is God’s child;
neither worms nor
moths eat gold;
it is much stronger
than a man’s heart
Gold is a child of Zeus;
no moth nor worm devours it,
and it overcomes the strongest
of mortal hearts.200
It is unclear if this poem is actually written by Sappho, for it is often credited to
Pindar (522-443 B.C.E.), a Greek lyric poet whose work is revered among lyric poets. In
the Pindar translation above, Edmonds claims that Pindar considers gold immortal
because it is indestructible.201 In addition, gold can also be interpreted as a god or spirit
199
Ibid., 15.
200
John M. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca. In Three Volumes. Vol. 1: Terpander
Alcman Sappho and Alcaeus (London: William Heinemann, 1922), 261.
201
Ibid.
78
of gold named Khrysos, son of Zeus and not an object.202 Whether the poem is actually
by Sappho or Pindar is not relevant to this analysis, as Silver may not be aware of this
and chose from Barnard’s Sappho translation.
In Greek mythology, gold is valued by the gods and mortals alike. For example,
Paris, Prince of Troy, gave Aphrodite a golden apple, and in return she allowed him to
abduct Helen, causing the Trojan War. "The golden apples grew far away in the west on
a tree near the sea, guarded by the Hesperides, the nymph daughters of the evening star,
Hesperos, and a dragon. Several heroes from Hercules to Atlas battled the dragon in
pursuit of the golden apples."203 Another classic tale is of King Midas, who turned
everything into gold, including his daughter. Lastly, the legend of Jason and the
Argonauts embankment in an epic journey to seek the most coveted Golden Fleece.
In modern times, gold continues to be a highly prized possession. Furthermore,
"gold is associated with the wisdom of aging (note "gold" contains the word "old"). The
fiftieth wedding anniversary is golden. The height of wisdom in civilizations is referred
to as ‘the golden age.’"204 In Mytilene where Sappho was born, the people’s primary
202
"Khrysos," http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Khrysos.html, accessed March 15,
2014.
203
"Gold in Greek mythology," http://info.goldavenue.com/Info_site/in_arts/
in_civ/in_myth.html, accessed March 15, 2014.
204
"Gold, symbolism," http://symbolism.wikia.com/wiki/Gold, accessed March
15, 2014.
79
source of wealth and luxury was gold.205 Therefore, if this was Sappho’s fragment, the
poem may refer to her hometown, or to a woman’s wisdom, or old age, or her strong
feelings of expression on the subject of misandry, depending on one’s own interpretation.
IV. Music Analysis
The fourth movement sounds dissonant with highly complex rhythms, and the
piano remains mostly in a higher register than the vocal line. Silver instructs the soprano
to speak on pitch: "an attempt to indicate a cross between sprechgesang and sung tones
that is severe quasi recitativo where the pitch should be exact with no vibrato and an
expression closer to speaking than singing."206 As a result, the soprano is speaking, not
rhythmically, but freely. However, the vocal line is very disjunct, emphasizing individual
words with Sprechstimme. Moreover, the soprano’s mention of "gold" is frequently
spoken on a pitch in low range rather than sung; overall, it is set mostly in low and
medium registers. The soprano does not seem to be showing any expression of feelings.
She is unemotional, as if Sappho is not pleased with old age or she is expressing
animosity towards men. The soprano line closes with huge leaps on the words "man’s
heart," perhaps reflecting the weakness of a man’s heart, desiring gold.
V. Text Analysis
Besides epithalamia or marriage poems, Sappho also writes vividly about old age.
Willis Barnstone notes that this poem is quoted by Greek writer Hephaestion, from
205
Gregory O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected
Pieces (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 140.
206
Silver, 18.
80
second century A.D., and several scholars have denied Sappho’s authorship of this
poem.207 In Silver’s fifth song, Sappho’s poem focuses on the moon, the fading of her
youth, and her aloneness in bed.
TABLE 14. Mary Barnard, Frag. 64: Tonight I’ve Watched
Tonight I’ve watched
The moon and then
the Pleiades
go down
The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am
in bed alone208
Here, Sappho centers her attention on female celestial beings: Selene, the moon
goddess, and the Pleiades, the seven sisters and daughters of Atlas. Selene is known to
be sexually active, for she pursues mortal men to be her lovers. As noted earlier, the
seven sisters were transformed into constellations known to be the brightest. Jane
McIntosh Snyder refers to the moon, claiming it "functions as a symbol of the absent
woman’s surpassing loveliness."209 In this poem, Sappho may have been longing to see
207
Barnstone, 284.
208
This poem is also set by Carol Barnett, see chapter 1, 49 and appendix B, 211.
209
81
the missing lover’s beauty as the moon is comparable to female beauty. The image of the
night half gone, of course, refers to the inevitable aging that troubles women. Sappho
provides an implicitly erotic tone in the poem, emphasizing her solitary state and her
lustful wish for an absent lover.
V. Music Analysis
Silver’s evocation of "old age" is best portrayed by a performance direction to be
"ethereal,"210 setting up a melancholic mood. As the night goes on, so does youth; a
woman’s complaint conveyed by the piano’s pedal points, which provides not only a
strong tonal effect, but also a strong emphasis on Sappho’s complaints about old age.
The soprano sings in a very low register, which matches the moon and the stars descent.
She also sings the melodic line in a sustained-pitch recitation, as if accepting her fate of
getting old and being all alone.
The tremolo in the piano represents the twinkling of the stars or Pleiades and
provides rhythmic activity. The piano’s ascending notes over two octaves might signify
the eventual dawn. Overall, the vocalist’s inactive and low-pitched recitation throughout
portrays Sappho’s fading age and aloneness.
VI. Text Analysis
Silver once again sets three fragments in the last song. The first poem describes
the power of love or its power to shatter the heart.
210
Silver, 20.
82
TABLE 15. Mary Barnard, Frag. 44: Without Warning
Without warning
As a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart211
The second fragment refers to Sappho offering of her breasts to a lover.
TABLE 16. Mary Barnard, Frag. 45 and Anne Carson, Frag. 46
If you will come212
Anne Carson, Frag. 46
. . . and I on a soft pillow
will lay down my limbs213
I shall put out
new pillows for
you to rest upon
Anne Carson notes that Greek grammarian Aelius Herodianus (180-250 A.D.)
quoted this poem in his treatise On Anomalous Words. She also suggests that Herodianus
considered the word "cushion" a "perky" word referring to breasts.214 Here, Sappho
211
This poem is also set by Carol Barnett. For text analysis, see chapter 2, 44-7
and appendix B, 208.
212
Silver includes the title in the song music.
213
Carson, 366.
214
Ibid.
83
offers her breasts (new pillows) to a lover whom she awaits in anticipation. There is no
gender identity mentioned, but it is clearly implying "erotic love."
The last poem set by Silver is about passionate love, its powers and effects, and
the relaxing of the limbs; it compares love to a reptile-like animal. Mary Barnard, Willis
Barnstone, and Paul Roche all agree that this last fragment was quoted once again by
Greek grammarian Hephaestion in his Handbook on Meters from second century A.D.215
Rayor suggests that the "loosener of limbs" means that "limbs relax in sleep,
death, and love (especially after sexual intercourse)."216 Jane McIntosh Snyder states that
"Eros for her [Sappho] is no mere symbol, no cherubic Cupid, but a potent and real
force."217 Charles Segal also asserts that to Sappho, "the power of love is a god."218
Sappho knows the power of love and how it could affect her emotions of passionate love.
The real emphasis is on the physical impact on a woman’s body—the loosening of limbs
(or the weak-kneed response, in modern terms). "Irresistible and bittersweet" seems to
promise both pleasure and pain, caused by the powerful effects of love.
In the translations of Willis Barnstone and Paul Roche, both mention the name
Atthis, one of Sappho’s pupils. According to Barnstone, she is "treated with great
215
Barnard, 108; Barnstone, 287; Roche, 203.
216
Rayor, 148.
217
218
Segal, 59.
84
TABLE 17. Mary Barnard, Frag. 53 and Other Translations
Mary Barnard,
Frag. 53
With his venom
Willis Barnstone,
Frag. 144
To Atthis
Paul Roche,
Frag. 109
And Now
Irresistible and
bittersweet
that loosener of limbs,
Love reptile-like
strikes me down219
Love—
bittersweet,
irrepressible—
Love, the limb loosener,
stirs me: Irresistible,
bitter-sweet imp.
But Atthis, you’ve come
to abhor me
(Even the hint of me)
And flit to Andromeda221
loosens my limbs
and I tremble.220
affection" by the poetess, but she left Sappho with no known reason.222 Paul Roche
quotes Arthur Weigall, who writes: "Atthis was a young girl; Sappho a woman in her
later twenties, when the affair began. They were ‘bound together,’ says Suidas, ‘by an
affection which was slanderously declared to be shameful’; and it must have been chiefly
on account of this slander, if slander it be, that Sappho’s poems—so many of them
addressed to Atthis—were burnt [by the Roman Catholic church]."223 Clearly, Sappho’s
219
This poem is also set by Augusta Read Thomas, see chapter 6, 135 and
appendix B. 209.
220
Barnstone, 72.
221
Roche, 106.
222
Barnstone, 306.
223
Arthur Weigall, Sappho of Lesbos: Her Life and Times (New York: Frederick
A. Stokes Company, 1932), 110-111, quoted in Roche, 203; Suidas is a lexicographer,
who presumably wrote the Suda, which is a Byzantine lexicon encyclopedia of ancient
Mediterranean from tenth century A.D. Adrian Fortescue. "Suidas," http://oce.catholic.co
m/index.php?title=Suidas, accessed February 5, 2015.
85
erotic expression in language and imagery in this fragment is extremely strong: she also
describes love as an overpowering force resembling a wild animal (or a reptile) capable
of completely overwhelming her body.
VI. Music Analysis
The tempo and the piano’s fast-moving, disjunct-sounding passagework suggest
the powerful force of a whirlwind. Silver asks the soprano to sing "passionately" and
"calmly alluring"224 to emphasize female sensuality. On the word "love," the soprano
sustains a high B-flat with increasing dynamics from mezzo piano to fortissimo, creating
a highly dramatic effect underscoring the power of love.
In the next poem, about "new pillows," Silver insists on straight tones—nonvibrato sung with glissandi to ensure the microtones are clearly heard;—this results in a
quite different sound. Also, another reason is perhaps to emphasize on Sappho’s
anticipation for her lover to arrive. For the last poem, Silver instructs the soprano to sing
"with renewed passion"225 on the word "love" on a high A sung, with a crescendo
growing to an orgasmic fortissimo, which represents the power of Eros on Sappho.
Silver’s final direction to the soprano to sing "slow and alluring"226 on the word "reptilelike," matches the animal’s movement; she slithers "furiously" on the phrase "strikes me
down," conveying the powerful effects of erotic passion, thus completing the cycle.
224
Silver, 25-26.
225
Ibid., 27.
226
Ibid., 28.
86
Silver’s interest in and study of Greek music and culture influenced and inspired
her to write Chariessa. The composer’s music was mysterious and the performance
directions was focused on feminine emotions such as affectionate, graceful, innocent,
evocative, sexual, distasteful, and melancholy. Silver depicts Sappho as a mysterious and
emotional figure. Moreover, Silver’s selection of Sappho’s fragments emphasizes the
overarching themes of love, passion, loss of virginity, and old age that permeate the
muse’s poetic output. Both Sappho and Silver seem to share genuine, passionate, and
evocative feminine emotions.
87
CHAPTER 4
ELIZABETH VERCOE
Biographical Sketch
Elizabeth Vercoe (b. 1941) has been called by Joseph McLellan "one of the most
inventive composers working in America today" in a review from The Washington
Post.227 A native of Washington, D.C., Vercoe grew up in a musical family: her mother
was a pianist and her father was proficient on many instruments. She attended National
Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. (1958-62) to study piano and violin. Besides
being a composer, Vercoe is multi-talented as a pianist, music educator, music critic,
music therapist, and musicologist. She studied with David Barnett, receiving her B.A. in
music theory and history (1962) from Wellesley College. She then attended the
University of Michigan, where studied with George Wilson, Ross Lee Finney, and Leslie
Bassettand. One professor in particular made a difference in her decision to pursue a
Masters in composition: George Wilson, who believed that "women could be
composers."228 Vercoe obtained a M.M. in composition (1963) and a Ph.D. in
227
Joseph McLellan, "Review of Irreveries from Sappho, 1981," Style Section,
The Washington Post, June 20, 1995, http://elizabethvercoe.com/image/irreveriespostrevi
ew.j pg, accessed April 6, 2014.
228
Jennifer Capaldo, "Elizabeth Vercoe: Composing Her Story" (PhD Diss.,
University of Cincinnati, 2008), 9, in Elizabeth Vercoe, composer, Publications: Music
& Articles, http://elizabethvercoe.com/pub.html, accessed April 6, 2014.
88
musicology. Because of Wilson’s encouragement, she went on to Boston University
where she received her D.M.A. in composition and music theory (1978) under the
mentorship of Gardner Read.
Vercoe received fellowships and grants from an esteemed list of regional,
national, and international agencies, and she has been recognized in numerous
composition competitions. Besides composing, she has taught music theory in several
institutions, including Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey (1969-71),
and Framingham State College in Massachusetts (1973-74), and she served as Chair of
the Roy Acuff of Excellence in the Creative Arts at Austin Peay State University in
Tennessee (2003). Since 1997, she has taught music theory, women in music, and music
history at Regis College, in Weston, Massachusetts. She was also composer-in-residence
at several colleges and universities, including Connecticut (2001), Illinois College
(2011), and Longwood University in Virginia (2013).
Vercoe has received many commissions, including from Wellesley College,
Austin Peay State University, Pro Arte Orchestra, and First National Congress on Women
in Music. Her music has been performed by orchestras across the country and she has
collaborated with international artists, ensembles, and dance companies. Many of
Vercoe’s pieces are recorded on Owl, Capstone, Leornarda, Navona, Centaur Records,
and others. Her compositions are published by Arsis Press, Noteworthy Sheet Music, and
Certosa Verlag (Germany).
The feminist movement of the 1960s had a great impact on Vercoe, so that she
became a strong advocate for promoting works by women composers. Serving as board
89
member of the International League of Women Composers (1980-87), Vercoe has written
articles for the International Choral Bulletin, Perspectives of New Music, Journal of
Early Music America, and Journal of the International League of Women Composers;
most of these articles address the struggles and achievements of women composers.
Vercoe’s feminist views can be clearly heard in her famous Herstory series of vocal
works on texts by women, to be discussed later.
Elizabeth Vercoe is best known for chamber ensemble, solo vocal, and solo
instrumental works rather than larger orchestral and choral music. She prefers textures
that feature a solo instrument or voice and piano. Vercoe claims, "the whole process of
trying to find the right music and the right poem is really mysterious."229 She recognizes
the "mysterious" ways of each composer, who although train similarly, develop an
individual voice. Vercoe writes music from the beginning to end, rarely making changes.
She often returns to the main theme achieving the symmetry of arch form. She claims
that she writes down a list of chords and picks from the list those that best fit the piece.
Sometimes, she uses tritone clusters: "I do like the sound—and it’s ambiguous . . . The
tritone is a very friendly thing to have because it helps you destroy the sense of tonality
but is not necessarily harsh."230 Joseph Mclellan, from The Washington Post, considers
229
Elizabeth Vercoe, quoted in Capaldo, 111.
230
Ibid., 113.
90
Vercoe "similar to Charles Ives, who broke all the rules and wrote some of the most
interesting songs, piano pieces and symphonies."231
Vercoe describes her musical style as "contemporary classical music" stating, "I
would describe it as not too experimental and not too conservative, but somewhere in the
middle. If you ask what I think my music sounds like—that becomes a very difficult
question. Some of it is a cry from the heart."232 Gardner Read states that "her music
possesses power and strength as well as great warmth and imagination."233 It is classical
in the sense that she uses standard genres such as song cycle, concerto, or sonata, but
Vercoe does not consider her music to fit strictly in a particular category of genre or style
but is more focused on a feminist or humorous themes.234
Vercoe enjoys selecting the texts for vocal music, a task that requires ample
research and reading. She likes to choose poetry that tells a story, writing "it has to have
a narrative quality to it."235 In the Herstory series, the texts are by different women poets
but each tells its own story. The texts have to be short and concise and the music has "to
have a striking affect . . . " producing an "aha!" or "eureka!" moment.236 When
231
Joseph McLellan, quoted in Capaldo, ibid.
232
233
Gardner Read, quoted in Elizabeth Vercoe, composer, Publications: Music &
Articles, http://elizabethvercoe.com/pub.html, accessed April 6, 2014.
234
Capaldo, 28.
235
Ibid., 115.
236
Ibid.
91
composing a vocal work, Vercoe allows the text to speak to her, as she believes that it
affects the path of composition: "the text is telling me what to do, guiding me as to what
to do."237 Over the years in writing vocal works, she noted "The voice is so wonderfully
expressive and flexible. A singer can not only sing . . . shatteringly high, ominously low,
adamantly loud, stirringly soft—but can also whisper, screech, yell, scream, cluck, use
Sprechstimme, glissandi, trills and all kinds of speech."238 Vercoe has also learned to
listen to singers and observe how comfortably they can sing. She considers important
words to stress or give an affect or a melismatic passage. She is a perfectionist; indeed,
she meticulously sings each line while composing, which takes a great amount of time.
According to Vercoe, her music always has been autobiographical, associated
with the different phases of her life. The titles and texts in her music are based on her
experiences—past and present—and on stories that are linked to her life. For example,
her vocal work Herstory IV (1997), for mezzo or soprano and mandolin or marimba, is
about acceptance, forgiveness, and making peace, written after her divorce from New
Zealander composer Barry Vercoe. As noted, the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s
had a great influence on her music, and notably on the "feministic connections in the
texts of Herstory series."239 Vercoe’s Herstory I (1975) and Herstory II (1979) include
237
238
Ibid., 30.
239
Ibid., 118.
92
settings of women’s poetry from America and Japan, "characterized by great energy and
drama, and it reflect Vercoe’s ongoing commitment to important social issues."240
In 1985, Vercoe was commissioned by mezzo-soprano Sharon Mabry to write a
vocal work while in Paris. Her trip to the ruins of Chateau de Chinon where Joan of Arc
led an army inspired Vercoe, resulting in Herstory III: Jehanne de Lorraine (1986), a
highly acclaimed monodrama for mezzo-soprano and piano. Writing Herstory III was
"an opportunity to make a feminist statement to give a twentieth-century woman’s view
of important historical women, while attempting to create a musical drama from an
inherently dramatic story."241 Most importantly, it draws on Vercoe’s experiences with
discrimination as a woman composer in the late 1970s. In a graduate composition
seminar in the early 60s, she was the only female in a room full of about a dozen male
composers. Upon seeing her, composer Ross Lee Finney stated, "Well, I guess I’ll have
to tone down my language a little bit."242 In another class, in which Vincent Persichetti
was the guest speaker, he challenged, "Well, I’d like to see a score by the woman
240
"Composer to Occupy Acuff Chair." Austin Peay State University, January 28,
2003, http://www.apsu.edu/news/composer-occupy-acuff-chiar, accessed May 5, 2014.
241
Elizabeth Vercoe. "Composing a Life," http://elizabethvercoe.com/imagecomp
osinglife.jpg, accessed April 6, 2014.
242
Ross Lee Finney, quoted in Capaldo, 124.
93
composer."243 At a composition seminar, she recalls, "I was always the only woman . . . I
attended and laughingly offered cigars when one of the men’s wives had a baby."244
Herstory I, II, and III
In Herstory I and II, the American and Japanese women poets she chose each
have a different point of view. "Some of them were frightened and oppressed by men,
others were flippant and sure of themselves, and others are spiritual about their love
relationship. It is reflecting on how many different kinds of women there are and how
they feel in different ways."245 The first review of Herstory II that appeared in Fanfare
was criticized by an English professor; Vercoe states that "He hated the piece . . . saying
how ridiculous it was to put together those two words and make a pseudo-word out of it
. . . To imply that the word "history" is his story. But . . . that is the point—that so much
history has been done in such a way that it was only the story of male enterprises. I kept
using it anyway."246
Herstory III is described by The Washington Post as "the most powerful work by
a woman on a feminist theme."247 However, Vercoe does not consider herself a staunch
feminist; she asserts that she writes her music from a woman’s point of view. She claims
243
Vincent Persichetti, quoted in Capaldo, 124.
244
245
Ibid., 122.
246
247
"Review of Herstory III, 1986," in The Washington Post, http://elizabethverco
e.com/herstory3.html, accessed April 6, 2014.
94
her works are feminine, "but not in the sense of ruffles and lace, just a woman’s view . . .
much as I love the Schumann cycles, even when a man is writing from a woman’s point
of view there are all these men writing on these subjects and surely a woman might have
a slightly different point of view."248 She further explains, "I suspect that women who
are composers find their gender an issue and their lives even more inextricably
intertwined with their music than do men who are composers . . . . So I suspect that my
story is in many ways HERstory, that is, the story of many another woman composer."249
Since then, Vercoe became aware of women composers’ undeserved treatment and
purposeful exclusion from textbooks and concerts. As a result, she participated in the
women’s music movement—she has promoted women composers and musicians; written
articles about the struggles of women composers, conductors, and musicians; and has
served as a board member, writer, and women’s music festival organizer for The
International League of Women Composers. She also helped established the American
Women Composers Inc. in Massachusetts and became president of the chapter in 1985.
Vercoe’s Herstory V, for voice and six players is currently in progress. It is a
song cycle with texts by Japanese women poets, ancient Greek women poets Sappho and
Praxilla, an anonymous nineteenth-century Irish woman, and her daughter, Andrea
Vercoe. The goal for Vercoe’s Herstory series is that "each cycle strives to express some
view on life from a woman’s perspective. She publicly and powerfully draws attention to
248
Vercoe, quoted in Capaldo, 121.
249
Elizabeth Vercoe. "Herstory Unfolding." Paper presented at Wellesley
College, MA, 1996.
95
the distinctive experiences and values of women, expressing their unique contribution
through music."250 "Vercoe does not wish to limit the reception of her works by labeling
it as ‘feminist,’ and she does not wish to deny the presence of such themes" but rather
explicitly tell about women and their stories.251 Therefore, to Vercoe, feminism has a
different meaning—it is not political, but simply "an opportunity to say something that
only a woman could say" as evidence in her song cycle, Irreveries from Sappho.252
Irreveries from Sappho (1981)
The song cycle Irreveries from Sappho, for soprano or mezzo-soprano or SSA
and piano, features a variety of musical styles all drawn from popular music, in the
movement titles: Andromeda Rag, Older Woman Blues, and Boogie for Leda. Vercoe
was fascinated with Sappho’s poems and their relevance to modern times. She chose to
set the text translations by Mary Barnard. Coming up with a title for the set of three
songs she had composed on Sappho’s texts was a challenge. She kept trying titles and
sometimes combining them. Then she came up with "Irreveries," a word she made up.
She was pleased with the result because she understood that audiences "prefer fanciful
titles over absolute ones and finding a good title is part of the creative process."253
250
Jennifer Capaldo, "Tracking the Herstory Cycles of Elizabeth Vercoe."
Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music 17, no. 2 (2011): 18, http://eliz
abethvercoe.com /capaldoarticle.html, accessed April 6, 2014.
251
Capaldo, 26.
252
Ibid., 125.
253
Elizabeth Vercoe, quoted in Capaldo,115.
96
Singer Sharon Mabry, a professor of music at Austin Peay State University,
commissioned Vercoe to write Herstory III, to bring awareness to women’s
compositions. Mabry performed and recorded Herstory III, and Vercoe dedicated
Irreveries from Sappho to her. Vercoe and Mabry share a passion for including women’s
music on concert programs. Like Vercoe, Mabry was strongly influenced by feminism
and the women’s music movement, noting that "women composers need much more
support and exposure . . . If women don’t do it, men certainly aren’t going to. [Women]
They’re just as good [as men] and worthy of performance and worthy of study."254
The first performance of Irreveries from Sappho was at the American Society of
University Composers (ASUC) conference held in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1981, with
Melissa Spratlan as solo soprano. Since its premiere, a variety of soloists and choral
groups have performed the cycle, including the New York Virtuoso Singers and the
Thamyris Contemporary Ensemble, among others. Dedicatee Sharon Mabry performed it
at the National Gallery of Art in 1995 with a successful reception from audiences and
critics, including Joseph McLellan of The Washington Post, who wrote, "The hit of the
American selections . . . the most . . . important on the program was Vercoe’s Irreveries
from Sappho, witty treatments of three texts by the ancient Greek poet. English
translations of the fragmented texts, which contain some of the most passionate poetry . .
. were set in ragtime, blues, and boogie styles that strikingly underlined the poems’
254
Sharon Mabry, quoted in Capaldo, 25.
97
modernity. Mabry . . . performed superbly . . . [she] sang with beautiful clarity."255 A
reviewer from The Columbus Dispatch raved: "It makes serious the musical styles of
ragtime, blues, and boogie but makes humorous some of women’s age-old traumas."256
Although Sappho’s poems are 2,600 years old, the ancient texts are remarkably
applicable to modern times. The timeless feminine themes of jealousy, old age, and
rumor in Sappho’s poems captured Vercoe’s attention, and she purposely set the texts in
modern popular styles.
Both singer and pianist must possess excellent technique with a good knowledge
of the styles in each song. Although written for a mezzo-soprano, a soprano can also sing
the songs "as long as the middle voice has enough full-bodied color and texture."257
According to Mabry, these songs are entertaining and are open to various expressions and
interpretations. Each woman is able to project her own personality and individuality as
she gives voice to these gendered complaints.
I. Andromeda Rag: Text Analysis
Sappho is not the only one who had a school for girls in the island of Lesbos. She
had two adversaries: Gorgo and Andromeda. According to many Greek scholars, there
is little known about these two except that they were also poets. In a different fragment,
255
McLellan, review.
256
"Review of Irreveries from Sappho, 1981," in The Columbus Dispatch, http://
elizabethvercoe.com/irreveries.html, accessed April 6, 2014.
257
Laura G. Kapka, "Review of Elizabeth Vercoe: Kleemation and Other
Works." Journal of the IAWM 19, no. 1 (2013): 2, http://elizabethvercoe.com/image/
kleemation.re view.pdf, accessed April 6, 2014.
98
Sappho expresses her anger at Andromeda, who took away her beloved Atthis, a close
companion and former student. It is not certain if the young girl in the poem is Atthis or
someone else for there is no name mentioned (this is in contrast to other poems where
Sappho declares Atthis by name.) In the text of the first song, Sappho refers to
Andromeda. Vercoe chooses Mary Barnard’s translation, whose title names Andromeda;
however, Barnstone’s translation is also considered for comparison.
TABLE 18. Mary Barnard, Frag. 74 and Willis Barnstone, Frag. 192
I hear that Andromeda—
Andromeda, What Now?
That hayseed in her
hayseed finery—has put
a torch to your heart
and she without even
the art of lifting her
skirt over her ankles
Can this farm girl in farm-girl
finery burn your heart?
She is even ignorant of the way
to lift her gown over her
ankles.258
Mary Barnard, Willis Barnstone, and Paul Roche all noted that this fragment was
quoted in a fifteen-volume work, Deipnosophistae (Scholars at Dinner) by Athenaeus
(230 A.D.), a Greek rhetorician and grammarian.259 According to Jane McIntosh Snyder,
Sappho was jealous and reproaches Andromeda for seducing an innocent young girl.
Sappho describes Andromeda as "a hayseed," which Snyder interprets as a country258
Barnstone, 8.
259
Barnard, 109; Barnstone, 292; Roche, 204.
99
bumpkin who does not know how to dress properly.260 In Barnstone’s translation as
shown above, he also confirms that Sappho sarcastically refers to Andromeda as a "farm
girl."261 Sappho speaks of Andromeda’s lack of fashion sense, or rather lack of
femininity or grace. Margaret Williamson believes that Sappho insults Andromeda by
calling her "rustic," due to her low ranking skills as a poet.262
I. Andromeda Rag: Music Analysis
Vercoe appropriately requests both the singer and the pianist to be "spirited, with
a touch of venom," a designation clearly inspired by the poem.263 Overall, the first song
is a mixture of melodic, tonal, and highly dissonant sounds. The typical rag style in the
piano features a steady left hand against a syncopated right hand. Moving from a
fortissimo, mezzo forte, to mezzo piano, the soprano sings in the manner of an "outburst,
sarcastic, mocking sweetness with clenched teeth,"264 as part of Vercoe’s performance
directions, presumably to depict Sappho’s jealousy and hateful feelings toward
Andromeda. The soprano also sings Sprechstimme and descending glissandi with large
intervallic leaps on the word "hayseed" to strongly emphasize the country girl,
260
261
Barnstone, 82.
262
Williamson, 85-86.
263
Elizabeth Vercoe, Irreveries from Sappho, for soprano with piano
accompaniment, (Washington D.C.: Arsis Press, 1983), 2. Audio sample is available on
the composer’s website, Vercoe, "Listening, Andromeda Rag," http://elizabethvercoe
.com/mp3/irreveries1.mp3, accessed February 2, 2014.
264
Vercoe, 2-4.
100
Andromeda. Word painting on the word "lifting her skirt" and ascending glissando
conveys the wardrobe troubles of Andromeda. At the end of the cycle, Vercoe inserts the
familiar but almost unnoticable melody Auld Lang Sang in the piano as a musical joke.
She describes the whole song cycle as "wickedly satiric and full of musical jokes and
parodies."265 She was actually worried of being labeled as a "not serious" composer;
happily, the opposite "happened that audiences and performers everywhere have
continued to enjoy the humor and delight of this set."266 Vercoe includes this song as a
joke perhaps to suggest that Andromeda’s lack of fashion sense is laughable. Auld Lang
Sang, sung mostly in celebration of the New Year could be included here to emphasize a
new beginning or an ending, or a farewell. Perhaps Vercoe gives Sappho voice to say
farewell to a former student snatched by the wiles of her nemesis.
II. Older Woman Blues: Text Analysis
In the poem set in the second movement, Sappho declares her love to someone of
unspecific gender. Diane Rayor assumes that "the speaker was female and the friend is
male."267 The conversation between the two persons in the poem is somewhat
convoluted or confusing because the love declaration is followed by an almost angry
ultimatum. The speaker declares love for the other and gives an ultimatum that, if the
other reciprocates the same feeling, he or she should "marry a young woman.
265
266
Ibid., 74-75.
267
Rayor, 164.
101
TABLE 19. Mary Barnard, Frag. 72 and Paul Roche, Frag. 124
Of course I love you
Paul Roche, Frag. 124
No! It Wouldn’t Work
But if you love me,
marry a young woman!
If you love me choose a
younger partner for your
bed and board:
I
could not bear to live, an
elder woman with a younger
lord268
I couldn’t stand it
to live with a young
man, I being older
Sappho strongly expressed her feelings about aging in this poem and several
others and how it affected her relationships. Greek scholars agree that a fifth century
A.D. anthologist named Stobaeus included this fragment in his Anthology, a collection of
ancient Greek writings, suggesting that the poem alludes to the significant age difference
between marriage couples.269 Anne Carson interprets the poem also as referring to the
"the relative ages of marriage partners."270 Marriage was the ultimate goal for a woman
of noble birth in ancient Greece. It was an important part in a woman’s life socially and
politically, with the reputation of the family name, wealth, and social status in aristocratic
society at stake. According to Margaret Williamson:
Sappho’s poetry suggests love and marriage can be viewed in a very
different way, and the condition of Parthenos [virgin, associated with
Athena] occupied only a small part of a woman’s life, unlike the
comparable status for a man, that of citizen and fighter, which lasted until
he reached old age. Marriage and its social importance provided the way
268
Roche, 113.
269
Barnard, 109; Barnstone, 297; Carson, 375.
270
Carson, ibid.
102
women are represented in literary and artistic sources, and the
opportunities they themselves had to participate in mousikē (music). It
helps to explain why images of young women are widespread, and why
beauty and grace receive such emphasis in descriptions of them.
Preparation for marriage and marriage were among the occasions that call
for women themselves, and thus potentially women poets, to engage in
song and dance.271
The whole point of aristocratic parents sending their young virgin daughter to a
girl’s school like Sappho’s was because it was part of the culture for them to learn about
marriage and how to maintain the relationship. The preparation for marriage meant to
learn different tasks, including preserving their beauty with many regimens such as
bathing in fragrant oils, washing and styling their hair with flowers, and dressing their
best; knowing poetry, art, and music; and learning how to pleasure their future husband.
In Paul Roche’s translation, he believes that Sappho is addressing her older
contemporary poet Alcaeus.272 Furthermore, Roche claims that there is evidence that
Alcaeus was in love with Sappho until the day of her death. Countering this, scholar
Arthur Weigall suggests that she perhaps is speaking to the youthful Phaon; she was
madly in love with him, but her unrequited love led to her leap from the Leucadian
cliff.273 Weigall further speculates that Sappho has been asked to be married by a young
man, but rejected his proposal via this fragment.274 The reason for her rejection: Sappho
271
Williamson, 75-76.
272
Roche, 209.
273
Arthur Weigall, quoted in Roche, ibid.
274
Weigall, 291-292.
103
could not accept the fact that she is no longer capable of satisfying a man, nor can she
stop her aging. Even if he marries her, he will eventually leave her for a younger woman.
II. Older Woman Blues: Music Analysis
Older Woman Blues is slow and is set in a compound meter.275 The steady chords
in the left hand and the syncopation in the right hand of the piano, clearly give a "bluesy"
feel. Vercoe instructs the singer and pianist to perform the work "subdued but
sensual."276 Being sensual in the performance emphasizes the ancient Greek value of
beauty and sexual pleasure in a marriage. She may be able to perform her sexual duties
with her mate, but she cannot maintain her beauty, for it is fleeting. Therefore, the
singer’s complaints of being old perfectly fit the genre and the title of the second song.
Overall, the focus on a tonal center symbolizes her unwavering love for her partner and
the wide intervallic leaps portray her complaint on her fading beauty. Moreover, the
singer’s expressive recitations, accompanied by dynamic changes from mezzo forte to
forte on the phrase " I being older," conveys Sappho’s woes of old age as she pleads her
partner leaving her for another.
III. Boogie for Leda: Text Analysis
The third song evokes the story of Leda, for whom there are different versions of
the myth. She was a princess from Sparta who was seduced by the womanizer Zeus, who
had transformed himself into a swan. Their union produced three children: Helen, and
275
Vercoe, "Listening, Older Woman Blues," http://elizabethvercoe.com/mp3/
irreveries2.mp3, accessed February 2, 2014.
276
Vercoe, 6.
104
the twins Castor and Pollux, said to have been hatched from a single egg. According to
Jane McIntosh Snyder and Paul Roche, there were two eggs, not one, and there were four
children, not three: Castor, Pollux, Clytemnestra, and Helen.277 Anne Carson believes
that all four children came from one egg and that the swan’s egg was white, not blue.278
However Mary Barnard tells a different tale: "according to one story, Nemesis, the
goddess of vengeance, laid the egg, and Leda only found it."279
Willis Barnstone and Anne Carson both claim that this fragment was cited by
grammarian Athenaeus (230 A.D.), in his work Scholars at Dinner.280 However, Mary
Barnard and Paul Roche both noted that this poem was quoted in the Treatise of
Etymology, but they did not mention the identity of the author.281
Paul Roche claims that the translated word "hyacinth" is not the specific flower as
we know it today, but it could mean other flowers, such as a larkspur or iris, so that
Sappho is probably describing the egg’s color of hyacinth blue.282 Returning to the Leda
story, Diane Rayor speculates that Leda did not give birth to Helen, but was found by her
277
Snyder, 111; Roche, 188. Clytemnestra and Helen are twin sisters or half
278
Carson, 381.
279
Barnard, 113.
280
Barnstone, 297; Carson, 381.
281
Barnard, 107; Roche, 188.
282
Roche, 188.
sisters.
105
TABLE 20. Mary Barnard, Frag. 13: People Do Gossip
People do gossip
And they say about
Leda, that she
once found an egg
Hidden under
Wild hyacinths
mother, who "is not raped by Zeus in the form of a swan, but instead found an egg hidden
in a fragrant flower."283 According to Jack Winkler’s interpretation of the poem, he
argues that Sappho mixes the Leda tale with sexual imagery in the fragment, discussed
below. Winkler agrees with Rayor that Leda was not a victim of rape by Zeus, but she
discovered "a mysterious egg hidden inside the frilly blossoms of a hyacinth stem, or
(better) in a bed of hyacinths when she parted the petals and looked under the leaves."284
Winkler suggests the egg discovered has three possible interpretations: 1) "a clitoris
hidden under the labia; 2) the supremely beautiful woman, a tiny Helen; and 3) a story,
object, and person hidden from the male culture."285 With the first interpretation, the
parting of the petals (labia) is inferred; combing the hyacinth leaves (mons pubis), and
finding the egg (clitoris)—all clear sexual images. The second interpretation suggests
283
Rayor, 164.
284
Winkler, 105.
285
Ibid.
106
finding Helen in the egg. The last explanation, according to Winkler, refers to a covering
of an object such as clothing, flowers, or hair, as an accessory or for protection from men.
Furthermore, he notes that the bushy flowers that cover the earth serve as a cushion for
both Zeus and Hera in their lovemaking. If Winkler’s speculation of Sappho’s sexual
imagery in Leda’s story is correct, it provides homoerotic symbolism of Leda discovering
another woman’s clitoris, or Leda actually discovering her own object of sexual pleasure.
III. Boogie for Leda: Music Analysis
The setting of Boogie for Leda matches well with the composer’s performance
direction of "flippant."286 The piano part is disjunct with syncopations. This song is
quite complicated and challenging for the soprano because of the fast tempo and wide
leaps in the vocal line. Sprechstimme and glissando emphasize the word "gossip,"
conveying the many rumors about the life of Leda. The piano echoes with chord clusters
and glissandi. The name Leda is sung portamento at forte, depicting the widespread
gossiping of people. Vercoe instructs the soprano to sing "hysterically and exaggerated,"
at fortissimo employing Sprechstimme and a glissando on the phrase "that she once found
an egg," to emphasize the discovery of someone else’s or her own sexual pleasure.287 At
the last declamation of the soprano, she sings with large intervallic leaps on the words
"hidden under wild hyacinths," unaccompanied, "freely, cadenza-like and agitated."288
286
Vercoe, 8. Vercoe, "Listening, Boogie for Leda," http://elizabethvercoe.com/
mp3/irreveries3.mp 3, accessed February 2, 2014.
287
Ibid., 10.
288
Ibid., 11.
107
The piano then plays an extended postlude. Capaldo notes that "Vercoe recognizes that
there is a tradition of the piano having the last word in a song, acknowledging the roots in
the Lieder of the Romantic era."289 The soprano reaches an orgasmic climax and the
piano’s last notes in the cycle evoke the fulfillment Sappho’s homoerotic fantasies.
Clearly, Vercoe is a strong proponent of feminism. Her performance directions
such as "spirited, outburst, sarcastic, mocking, flippant, hysterically and exaggerated,
freely and agitated" were fixated on declaring feministic views and emotions. In
addition, Sappho’s poetry speaks to Silver’s heart and prompts themes of lesbian love,
sexual love, marriage, anger, jealousy, rivalry, and old age. Vercoe sees Sappho as a
vessel for women to have a strong voice and to emote their feelings. Sappho’s text and
Vercoe’s music provide women an opportunity to individually express their powerful
feminine emotions based on their experiences and values that are associated to the
different phases of life from a women’s perspective.
289
Capaldo, 75.
108
CHAPTER 5
LIZA LIM
Biographical Sketch
Liza Lim is an Australian composer known for her exploration of mixing cultural
and music practices with her own aesthetics in her works. Born on August 30, 1966 in
Perth to Chinese parents, and she received her education mostly in Brunei, in Southeast
Asia. In 1978, the family returned to Australia where she studied piano, violin, and later
composition as encouraged by her teachers at Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne.
She studied with Richard David Hames and Riccardo Formosa (b. 1954) in Melbourne,
and with Ton de Leeuw (1926-96) in Amsterdam. She received her B.M. degree in
Composition from Victoria College of the Arts, in Melbourne (1986) and her M.M.
degree from the University of Melbourne (1991), where she also taught as a lecturer in
composition in 1996. She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of
Queensland. In recent years, Lim has become a sought-after lecturer at Darmstadt, the
University of California San Diego and Berkeley, Cornell University, the Getty Research
Institute, and numerous major Australian universities. In 2008, she held a teaching
position as a Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for Research in New
Music at the University of Huddersfield, England.
By age thirty, Lim was recognized as a prominent composer, mostly in Europe.
Her compositions were given first performances by well-known ensembles, including the
109
Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble musikFabrik, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble
Intercontemporain, and the Australian ELISION Ensemble, the last of which premieres
her works regularly. Lim has collaborated with the Australian ELISION Ensemble for
over twenty years, with her husband and the ensemble’s artistic director, Daryl Buckley.
In 2004, Lim was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the
inaugural celebration of the Walt Disney Concert Hall for which she composed her
orchestral work Ecstatic Architecture (2002-04), premiered under the baton of Esa-Pekka
Salonen. She was appointed composer-in-residence of Sydney Symphony (2005-07),
where she was commissioned for many of her works including The Compass (2008). In
addition, she has received numerous commissions from world renowned ensembles,
including the Duo Contemporain, Intercontemporain in Paris, ABC/BBC Symphony
Orchestras, Ensemble Modern, the Bavarian and South West German Radio Orchestras,
and Ensemble für neue musik Zurich, amongst others.
Lim has received many awards, including the Australian Council Fellowship
(1996), the Young Australian Creative Fellowship (1996), the Ian Potter Foundation
Senior Fellowship (2007), and the DAAD Artist-in-residence grant (2007-08). She also
received the Sounds Australian Award (1990) and the Paul Lowin Prize (2004) for the
orchestral composition of Ecstatic Architecture (2002-04). Her work has been featured at
various festivals, such as the Festival d’automne à Paris, the Salzburg Festival, the
Venice Biennale, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and all major
Australian festivals. Artistic director Lyndon Terracini states that Lim is one of
Australia’s most significant composers and a major international voice. Lim claims her
110
music is "quite provocative; its intellectualism, speaks with a very clear musical
message—restrained and yet extremely powerful."290
Liza Lim’s early works were strongly influenced by English composer Brian
Ferneyhough (b. 1943), particularly his music of the late 1960s and especially his
Sonatas (1967) for string quartet. Known for his extremely complex notation and
pervasive use of irregular rhythmic tuplets, his approach was a strong influence on many
modern composers internationally in the 1980s that resulted in a movement called New
Complexity; he is credited as the father of this movement. From 1982 to 1997,
Ferneyhough was head of the composition program for the international summer
composition courses at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in Darmstädt, Germany, where Liza
Lim attended and taught as a distinguished lecturer in 1998. Ferneyhough’s
compositions have attracted many ensembles, including Arditti Quartet and ELISION
Ensemble, for whom Lim has also written music. Lim’s name is often associated with
Ferneyhough and the New Complexity movement, as her music is highly abstract,
complex, atonal and dissonant, making extensive use of extended techniques and
microtonality, with complex layered textures and rhythms, and disjunct melodies.
Ferneyhough’s influence is evident in Lim’s two major works: Garden of Earthly Desire
(1988) for ensemble; and the opera The Oresteia (1993) for six voices, eleven
290
Susan Shineberg, "Lim’s Pulse of Life," The Age, April 21, 2008, http://www.c
vwriting.com.au/cv-writing-articles/2008/4/21/lims-pulse-of-life/, accessed November 1,
2013.
111
instruments, and one dancer. According to musicologist Richard Toop, The Oresteia is
"a sequence of ‘shamanistic possessions,’ which provides the first major evidence of a
lasting fascination with ritual, a taste for abrasive sonorities, both vocal (rasping throat
sounds) and instrumental (e.g., overblowing, multi-phonics, and high bow pressure)."291
Lim’s exposure to 1960s avant-garde works of Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933),
Luciano Berio (1925-2003), Györgi Ligeti (1923-2006), and John Cage (1912-1992) also
contributed to her compositional style, described by Richard Toop as "rhythmically
intricate and carefully crafted, minimalistic to the point of risking short-windedness."292
He further expounds on Lim’s frequent "use of glissandos and microtonal ornamentation:
a kind of theater close to Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) is created, though there is also
some affinity with Harry Partch (1901-74)."293 According to Lim, she likes to
"manipulate sounds and the elements of structures of music and create structural depth
from very minimal material."294 She is interested in the "concreteness of sound [so] that
when she writes a note on paper it is never abstract. When it is played by a certain
instrument at a certain dynamic, it has its own specific quality"295 and that is imperative
291
Richard Toop, "Liza Lim." Grove Music Online (2007), http://www.oxfordmu
siconline.com, accessed May 26, 2013.; Lim’s use of raspy throat sounds in The Oresteia
will also be heard in Voodoo Child, which will be discussed later in connection to
Sappho’s poem.
292
Ibid.
293
Ibid.
294
Liza Lim, quoted in Toop.
295
Ibid.
112
to her creativeness. Visualization of the structure of her music in her mind has helped
Lim expand melodic ideas and layering textures and sounds; she states, "it allows me to
objectify, to symbolize my musical concept, the final result can be sound, but the work
also exists within this symbolic world. The process promotes abstract mathematical
thinking. I can see its visual shape and once I have that it allows me to turn ideas upside
down, expand, and contract."296 According to Lim, she does not start with a melody but a
sustained single note or two and moves it around, creating "a relative stasis and the
beginning of a movement. The longer the stasis remains, it creates tension or it could be
decreased depending on which direction the composer chooses, for the variations and
rhythmic possibilities are endless."297
One of Lim’s favorite genres involves multi-media, but she has expanded her
writing into other genres recently including orchestral, vocal, and operatic. In the twentyfirst century she has written a substantial number of orchestral works, despite her
avoidance of them earlier in her career. Lim’s most notable orchestral works are the
Machine for Contacting the Dead (2001), inspired by a vast collection of twenty-seven
instruments found in a Chinese tomb from 433 BCE, and The Compass (2008). Some of
Lim’s later works considered modal scales and "spectral" harmony as means of
compositional growth, an example is The Compass (2008), for orchestra and didgeridoo.
It was premiered in 2006 at the Sydney Opera House and conducted by Alexander Briger.
296
Ibid.
297
Liza Lim, quoted in Toop.
113
At the end of The Compass, the sounds of cicadas are made by the musicians in the
orchestra playing toy tin "insect clickers." According to Lim, the people of Greece
believed that cicadas were once humans, who focused on singing and sexual desire.298
Lim’s fascination with Greek mythology has resulted in three compositions:
Voodoo Child (1989), The Oresteia (1993) and The Navigator (2008). Her interest in
ancient, non-Western languages, instruments, and meditation resulted in an awardwinning chamber opera: the Chinese ritual street opera, Yuè Ling Jié (Moon-Spirit
Feasting) (1999). The Navigator (2008), for five singers, sixteen instruments, and
electronics, deals with eroticism, sexuality, creation, war, and annihilation. Lim was
inspired to write it after she saw a production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and also by
her reading of ancient Greek mythology and Indian epic poems of the Mahabharata.
Lim describes the subject of her opera as an:
Erotic paradox—or perhaps more precisely, the structure of the paradox
that is theatricalized in Eros—the name the ancient Greeks gave to the
divinity of desire. The Greeks described Eros as the weaver-of-fictions,
the bittersweet, pointing to the ambivalence, dilemmas of sensation and
the illusory conditions that underpin the erotic. The lover yearns to be one
with the beloved, yet also strives to maintain the distance that is the
condition of the erotic (as in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Flaubert’s
Madame Bovary, Stendhal’s On Love, Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s
Discourse, and Sappho’s poetry). That is the paradox of the erotic—the
298
We will see that Lim returns to this ancient idea in her opera, The Navigator;
another contemporary woman composer Carol Barnett was also fascinated with cicadas
and included the insect in her song cycle, see chapter 2, 41-3.
114
attainment of the desired cancels out desire—the ocean that is everreceding horizon point.299
In her orchestral work The Compass, Lim again uses the sound of recorded
cicadas in conjunction with live instruments. To her, it was essential to portray eroticism
as according to legend, the cicadas were once human and they had given in to the
irresistible temptation of desire. The opera’s artistic director Lyndon Terracini describes
the work as "more lyrical and certainly more romantic. It allows a lot more space for you
as a listener to dream and imagine."300
Although Lim was fascinated with non-Western music, her style and
instrumentation remains Westernized with elements of Asian music and the aesthetics of
Australian Aboriginal music infusing her own. She writes music with energy and color,
and she explores themes that cross cultural boundaries. Her music brings aspects of
modernism and culture from a variety of sources. According to Susan Shineberg, Lim
write "intricate and finely textured [music] that uses sophisticated, elegant sound colors
and combinations. The composer is insatiably curious about new timbres and effects.
Her music is intense and energetic, well-crafted and often deeply explorative and
stimulating for the intellect, in a personal way, but not always immediately approachable.
She can eloquently provide her audience with a key to the door."301
299
Liza Lim, quoted by Jérémie Szpirglas. "Interview with Liza Lim," June 6,
2009, http://musictheatrenow2013.iti-germany.de/index.php?id=126, accessed October
29, 2013.
300
Lyndon Terracini, quoted in Shineberg.
301
Liza Lim, quoted in Shineberg.
115
Richard Toop explains that Lim’s music "has a very particular character, which is
neither unconditionally empathic, nor (as perhaps with some of her non-Asian Australian
contemporaries) expediently exploitative: rather, Lim’s position was that of the infinitely
curious investigator, though one not averse to being drawn spiritually into what she was
investigating."302 Lim provides further explanation of the character of her music, "What I
try to do is just give certain images and stories, and be quite personal in the way I express
myself, I think in the end that’s what people want."303
Voodoo Child (1989)
Lim’s Voodoo Child, for soprano and chamber ensemble, was commissioned by
Radio Bremen for its premiere of the 1990 Pro Musica Nova Festival, performed by
Ensemble Avance, conducted by Andras Hamary, and sung by soprano Ingrid
Schmithusen. The translation Lim used of Sappho’s poems is by Constantine A.
Trypanis, in The Penguin Book of Greek Verse, 1971. Lim chose to use the text in
ancient Greek, which is phonetically written for the modern singer who most likely does
not know the ancient language. Lim claims that she does not try to match the text or
words with the music—they are completely disconnected.304 Lim omitted the first
section of the poem (in roman type), and used the last two verses in italics.
302
Toop.
303
Liza Lim, quoted in Shineberg.
304
Liza Lim, "Lim Programme Notes: Voodoo Child, 1989." July 30, 2011,
http://limprogrammenotes.wordpress.com/2011/ 07/30/voodoo-child-1989, accessed
November 1, 2013.
116
TABLE 21. Constantine Trypanis, Frag. ?: To a Young Girl
Constantine Trypanis
To a Young Girl
Omitted Equal of the Gods seems to me
that man who sits opposite you
and, close to you, listens to
your sweet words
Song
Text
And lovely laugh which has passionately
excited the heart in my breast.
For whenever I look at you, even for a moment,
no voice comes to me,
But my tongue is frozen, and at once
a delicate fire flickers under my skin.
I no longer see anything with my eyes,
and my ears are full of strange sounds.
Sweat pours down me, and trembling
seizes me all over.
I am paler than grass, and I seem to be
little short of death . . . .305
Text Analysis
This poem was quoted in part by Greek philosopher Longinus, in his On the
Sublime (first century CE). Williamson notes that he "comments approvingly on
Sappho’s treatment of love, the way in which she selects and combines the most telling
305
Constantine A. Trypanis, The Penguin Book of Greek Verse (London: Penguin
Books, 1971), in Liza Lim, Voodoo Child for Soprano and Seven Instruments. Ricordi
Universal Music Publishing, 1990; this poem is also set by Patricia Van Ness, see chapter
8, 173 and appendix B, 209.
117
details of lovers’ experiences and the Sapphic voice of tormented passion."306 Greek
scholar Denys Page mentions that some interpreters consider the poem as a wedding
song: Sappho sings at the marriage ceremony of her favorite pupil. Sappho expresses
her feelings of emotions at "seeing her, perhaps for the last time, a beloved pupil who is
leaving her for a husband."307 That the man is elevated in the likeness of a god may
represent a wedding congratulation of blessing at a wedding feast.308 However, there is
no strong evidence to support this claim, for the erotic passions described are too
personal and likely inappropriate for a nuptial ceremony.
According to Margaret Williamson, Sappho is the speaker in the poem and she is
"responding to the girl’s voice and laughter. The speaker’s sensations have, accordingly,
been seen either as an expression of the passion aroused in her at the sight of the girl or as
registering her jealousy at the sight of the two together."309 If the poem is solely about
Sappho’s passions for the girl, then why bother to mention the man? Obviously, Sappho
feels jealous, a natural human response: she compares the man to a god and in close
company with the girl, who favors him with her laughter. However, Williamson further
suggests the man might be viewed "as a figure of speech, a way of praising the female
addressee by proposing that to be in her presence is to be blessed, or else that her charms
306
Williamson, 155.
307
Page, 31.
308
Ibid., 32.
309
Williamson, ibid.
118
are so powerful that only a god could remain unmoved by them."310 Denys Page finds
that Sappho’s gazing at the girl and hearing her voice and laughter seems to disturb
Sappho—for the man is favored with the girl’s attention.311 The fact that she talks to him
and not to Sappho results in jealousy and outpouring of her emotions. Page suggests that
Sappho is in fact in love with the girl, and "it is clearly suggested that the girl is not
particularly not interested in Sappho."312 Like Williamson, Willis Barnstone finds the
poem "a marvel of candor and power in which Sappho states her jealousy of the calm
godlike man and describes with striking objectivity and detachment the physical
symptoms of her passionate love for a girl."313 Jane McIntosh Snyder, however, does not
agree with the interpretation of jealousy in the poem. She believes that the poem is an
expression of Sappho’s overwhelming homoerotic passion for the beloved female.314
Anthropologist George Devereux also proposes that Sappho does not feel jealous,
but rather envious of the man and asks two relevant questions: "What does this man—
and indeed any man—have that Sappho does not have?" "What can a man offer to a girl
that Sappho cannot offer?"315 In addition, Devereux states that "women are obsessed
310
Ibid.
311
Page, 22.
312
Ibid., 28.
313
Barnstone, 285.
314
315
George Devereux, "The Nature of Sappho’s Seizure in Fragment 31 LP as
Evidence of Her Inversion." Classical Quarterly, n.s. 20 (1970), cited by Mary R.
119
with a (neurotic) feeling of incompleteness—with the clinically commonplace ‘female
castration complex’—as the masculine lesbian. Moreover, the latter experiences her
‘defect’ with violent and crushing intensity particularly when her girl-friend is taken
away from her not by another lesbian, but by a man, who has what she does not have and
which she would give her life to have."316 It is clear that the answer to the questions
above lies in the anatomical and physical capability of the man that Sappho does not
have, which can be perhaps simply explained as penis envy.
Diane Rayor asserts that the speaker is so excited at the sight of the girl, that
wishing to be close to her or to be "in conversation with her would be overwhelming."317
Rayor further adds that the man refers to anyone, not a specific man, but one who is
fortunate to be near the desired female.318 In the poem, Sappho provides a list of physical
sensations she feels at the sight of the girl: broken tongue, skin on fire, blindness, roaring
in ears, sweating, trembling, and even dying. Page suggests that Sappho’s "broken
tongue" does not indicate the physical loss of speech, but the loss of her power of speech
to win over the girl’s heart, for she now belongs to the man.319 Rayor’s translation, near
Lefkowitz. "Critical Stereotypes and the Poetry of Sappho," in Reading Sappho:
Contemporary Approaches, ed. Ellen Greene (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996), 17.
316
Devereux, 31.
317
Rayor, 162.
318
Ibid.
319
Page, 24.
120
the end of the poem, presents the word "greener," which in Greek can refer to an object
that is moist or wet—[in short, any or all] biological liquids, such as tears, blood, dew,
sap, sweat, semen, and vaginal discharge. In addition, Sappho’s mention of "grass" can
be associated with sexuality, and the continual imagery of symptoms implies erotic
excitement.320 At the end of the poem, the mention of "death" refers not to a physical
death, but more likely to a relaxed state after a fulfilling orgasm.
The question now is why does Lim choose the title Voodoo Child for her song?
Perhaps she not only was inspired by the last two verses of Sappho’s poem, but it was
also because of the overall context of the poem. For example, Sappho’s student is like a
child or a "young girl" who will become a woman when she marries. Another idea is that
the role is reversed, and Sappho is the cursed Voodoo Child. Her reaction to the sight of
her student, who is next to her soon-to-be husband, has left her with powerful conflicting
emotions. Sappho was proud of her student for preparing her for marriage. At the same
time, she may be feeling jealous towards the lovers, for she knew she could not compete
with him who she compares him to a god.
Music Analysis
Voodoo Child is reminiscent of the song cycle Ancient Voices of Children (1970)
by George Crumb (b. 1929).321 In Voodoo Child, Lim treats the human voice as an
320
Rayor, ibid.
321
Jimi Hendrix (1942-70) also wrote a song called Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
in 1968. "Jimi Hendrix," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix, accessed May 12,
2015.
121
instrument, and extended techniques are applied to create distinctive sound effects. For
example, in Lim’s score, jaw vibrato, vocal raspy throat sounds, as well as gargling and
choking noises are used to convey Sappho’s frozen tongue and her trembling body is
portrayed with metric shifts—her emotional reaction to seeing her beloved student next to
her groom on the eve of her departure for marriage. Lim asks that the soprano’s vocalise
suggests "choking inarticulacy of the person’s feelings" and seizure-like episodes due to
"uncontrollable shaking" of the body all throughout the piece.322 As indicated in the
score, the soprano sings vocables [oo-oh-aa-ee] and "gradually sings in between vowel
sounds that is formed in the vocal cavity to emphasize different harmonics."323 There is
clear evidence of Asian influences in Voodoo Child, because of the soprano’s throat
singing style—produced similarly to Mongolian chanting, only sung by women,
appropriately termed Inuit throat singing.324 As the soprano sings the syllable, "chr-o," it
is accompanied by a tongue roll—a rapid movement of the tongue—and throat singing
that provides a much distorted sound. When the soprano sings a word with an "r," the
tongue roll and throat singing are combined and repeated, and the dynamics grow from
mezzo forte to forte to fortissimo, as if she is trying to express herself assertively. The
strings follow the soprano’s lead in distorting the sound with a molto sul ponticello, or
322
Lim, Programme Notes.
323
Lim, Voodoo Child.
324
This kind of singing is performed by women only in a contest to try to outlast
one another in Tibet, Mongolia, and Tuva. "Inuit throat singing," http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Inuit_throat_singing, accessed November 1, 2013.
122
high bowing close to the bridge in order to produce a screeching sound. The other
instruments, including the trombone and timpani, play the same patterns of loud distorted
sounds and glissandos. After the Sprechstimme, the throat singing, and the spoken text,
the soprano’s sound is very much distorted with Lim’s request for "explosively expelling
breath."325 At the end, strained inhaling vocal sounds is heard to express the singer’s
emotions more effectively. Lim uses these extended vocal techniques to represent
Sappho’s frozen tongue, and it was her modern poetic recitation of how the poetry was
sung or recited in ancient Greece.
Another extended technique is vocal trills in the clarinet, violin, cello, and the
soprano. The frenzied and energetic tempo indicates Sappho’s pounding heart, aroused
by hearing the laughter of her student, which is represented by the trills of the
instruments. The strings continue playing molto sul ponticello as the soprano performs
an extended vocal trill, which adds shaking in the voice over the vibrato to provide
rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic embellishment—all to portray the powerful emotions felt
by Sappho towards her cherished student.
After Sappho hears her beloved’s laughter she becomes speechless, and she
cannot focus on what is happening around her and can only hear "strange sounds." Lim
explains the interaction between the vocal and instrumental tone colors relating to the
timbral quality of the poetry (the ancient Greek heard as abstract vocables), stating, "I
tried to set up many points of contact and ambiguity between the singer and the
325
Lim, Voodoo Child, 49.
123
instruments in a timbral spectrum ranging from pure tone to distorted noise. As such, the
ensemble sings together as a complex organism, each part an indivisible aspect of the
sounding of the poetry."326 Lim continues to incorporate many instrumental textures,
including Asian qualities conveyed in the sound effects played by the instruments. Lim
employs a fusion of microtones in the instruments. It first begins with a single pitch, then
the interval becomes wider and wavering.
Overblowing in the winds and brass instruments and microtonal embellishments
are influences from Ligeti and Ferneyhough. Lim’s use of extended techniques also
includes key clicks, tongue slaps, multi-phonics, and singing through the instrument
while playing, all derived from effects used by the composers named previously. For
example, the flute tongue slaps produce a popping sound while playing a note that is
followed by a glissando.327 The clarinet imitates the notes of the flute but with a texture
that is particularly thin, similar to the cello’s glassy texture. The trombone player is
instructed to sing into the instrument, which is a type of multiphonic; this is to acquire a
variation in breathing or articulation technique. The flute performs a mixture of tongue
slaps and key clicks.328 Lim combines sounds to offer a variety of instrumental color.
326
Lim, Programme Notes.
327
The sound is created when the suction is released and the popping sound the
reed produces is amplified and travels through the instrument. "Slap tonguing," http://en.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Slap_Tonguing, accessed November 1, 2013.
328
Clicking the keys of an instrument without the sound.
124
Double buzz or split tone is employed as well, asking the wind or brass player to
set their lips to vibrate at different speeds so that two pitches may be perceived, a multiphonic effect also used by Xenakis. In Voodoo Child, the trombone performs a split tone
when asked to "shape [the] vocal cavity to produce indicated vowel/consonant sounds
(but do not sing),"329 so that two different pitches are heard. In the score, overtone
glissandos must be played "free through the harmonic series in moving slide position,"330
resulting in an ethereal sound that is delicate, subtle, and almost ghost-like—evoking the
haunting memories between Sappho and her dear student.
The extended string techniques include col legno battuto and col legno tratto.331
According to Lim, these, and sul ponticello, help "different harmonics to ring out and to
enhance with vibrato."332 While the soprano rests, the playful sequential notes by the
violin and the flute are exact imitations of each other, and repeated throughout the work.
Lim instructs the percussionist to place a medium cymbal on top of the timpani to
change the sound quality of the instrument. For Lim, combining instruments changes
their timbral quality and the performer’s abilities are imperative because she believes in
329
Lim, Voodoo Child.
330
Ibid., 43.
331
Col legno battuto is when the string is struck with the stick of the bow and the
sound is sharp, eerie, and percussive. Col legno tratto is when the wood of the bow is
drawn across the strings and produces a quiet sound over a white noise, but the pitch of
the note is still heard. "Col legno," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Col_legno, accessed
November 1, 2013.
332
Lim, Voodoo Child.
125
"exploring and expanding the possibility of each instrument and it has allowed her to
develop a way of writing that conveys a precise sonic intention while trusting the players
with a degree of latitude in finding the best route to it. This tension between specificity
and freedom energizes her music."333 Once again, Sappho hears only the drumming or
pounding of "strange sounds," as is demonstrated by the percussion.
The overall repetition of microtonal dissonances, transcending textures, and the
layering of sounds in Voodoo Child became Lim’s signature for future works. She
expresses her views of her style saying, "my work becomes more about creating ritual.
One useful definition of ritual for me is that it is a mode whereby rhythmicized elements,
that is, repetition or the collection of actions into habit, offer a framework to observe
moments of change, moments of transitions towards and away from more unbounded
states."334 The unusual textures make Lim’s music distinctive from other composers and
have given her freedom of expression; she writes "I like to work with these polarities,
finding ways of weaving connections across boundaries or intensifying the differences
and the friction between elements which then forms part of the expressivity of my
musical language."335 Although Lim’s music is difficult to analyze and perform, Lim
333
Tim Rutherford-Johnston, "Patterns of Shimmer: Liza Lim’s Compositional
Ethnography," Tempo 65, 258 (2011): 2.
334
Liza Lim, "Staging an Aesthetics of Presence." Search Journal for New Music
and Culture, http://www.searchnewmusic.org/lim.pdf, accessed November 1, 2013.
335
Liza Lim, quoted in Szpirglas.
126
states that "I am more concerned about the quality of the performance of my music and it
is a very critical part of what attracts people to hear my music."336
Lim’s passion on mysticism and complexity of her music definitely fits her style.
The combination of layered textures, new timbres, and extended techniques for
instruments and voice results in a disturbing yet melancholic sound, suggestive of
Sappho’s emotions of bitterness and sadness for losing her beloved student to be married.
Lim views Sappho as a mystical and sexual figure and her style of music is an expression
of evoking emotions connected to Sappho’s poems in a modern poetic approach.
336
Liza Lim, quoted in Jane Gruchy, "Alchemical Journey- Part One: Liza Lim."
November 19, 2007, http://australianmusiccentre.comau/article/alchemical-journey-partone-liza-lim, accessed November 1, 2013.
127
CHAPTER 6
AUGUSTA READ THOMAS
Biographical Sketch
Augusta Read Thomas’s numerous awards and numerous commissions mark her
as a first-rate contemporary composer. Thomas was born on April 24, 1964 in Glen
Cove, New York. She studied with William Karlins and Alan Stout at Northwestern
University (1983-87) and with Jacob Druckman at Yale University in 1988, where she
received her M.M. degree in composition. She also attended the Royal Academy of
Music in London from 1988 to 1989 and Harvard University in 1994.
In 1989, Thomas received world recognition for her work Wind Dance (1989)
when it was performed in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s Horizons ’90 series.
Thomas has won a number of other awards and honors, among them ASCAP prizes
(1987-91), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) fellowships (1988, 1992, 1994),
a Guggenheim fellowship (1989), the International Orpheus Prize for Opera of Spoleto,
Italy (1994), the Charles Ives fellowship (1994), Rockefeller Foundation grant (1997),
Koussevitzky Award (1999), Siemens Foundation Prize (2000) in Munich, the Debussy
Trio Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1989,
1994, 2001).
In addition to these, Thomas also received commissions from orchestras and
chamber ensembles, including Vigil (1990) for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony
128
Orchestra; Air and Angels (1992) and Manifesto (1995) for the National Symphony
Orchestra; Chanson (1996) and Brass Axis (1997), commissioned by Mstislav
Rostropovich; Passions (1998) for St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Aurora: Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra (1999) for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; Daylight Divine
(2001), premiered by the Indianapolis Children’s Choir at the Festival St. Denis in Paris;
and Blizzard in Paradise (2001) for eight cellos of the National Symphony of
Washington, D.C. In 2007, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music for her work
Astral Canticle (2005) for flute, violin, and orchestra. There are forty-eight recordings of
Thomas’s music and she has also self-produced five recordings of her twenty-three
compositions. The publisher of her music is G. Schirmer, Inc.
From 1997 to 2006, Thomas was composer-in-residence for the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, she was inducted into the prestigious American Academy
of Arts and Letters. She has held teaching positions at the Eastman School of Music in
Rochester, New York from 1993 to 2001, and at Northwestern University, from 2001 to
2006. Currently, she is the Professor of Composition at the University of Chicago and is
chair of Composition at the New Music School in Chicago. She is married to British
composer Bernard Rands.
In the beginning of her music career, Thomas concentrated on composing
instrumental works; her compositions are described by musicologist Paul Griffiths as
"complex, dramatic large-scale works and smaller educational works" expressing "a
confident and poetic feeling for the substance and drama of sound—a feeling
129
communicated in part by her titles: Angel Chant (1991) for piano trio, Words of the Sea
(1996) for orchestra, Night’s Midsummer Blaze ALELLUIA (1996) for flute, viola, and
harp."337 In her large-scale works, such in Words of the Sea (1996), Thomas incorporates
intricate textures, rhythms, and tempi. She also uses melodic expansion and reduction
and note cells, by either adding or modifying intervals.
After years of immersing herself in poetry, Thomas shifted her compositional
focus to vocal works, stating, "People think of me as an orchestral composer, but actually
what I’ve done most is write for voice."338 She considers herself a lyricist and is
fascinated with the human voice. One interviewer notes that "When she receives a
request for a commission, she would ask if she could add a voice part."339 She gives
much effort to make sure that poetry and music are perfectly matched and that her vocal
music is both rich in melody and responsive in poetry.
Thomas values her art highly, avoiding clichés. According to Philip Kennicott of
the Washington Post, "She is in favor of musical independence and does not look to
musical schlock and pop tunes for redemption in the concert hall. [She does not] dip into
337
Paul Griffiths, "Augusta Read Thomas," in The Oxford Companion to Music,
2007, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com, accessed May 26, 2013.
338
Jeremy Glazier, "The Capacity—and Caprice—of the New: Some Thoughts
on Augusta Read Thomas and the OSU Contemporary Music Festival," 2010, http://
augustareadthomas.com/glazier.html, accessed May 26, 2013.
339
Augusta Read Thomas, quoted in Reed Perkins, "Interview with Augusta Read
Thomas." Journal of the Conductors Guild 23 (June/September 2002): 2-16, http://
augustareadthomas.com/perkins.html, accessed May 26, 2013.
130
the treacly reservoir of familiar habits and melodic ideas for inspiration."340 Thomas’s
critics speak highly of her craft and artistry, as well as the accessibility of her music and
her connection with the audience.
John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune claims that "Thomas’s music, particularly
her orchestral music, fairly explodes with an extroverted boldness of utterance audiences
and musicians alike find challenging. It’s music that doesn’t sound like anybody else’s—
music that insists you pay attention."341
When Thomas composes, she claims to already know exactly how the music will
sound and she confirms it by singing the pitches before she writes them. She wants her
audience to understand that her music is composed solely for their ears, stating "if there’s
one thing that people should understand about my music, it’s that I heard it."342 Thomas
often omits accompaniment or counterpoint; instead Stephen Ferre suggests her melodies
are "embellished harmonically or are sustained, creating a harmonic canvas over which
further melodic material is overlaid."343
340
Philip Kennicott, quoted in James R. Briscoe, "Augusta Read Thomas," in New
Historical Anthology of Music by Women (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 2004), 497.
341
John von Rhein, "Review of In My Sky at Twilight, 2002," in the Chicago
Tribune, http://www.augustareadthomas.com/twilight.html, accessed May 26, 2013.
342
Augusta Read Thomas, quoted in Harriet Smith, "A Citizen of the World,"
http://augustareadthomas.com/citizen.html, accessed May 26, 2013.
343
Stephen Ferre, "Augusta Read Thomas." Grove Music Online, 2007,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com, accessed May 26, 2013.
131
The primary influence in her aesthetic of music is Pierre Boulez (b. 1925), who
premiered her works Orbital Beacons, Concerto for Orchestra (1998) and In My Sky at
Twilight (2001), and to whom she dedicated both works. Thomas also has a love for
Bach and she also explains that she wants her music to sound new and fresh. Thomas’s
other musical influences include Beethoven, Stravinsky, Mahler, as well as the French
School of the early twentieth century. While each of these composers has diverse
compositional styles, Thomas is cautious not to sound like one of them. Seth Brodsky
wrote, "While her structural sense is Germanic, the sensual lineage of her musical
language is French: its gestural clarity seems possessed by the best of Debussy’s
pianism."344 Clearly, she is highly influenced by French composers Debussy, Ravel,
Messiaen, Boulez, and Varèse, for her music is sophisticated, graceful, distinguished, and
emotionally moving. Titles such as Orbital Beacons (1998) or Astral Canticle (2005) are
vague due to her fondness for the poetic titles of Debussy, she wants to maintain a
mysteriousness to compel audiences to listen.
Some of her works are influenced by American jazz—she has been an avid fan for
thirty years. She coined the term "captured improvisation," explaining "I like my music
to have the feeling [it] is organically being self-propelled on the spot."345 However, her
definition of improvisation is different from jazz; she does not leave her music to chance
344
Seth Brodsky, "‘Seeking the Spheres to Connect Them . . . :’ The Music of
Augusta Read Thomas." November 2001, http://www.augustareadthomas.com/Brodsky
.html, accessed May 26, 2013.
345
Augusta Read Thomas, "Augusta on Jazz Influences on Her Work," http://
augustareadthomas.com/biography.html, accessed May 26, 2013.
132
nor does she give performers great latitude. She claims that her notation is highly
organized, exact, and balanced throughout.
Thomas draws her compositional energy from the cosmos. Brodsky states that
"Thomas’s music actually moves toward—four images that indeed dominate: the Voice,
the Bell, the Sun, and the Spirit."346 An example of her work incorporating such an
image is a . . . circle around the sun . . . (1999) for piano, violin, and cello. In this work,
she used bells to represent the sun, the ultimate energy source and Thomas’s "greatest
muse." She stated, "I feel as if the sun writes my music."347 Thomas also focused on the
sun’s energy portrayed in her piano concerto Aurora (1999) and in her choral and
orchestral work Daylight Divine (2001).
Thomas’s vocal music has been premiered and recorded by many choruses,
including the works Love Songs (1997) for SATB and The Rub of Love (1997) for SATB
chorus, recorded by the Grammy-winner, all-male a cappella chorus Chanticleer. Her
opera Ligeria (1994), with libretto by Leslie Dunton-Downer on a short story by Edgar
Allan Poe, won the International Orpheus Prize and was premiered in Spoleto, Italy.
Thomas collaborated with librettist Dunton-Downer on two more operas, both in
progress: Dreams in the Cave of Eros and Kashgar.
Robert Maycock of The Independent in London states that "Thomas shows an
unmistakable air of knowing what she wants to say and how to say it. There is a
346
Brodsky.
347
Augusta Read Thomas, quoted in Briscoe, 498.
133
powerful lyrical instinct at work."348 A more in-depth look into In My Sky at Twilight:
Songs of Passion and Love for solo soprano and chamber orchestra may offer support to
her claim as a lyricist in setting ancient and modern poetry including Sappho’s texts.
In My Sky at Twilight: Songs of Passion and Love (2002)
Thomas derived the title of her song cycle from Pablo Neruda’s poem In My Sky
at Twilight, one of the texts included in her two-movement cycle for solo soprano and
chamber orchestra, commissioned for MusicNow, a new music chamber series of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra.349 Thomas dedicated the work with "admiration and
gratitude" to Pierre Boulez, Christine Brandes, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It
was premiered in Chicago on December 1, 2002, with Christine Brandes as the soprano
soloist. This work was intended for a concert performance or a ballet/dance performance.
Thomas notes in the score that she also plans a small choral version intended as a one-act
music theater/opera work.350
Thomas’s broad-ranging knowledge of poetry is particularly evident in this song
cycle. She chose poems from both ancient and modern times because of their powerful
expressions of love and passion. Each of the two movements has a theme: the first,
"Deeper than All Roses," is about love and passion; and the second, "Lament," is about
348
Robert Maycock, "Review of Augusta Read Thomas’s Music," in The
Independent, London, http://augustareadthomas.com/biography.html, accessed May 26,
2013.
349
Also written in loving memory of Marilyn M. Simpson.
350
Augusta Read Thomas, In My Sky at Twilight, Songs of Passion and Love, for
solo soprano and chamber orchestra (New York: G. Schirmer Inc., 2002).
134
remembering the memories and mourning the loss of that a loved one. Thomas has
chosen the translation by Willis Barnstone in the short Sappho fragment.351 Like Sheila
Silver, Thomas’s choice is a particularly powerful fragment set in the first movement.
Text Analysis
Willis Barnstone provides a title to this fragment: "To Atthis," who is Sappho’s
pupil. Clearly, Sappho’s erotic expression in language and imagery in this fragment is
TABLE 22. Movement I: Poetry in Deeper than All Roses
Selection
Measure
Ono no Komachi
9th Century
Robert Browning
(1812-1889)
Kokinshu
5-6,
11-14
15-20,
22-23
Gustave Flaubert
(1821-1880)
Madame
Bovary, 1857
Kshetrayya
17th Century
DancingGirl’s Song
Sappho
ca. 613-580 B.C.
To Atthis
Poetry
Poet
351
The Ring and
the Book, 1869
24-26,
28-32,
34
37-51,
56-59
66-67,
69-70,
72
Ablaze with desire . . .
O lyric love, half angel and
half bird
And all a wonder and a wild
desire.
Love . . . had to come
suddenly . . . carrying one’s
heart to the edge of the abyss.
On the sweet honey of his
words, my heart floated;
from the fire of his kiss, my
lips still burn.
Love—bittersweet,
irrepressible—Loosens my
limbs and I tremble.352
Sappho fragment in italics in the first movement will be analyzed.
352
Barnstone, 72. This poem is also set by Sheila Silver, for text analysis, see
chapter 3, 84-6.
135
TABLE 22. Continued
E.E. Cummings (1894- Somewhere I
1962)
Have Never
Traveled
73-85,
Somewhere I have never
traveled, gladly beyond any
experience, your eyes have
their silence:
in your most frail gesture are
things which enclose me . . .
88-100,
102-113
Anonymous
ca. 1085-ca. 570 B.C.
Ancient
Egyptian Love
Lyric
Gerard Manley
Hopkins (1844-1889)
Repeat that,
repeat
136
nothing we are to perceive I
this world equals the power of
your intense fragility: whose
texture
compels
me with the color of its
countries,
rendering death and forever
with each breathing
(I do not know what it is about
you closes and opens;
only something in me
understands the voice of your
eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain,
has such small hands
118-125 For the heavens are sending us
love like a flame
Spreading through straw
And desire like the swoop of
the falcon!
60-64, Repeat that, repeat,
127-128, Cuckoo, bird, and open ear
130-132, wells,
145-147, heart-springs, delightfully
sweet, With a ballad, with a
ballad, a rebound
Off trundled timper and scoops
150,
of the hillside ground, hollow
160-161 Hollow ground:
The whole landscape flushes
on a sudden at a sound
TABLE 22. Continued
William Stanley
Merwin (b. 1927)
Kore
(excerpts)
Gerard Manley
Hopkins
Moonrise,
1876
165,
You were shaking and an air
full of leaves
Flowed out of the dark falls of
your hair
166,
Down over the rapids of your
knees
168,
172,
Until I touched you and you
grew quiet
173-176, And raised to me
Your hands and your eyes and
showed me
176-178 Twice my face burning in
amber
179-181, This was the prized, the
desirable sight,
182-183, Unsought, presented so easily,
184-188 Parted me leaf and leaf,
divided me, eyelid and eyelid
of slumber.
extremely strong: she also describes love as an overpowering force resembling a wild
animal (or a reptile) capable of completely overpowering her body.353
Music Analysis
In My Sky at Twilight is set for chamber orchestra with various percussion
instruments, including vibraphone, tubular chimes, and antique cymbals.354 Thomas
353
For text analysis, see chapter 3, 84-6.
354
Audio sample is available on the composer’s website, Thomas, "Audio Files,
Orchestral Works, In My Sky at Twilight (2002), third sample," http://augustareadthomas
.com/twilight.html, accessed February 2, 2014.
137
suggests that the two movements are based on the theme of a "fantastic dream of love and
spans the chasm of death."355 She also mentions an orchestral interlude that separates the
two movements, where Christina Rossetti’s poem Echo, (m. 9, movement. II) sets up not
only the beginning of movement two, but it also resolves the ending the movement from
the theme about love and separation in death.356
Thomas uses extended techniques and special effects for instruments and the
voice. For instance, the vibraphone is bowed or played with wire brushes. The crotales
and suspended cymbals are also bowed. The piano is played pizzicato by plucking the
strings inside with the fingers, or for louder notes, with a guitar pick inside the piano. In
some sections of the song cycle, the soprano is given ossia notes. For example, when the
singer is instructed to sing in an "intimate" mood, she is instructed to "whisper largely for
their noise content and it is not necessary that each word be clearly understood or there is
also an optional pitch which can be sung, instead of the whisper."357
The song cycle has the appropriate subtitle Songs of Passion and Love; Thomas
instructs that it must be performed in a "blazing, urgent, passionate" manner, as if a
person is feeling the powerful effects of love.358 Thomas gives the soprano clearly
feminine gendered directions of mood, asking at times to be "husky, sexy, elegant,"
355
Augusta Read Thomas, "Program Note for In My Sky at Twilight, 2002,"
November, 2002, http://augustareadthomas.com/twilight.html, accessed April 7, 2014.
356
Ibid.
357
Thomas, In My Sky at Twilight, 17.
358
Ibid., 1.
138
"suddenly intimate," "delicate, expressive," "almost playfully," "daydreaming of
something sensuous," " sweetly, erotic," "dramatic," "graceful," "fluid, nimble," and
"clean, elegant, sincere," among others.359 Thomas also gives instrumental directions as
well including "hushed and fragile," "like laughter," "passionate," "intimate," "dramatic,
intense, bold," "spunky and intense," "like a quick tickle," "expressively elegant,"
"delicate, slow," "ethereal and dreamy," "fiery, ablaze," "alluring," among others.360
Throughout the song cycle, Thomas provides performance directions to the singer and
musicians, and she chose the various poems with common themes of love, burning,
desire, trembling, breathing, silence, and death in order to enhance the mood and drive
emotions of the text.
In the first movement, the first lines in measure 5, "Ablaze with desire," by poet
Ono no Komachi and in measure 5, "O lyric love, half angel and half bird And all a
wonder and a wild desire," by Robert Browning in measure 15, are musically in contrast
with each other according to Thomas, for the first poem is "fiery, colorful, elegant, and
bold, and the next one is tender, gentle, and smooth sounding."361
In the brief measures of Sappho’s text (mm. 66-72), the poetess describes how the
powers and effects of love may relax the limbs or may overpower a person like a striking
359
Ibid., 4-5, 11, 18, 31, 40, 41, 61, 63, 72.
360
Ibid., 3, 5, 8, 17, 30, 41-42, 46-47, 52, 60.
361
Augusta Read Thomas, "Program Note for In My Sky at Twilight." November
2002, http://augustareadthomas.com/twilight.html, accessed April 7, 2014.
139
reptile, causing the heart to beat as if it is trembling or shaking.362 The instruments are
directed colla voce, that is, to follow the singer in tempo and rhythm. As the soprano
chants Sappho’s text, "Love– bittersweet, irrepressible—loosens my limbs," in a
recitation-style line she sustains the line in the high register. A vocalise with tritone leaps
introduces the text "Love bittersweet, irrepressible," which suggest both pleasure and
pain. A relaxed state is by no means is heard for the interpretation of "loosens my
limbs;" rather, the tempo is fast, and the soprano sings from forte to fortissimo while the
instruments play frenetically. Thomas emphasizes on the word "tremble" twice sung,
fortissimo, to convey the strong effect of love on Sappho. Thomas’s play on dynamics,
especially twice on fortissimo, accentuates Sappho’s orgasms aroused by Atthis and also
the power of Eros overtaking her body. After a repeated recitation of the poem, in the
end this time Thomas finally succumbs to the idea of the "relaxed limbs;" as the soprano
is instructed to sing the phrase decreasing from a mezzo forte to piano and "whisper
freely and slowly, with a ritardando."363
Thomas’s use of special effects in the instrumental textures, high range melodies
in the vocal line, and the poetic imagery of various texts set up the overall "sensuous
mood" of the first movement and the somber mood of the second movement. John Rhein
from the Chicago Tribune claims "if Boulez works by extension, Thomas’s ‘songs of
love and passion’ work by accretion—layering a colorful, often sensuous array of
362
For text analysis, see chapter 3, 84-6.
363
Thomas, In My Sky at Twilight, 17.
140
sonorities from eighteen strings, winds and percussion under the ecstatic leaps and
lamenting descents of her lyrical, expressionistic vocal lines, and thread these disparate
texts into a richly varied tapestry. Thomas’s texts jump across the centuries, forming a
poetic patchwork."364
For Thomas to consider one of Sappho’s poems in her song cycle clearly has
influenced her with its poetic imagery and meaning of love, passion, and sexuality.
Thomas considers Sappho as a feminine figure as it matches with the composer’s
feminine gendered directions and the thematic selections of Sappho’s text and her female
feelings on love and sexual trembling. The common bond between these two women is
their drive to evoke female emotions, which gives each of one of them an individual
freedom of expression as women.
364
Rhein.
141
CHAPTER 7
MARY ELLEN CHILDS
Biographical Sketch
Mary Ellen Childs is a prolific contemporary American composer. Born on April
13, 1957 in Lafayette, Indiana, she grew up in Manitowoc, Wisconsin where she took
ballet, flute, and piano lessons. She studied at Lawrence University in Appleton,
Wisconsin; she received her B.A. degree at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis;
and her graduate and doctoral degrees at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
Childs has received commissions from many prestigious institutions, including
the American Dance Festival, Kronos Quartet, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the
Rockefeller Multi-Arts Fund in (1998, 2003, and 2006). She is the recipient of numerous
fellowships, including the Jerome Foundation for her choral work Bright Faces (1990);
which we will consider here; the Minnesota State Arts Board (1998, 2002), and the
Minnesota Composers Forum. She was recently awarded $50,000 from USA Friends
Fellow as "America’s finest artist" in 2011. Childs has been invited to be composer-inresidence with several organizations, including St. Olaf College and the National
Endowment for the Arts Composer-In-Residence program (2001-02). She was visiting
instructor in Music Composition at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, and is a
board member of the American Composers Forum.
142
Mostly known as a multimedia composer, Childs founded and currently the
artistic director of CRASH, an ensemble that performs music and movement. Presently,
Childs resides in the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, where she continues
to be the director of CRASH and Wild Fire, the latter an all-female ensemble. She is
currently working on her first opera, Propeller, with a libretto by Marisha Chamberlain, a
commission by Nautilus Music Theater. Her practice of Kundalini yoga and its
philosophy inspired her to write her Dream House, for string quartet and with multiimage videos, as well as the new opera, Propeller. Both works drew inspiration from
movement, sparked by the idea of flight. According to Childs, "I want to stay in the
world, moving into new areas," as she hopes to work with a director and to write a score
for a feature film sometime in the near future.365
Mary Ellen Childs’s creative process is intense, for she is not only focused on the
audio, but also the visual aspects in theatrical production of her works. Growing up as a
dancer has benefited Childs, for she composes music influenced by dance rhythms and
incorporates percussion. Gene Tyranny holds that "Childs prefers to compose using her
intuition and sense of musical balance, rather than employ specific compositional systems
to create her lyrical compositions that delight in rhythmic variation and subtlety of
365
Allison Morse, "Minneapolis composer Mary Ellen Childs: Weaving Music
and Movement," in Twin Cities DAILY PLANET, September 30, 2008, http://www.tcdaily
planet.net/article/2008/09/30/minneapolis-composer-mary-ellen-childs-weaving-musicand-movement.html, accessed September 4, 2013.
143
mood."366 Surprisingly, for many years, she was afraid to compose in real time. Childs
says that "It is anxiety-producing to be on the spot, but going into a new area of your life
or thinking, if you’re not scared, you’re missing out. There’s a lot of richness."367 The
Minnesota Original Arts website describes how she uses "unlikely objects to create music
that sets her apart from other composers. Whether through body percussion, multi-screen
video, or other freshly innovated theatrical devices, Childs’s cascading cadences of sight
and sound showcase how immersive her work has become."368 Writer Allison Morse
states that Childs has delighted critics and audiences alike with her fresh sounds, noting
that Childs tries to "create an element of surprise for the audience," and for herself.
Uniting music and movement truly makes this composer distinct from others.369
Of her many percussion compositions, Click (1989) established her reputation
securely. Childs did not use a score to compose this piece; she states that she made it up
as she went along.370 She has received critical acclaim and a wide following from
international audiences. Elle Magazine said, "In her works, she integrates evocative and
engaging polyrhythms, crystalline textures, fluid and lyric writing, wordless vocals, and
366
Gene Tyranny, "Mary Ellen Childs," http://answers.com/topic/mary-ellenchilds-classical-musician, accessed September 4, 2013.
367
Mary Ellen Childs, quoted in Morse.
368
"Mary Ellen Childs," January 27, 2011, www.mnoriginals.org/episode/mn-ori
ginal-show-223/mary-ellen-childs/, accessed September 13, 2013.
369
Mary Ellen Childs, quoted in Morse.
370
Ibid.
144
she creates . . . a truly universal world that’s primordial in its understanding of
humanity," and MS Magazine described her music as "a beautifully cut crystal glass that
refracts the world around it."371 Vocal and choral works dominate Childs’s output,
including Bright Faces (1990), for chorus and two pianos; Night (1992), for soprano and
piano; and Propeller, a full-length opera now in progress. We now turn to the haunting
sound of Child’s choral work, Bright Faces.
Bright Faces (1990)
Bright Faces is written for SATB chorus, solo voices, and two pianos. It was
commissioned by the Dale Warland Singers, and premiered on March 15, 1990 at the
Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Since its premiere, it has been performed by other
choral groups, including in 1994 by the Faye Dumont Singers in Melbourne, Australia.
Childs employs Sappho’s fragment that is "a tribute to the moon as it lights the earth with
silver light," in a translation by Mary Barnard.372
Text Analysis
According to Willis Barnstone, this poem was quoted by a twelfth-century
grammarian and literary critic Eustathius of Thessalonica, as part of his commentary on
Illiad: "In the expression, ‘around the shining moon’ one should not interpret this as the
371
In Elle Magazine, quoted in Tyranny, "Mary Ellen Childs," in MS Magazine,
http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/Childs.shtml, accessed September 4, 2013.
372
William B. Wells, "Commissioning Programs at Work: Five Recent Choral
Compositions by American Composers," Choral Journal 33, no. 9 (April, 1993): 37.
145
full moon, for then the stars would be outshone and appear dim, as Sappho says."373
Also, Roman emperor Julian, from the fourth-century AD, refers to the poem in a letter to
sophist Hekebolios writing "Sappho . . . says the moon is silver and so hides the other
stars from view."374 Diane Rayor confirms that stars are not visible during a full moon,
perhaps it refers to "a beautiful woman who outshines even other beautiful women."375
TABLE 23. Mary Barnarnd, Frag. 24: Awed by Her Splendor
Awed by her splendor
Stars near the lovely
moon cover their own
bright faces
when she
is roundest and lights
earth with her silver
In the poem, the stars give their reverence to the moon. They were in complete
"awe by her splendor" and her fullness as she provides light to all the earth. Margaret
Williamson interprets the moon as representing a goddess, perhaps Selene or Aphrodite,
373
Eustathius, quoted in Barnstone, 285.
374
Carson, 364.
375
Rayor, 162.
146
who stands at the center surrounded by her companions who represent the stars.376
Selene’s story tells of her desire for the mortal man, Endymion, and she is known to have
partaken in sexual activities with males, both gods and mortals. The powerful light and
splendor of the moon also represents fertility or a woman’s menstrual cycle.377
Williamson states that as the light of the moon shines brightly and spreads throughout the
earth, it shows its majestic power and magical radiance.378 Moreover, she suggests
Sappho as a priestess of a worship that takes place at night, at the rising moon, and the
gathering of celebrants is a consistent theme in several fragments of Sappho.379
Music Analysis
Bright Faces is a quiet and mysterious sounding work, which matches the
composer’s instructions to be sung "quietly and with pure tone."380 The movement
through the choral work is very slow, and the text is stretched out. The piano parts are all
wide ranging and disjunct; the "twinkling" sound of the piano represents the sparkle of
the stars around the moon. The interweaving of the voices creates a colorful texture
without affecting the accompaniment or musical flow. Childs’s use of repeated and
376
Williamson, 151.
377
Ibid., 152.
378
Ibid.
379
Ibid., 151.
380
Mary Ellen Childs, Bright Faces for SATB Chorus, 2 Pianos and Soloists
(Places Please Publishing, 1990), 1.
147
fragmented words or phrases, and gradual building of dynamics and tempo, are very
effective in capturing Sappho’s tribute to the splendor of the moon.
Like Sappho, Childs’s composition also seems reverential to the moon, for there
are repeated words such as "awe," "stars," and the phrases, "awed by her splendor," or
"stars near the lovely moon." The altos melismatic treatment of "awe" sets a soft, almost
angelic, pure tone, in "juxtaposition to the clanging, blocked, percussive piano parts with
smooth, lyrical choral parts."381 The vocal lines interweave among each other in
imitation. According to William Wells, "the choral writing shows the influence of
sixteenth-century polyphony. One hears linear independence in the lines as the four to
eight vocal parts spin out their webs of melody. Rhythms are smooth, beautiful
unaccompanied solo sections, generally for two high sopranos, are interspersed with
choral sections."382
Sopranos sing "awe" melismatically, and, as noted, "expressively."383 Wells
believes that "the composer has limited herself to just seven notes of the Aeolian mode,
transposed to F. This clearly projected modality—without leading tones—gives the
music a sense of stasis: of being in process, never arriving."384 Word painting on
381
Wells, 37.
382
Ibid.
383
Childs, 6.
384
Wells, 37.
148
extended melismas with the word "awe" by the two solo sopranos and altos. The word
"awe" becomes a refrain and recurs sometimes with two solo sopranos or with the chorus.
The texture of the sound changes when the voices become more homophonic as
they declaim together their admiration for the moon. Moreover, the vocal lines sing
smoothly, blending well together and homorhythmically, exactly the way the composer
instructed it to be: "smoothly; not overstated; very blended."385 The piano parts are more
active and syncopated than before, and continue to present the role of the stars with their
"sparkling" or "twinkling" sound. The composer continues to play with sound texture as
the tempo grows faster; the tenors sing "awe" in percussive statements and the pianos
both share percussive rhythms with one another while basses remain sustained. Child is
verily fond of the word "awe" and she instructs the two solo sopranos sing high F’s as if
"suspended momentarily" and for the "solos beautifully intertwined:"386 a third solo
soprano joins sopranos 1 and 2 in imitation singing melismatically "awe," resulting in
beautifully intertwined homophony. The tempo slows slightly and the accompaniment
returns to being syncopated and disjunct. To William Wells, "it is lively and
rhythmically jazzy. At times, the piano parts dominate [while] the chorus supplies a
vocal accompaniment."387
385
Childs, 7.
386
Ibid., 16.
387
Wells, 38.
149
Even though choral voices break up the text in single phrases of the words "stars
near," they are instructed to sing "light and graceful."388 The accompaniment drops out
again to give way to the chorus’s a cappella singing of "stars near the lovely moon" to
pay homage to the moon by singing chant-like, then returning to the opening text "awed
by her splendor," which each voice recites on a single pitch with the accompanying
pedal. Text painting in the rising vocal line and accompaniment increases in dynamics as
the notes ascend, and reaching the climax, which depicts the rising moon in the night sky.
Homorhythmic voices in repeated recitation of the new text "bright faces" move
by a half step. Not only the opening tempo returns, but also for the "awe" text sung only
by the three solo sopranos in fearfully reverential state towards the moon. The two
pianos provide pulsating chord clusters and also play a short cadenza while the chorus
rests. The group of repeated chords gets louder and more articulated. Wells states that
"throughout, the pianos articulate the metric pulse with regular repeated quarter or eighth
notes that give a driving propulsion to the music. Explosive cascades of sixteenth notes
surface periodically to add a frenzied, virtuosic quality to the music"389 The music
gradually accelerates as well as the tempo and the text "awe" returns, and serving again
as a refrain. Also, the voices layer over other texts to create color or texture.
Near the end, the chorus sings yet another chant-like passage to the text "lights the
earth" in ascending and descending triplets, suggestive of the rays of the moon. Once
388
Childs, 22.
389
Wells, 38.
150
again, the solo sopranos sing a "beautifully intertwined" melismatic "awe" while the
chorus remains silent. Tenors and basses lead the rest of the chorus back into another
round of repeated text declamation on, "with her silver." All voice parts, including both
solo sopranos sing, loudly in their high registers and sustained in pitch, up to the fermata
which could have ended the piece. However, the composer offers the solo sopranos the
last "awe" declaration in high C, which is significant in depicting a fully reverential
treatment of the moon’s magnificence. The climax of the song is accompanied by a
dissonant chord cluster. Wells finds the accompanying chord clusters to be in:
a special effect which seems inspired by Stravinsky’s Les Noces: piano
bell-like chords which both begin and end the work. The reverberation
from these percussive chords creates a unique sonority, which the
composer manages with great finesse and expressivity. In the final pages
of the score, Childs uses the same effect, but with the addition of sustained
solo voices to prolong the reverberation of the dying piano chords. The
piece concludes with a mysterious stillness, as if the toiling bells go on to
infinity.390
The theme of moon worship is clear both in the poem and in Childs’s music. In
the ceremonial service, the solo sopranos serve as the cult leaders and the chorus as
worshippers. Childs provides imagery of the stars with the wide-ranging, disjunct, and
twinkling sound of the piano. The chorus provides a colorful homophonic texture, a
sixteenth-century polyphonic sound, and chant-like, homorhythmic vocal lines that
represent Sappho’s moon worshippers. In addition, the extended melismas and word
painting in the text suggests veneration to the moon. Child’s music was a clear
expression of pure beauty and mysteriousness as she sees Sappho as a priestess. With
390
Ibid.
151
Sappho’s ability in text imagery and Childs’s gift in music, both women are successfully
effective in uniting the text and music.
152
CHAPTER 8
PATRICIA VAN NESS
Biographical Sketch
American violinist, composer and poet Patricia Van Ness is known as the
modern-day Hildegard von Bingen for the way "she draws upon elements of medieval
and Renaissance music."391 Born on June 25, 1951 in Seattle, Washington, she received
composition degrees from Wheaton and Gordon colleges. Van Ness composed numerous
ballet and dance scores in 1985, was a staff composer at First Church in Cambridge,
Congregational in Massachusetts in 1996, and has been a composer-in-residence for Coro
Allegro (1998), Boston Athenaeum (2002-03), and Boston Landmarks Orchestra (2003).
Van Ness has received numerous grants, honors, and awards which include the
ASCAPLUS Award (1997-2013); the Daniel Pinkham Award (2011); Echo Klassik Prize
(2005), for Sapphire Night (2005), her nine-movement work and with music by
Hildegard; the Chamber Music America Award (2005), for album of the year recorded by
Tapestry with two of Van Ness’s works; the Alfred Nash Patterson Foundation Award
(2000, 2002, 2004), for Requiem (2004), In Principio (2002), Nocturnes (2000); and the
Meet the Composer Award (1998), for The Voice of the Tenth Muse (1998), a choral
391
"Patricia Van Ness, Biography," http://patriciavanness.com/bio.html, accessed
July 7, 2014.
153
work with texts by Sappho. She has also won the His Majesties’ Clerkes Choral
Composition Competition (1997), for Cor mei cordis (1997); and the Barbara Johnston
International Prize for Composers (1994), for Five Meditations (1994). Her music has
been commissioned, premiered, recorded, and performed by numerous artists and
ensembles worldwide, including The King Singers (UK), the Heidelberg New Music
Festival Ensemble, Chanticleer, Mannerquartett Schnittpunktvokal (Austria), the Musica
Sacra Festival in Maastricht (Holland), the Celebrity Series in Boston, the Spoletto
Festival Orchestra, Peter Sykes, Coro Allegro, and the Harvard University Choir.
Patricia Van Ness has been a lecturer at Harvard University and Boston University. She
lives in Maine with her husband Peter Marks.
Van Ness’s love for Hildegard’s music has greatly influenced her compositions,
which have been hailed by musicians, critics, and audiences alike. She specializes in
choral works, and is attracted to medieval organum and chant as well as Renaissance
music. Her style has been compared variously to the polyphonic textures of twelfthcentury composer Pérotin (1185-1205); the exquisite melodies and expressive modal
harmonies of Renaissance composer Josquin de Prez (1450-1521); and the open vocal
resonances in the melodies of English composer Thomas Tallis (1505-1585).392
Before Van Ness writes a new composition, she makes it a point to attend
rehearsals of the ensemble who will perform it. She explains that she is able to observe
392
Liane Curtis. "A Long Meditation on Love," Bay Windows, http://patriciavan
ness.com/reviews.html, accessed July 2, 2014.
154
and absorb the ensemble’s sound and their strengths, which in turn inspires her
composing.393 Van Ness considers the abilities of the singers by placing the tessitura in a
comfortable range for each individual.
The next step for Van Ness’s compositional process begins with choosing or the
text. However, her main focus is to write plenty of music, so she can fit in the text in the
proper movements of the work. She states that "I will begin assigning text to these
movements. This happens fairly organically, but I sometimes switch movements and
poetry around in order to fit the needs of the overall piece."394 Van Ness asserts that she
is attracted to text and to compose music that moves her.395 She understands the
relationship between poetry and music, which results for her in melodies that are
beautiful, graceful, and heavenly sounding. She says that her sole object is to "seek and
find out beauty’ which she says is ‘the strongest motivating force in my life."396
Generally, Van Ness writes vocal lines that start on the tonic and move in
ascending arches. After composing the vocal parts, she works in the orchestral textures
along with melodic and harmonic lines. However, not all of her choral works involve an
orchestra; some are a cappella. According to Van Ness, her compositional process is fun,
but difficult at the same time, and she loves working in the instrumental textures and
393
"Patricia Van Ness," e-mail to author, October 18, 2014.
394
Ibid.
395
Ibid.
396
Gary Higginson. "Review of The Nine Orders of the Angels, 1996, in Music
Web (UK), http://patriciavanness.com/reviews.html, accessed July 2, 2014.
155
along with the vocal lines. Among her choral compositions are Evensong (1993),
Arcanae (1995), Ego sum Custos Angela (1995), Michael (1996), The Nine Orders of the
Angels (1996), Cor mei cordis (1997), Advent and Other Anthems of the Liturgical Year
(1997), The Voice of the Tenth Muse (1998), Cor meum est templum sacrum (2001),
Sapphire Night (2005), among others. Patricia Van Ness’s recent project is composing
new music for each of the 150 Psalms. The text will be in English and Latin using the
Psalter and the Liber Usualis. Van Ness has a genuine talent for combining ancient texts
and a modern style of music, resulting in an evocative sound, exemplified in her setting
and interpretation of Sappho’s poetry in The Voice of the Tenth Muse.
The Voice of the Tenth Muse (1998)
Patricia Van Ness explains how she began her work on The Voice of the Tenth
Muse. She was attracted to Sappho’s text because her poetry, although ancient, is still
relevant to the modern world. She was proud to set Sappho’s poetry into music, stating
that "Sappho’s expressions of longing and love seemed to engage my imagination; for
me, this is one of the first steps in composing a new piece. I wanted to convey as much
as possible Sappho’s expressions of the same human condition and essential spirit that I
experience centuries later."397 Van Ness considered which translation of Sappho to use,
stating "I chose Diane Rayor’s beautiful translation of Sappho’s writing because, among
397
"Patricia Van Ness," e-mail.
156
other things, she doesn’t attempt to fill in the blanks of the fragments."398 Van Ness
derives the title of the song cycle from Plato’s well-known description of the poetess.
The choral work in nine movements is scored for solo soprano and full chorus. It
was commissioned and premiered by Coro Allegro, a Boston-based chorus, members and
friends of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community, with soprano soloist
Ruth Cunningham. It was dedicated to both David Hodgkins, the artistic director of Coro
Allegro. The text is in Greek and English, as shown below.
TABLE 24. Movements I-IX and Greek and English Languages
Movement
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
Language
Greek
Greek
Greek
English
Greek
English
English
Greek
Greek
According to Van Ness, she was not familiar with the Greek language, so she
consulted both the ancient and modern Greek, and also the transliterations of the poems
she set. There are two reasons why: first, she explains that she is "concerned with
pairing the appropriate syllable stress with the rhythmic beats;" and second, she is "drawn
398
Ibid.
157
to specifically pair the meaning of a word to the meaning of a musical phrase."399 The
solo soprano and the chorus are asked to sing Romanized Greek. In order to sing ancient
or modern Greek one must know the language, work with a coach, or use a transliteration
chart. The composer’s special instructions to the chorus are to sing "senza (without)
vibrato, using staggered breathing."400
I. Text Analysis
In the first movement, Van Ness chose only the last three lines of Sappho’s poem.
She omitted the middle lines but set the first four lines in the third movement.
According to translator Diane Rayor, the speaker [Sappho] may be addressing
Gongyla, whose name appears in the second line in the original Greek manuscript,401
although Rayor did not include her name in the translation. Confirmed by Anne Carson,
the name Gongyla is mentioned in "a second century A.D. papyrus . . . that identifies her
as ‘yoke-mate’ of a woman named Gorgo. No one knows what a ‘yoke-mate’ is
precisely. Yoking is a common term for marriage . . . ‘to unite in wedlock’ and that
means ‘wife’ when referring to females but simply ‘comrade’ when applied to males."402
399
Ibid.
400
Patricia Van Ness. The Voice of the Tenth Muse in Nine Movements for Solo
Soprano and Full Chorus (1998), http://patriciavanness.com/scores/TenthMuse.pdf,
accessed December 28, 2012.
401
Rayor, 162.
402
Carson, 363.
158
TABLE 25. Movements and Diane Rayor, Frag. 9
Movement
III
. . . I urge you . . .
. . . taking . . .
the lyre, while desire again . . .
wings round you
Omitted
text
Beautiful one, since the dress . . .
you saw excited you, and I rejoice
because the Kyprian herself
once blamed . . .
so I pray . . .
this . . .
…I want . . .
I, VIII
403
Mary Barnard asserts that Gorgo was an affluent woman and an enemy of Sappho
(another was Andromeda), while Gongyla was one of Sappho’s students.404 According to
Margaret Reynolds, Gorgo used to be Sappho’s companion.405 No information is
available on how the friendship ended in conflict. Willis Barnstone states that Gorgo was
also a poet and Gongyla was Sappho’s intimate friend.406 Sappho seemed to have
enemies not only because of competition between the schools for girls, but also because
of former students who left her for the companionship of another. If the term "yoke403
Rayor, 58. Rayor arranged Sappho’s fragments thematically according to the
probable chronological order of the poetess’s life.
404
Barnard, 113.
405
Reynolds, 4.
406
Barnstone, 311.
159
mate" is associated with union in marriage, then the relationship between Gorgo and
Gongyla seemed to be more than friends, and adding Sappho into the circle (more like a
love-triangle) implies a possible lesbian relationship with each other.407
The last three fragmentary lines constitute the text of Van Ness’s first movement,
a prayer to Aphrodite, who is mentioned in the omitted lines as "Kyprian." This is
another name for Aphrodite, as she was born on the island of Cyprus. As in many of her
poems, Sappho speaks of an object of desire—a woman. Clearly, this is a fervent petition
to Aphrodite to grant her the desire of her heart. Nevertheless, it may not be possible
as—Gongyla actually belongs to another; and this may be the reason why she asks for a
divine intervention from the Greek goddess of love.
I. Music Analysis
The sound and strength Coro Allegro, the commissioning ensemble, inspired Van
Ness. She states that she was "inspired by the precision of their attack on the first chord
of Johannes Brahms’s motet, Warum ist das Licht gegeben,"408 which she heard in a
rehearsal. In turn, it fueled the first full chord of the opening movement. In addition, she
admired soprano soloist Ruth Cunningham’s "pure tone, precise intonation, and virtuosic
range," against "the warmth and precision of the chorus."409
407
See figure 10, 166.
408
"Patricia Van Ness," e-mail.
409
Ibid.
160
The first movement is chant-like with soaring melodies of heavenly, open fifths
and octaves, suggesting medieval sonorities suitable for Sappho’s prayer to Aphrodite.
Text painting occurs when ascending vocal lines portray Sappho’s heavenly prayer.
Besides the ascending open fifths reminiscent of Hildegard, Van Ness also has the solo
soprano sing melismatic passages evoking a Phrygian scale (mm. 27-32) over sustained
drones by the altos and tenors. At times the composer stretches the singers’ ranges,
making the long phrases challenging and requiring staggered breathing. The slow tempo
and the drawn out phrases emphasize Sappho’s longing desire.
This time, the soprano’s solo (m. 35) is distinctive, dissonant, and melismatic,
traits which are repeated in the fifth movement. Although Sappho pleads with Aphrodite,
the dissonance suggests that her request may not be granted because the woman she
yearns for is with her enemy. The soaring melismatic melodies return near the end of the
movement, and in the combination of voices and polyphonic textures seamlessly weaves
around the text. Van Ness was able to capture the spiritual mood of Sappho’s prayer
along with the perfect "yoke-mate" between the text and music.
II. Text Analysis
The second movement is Sappho’s invitation to Aphrodite to manifest her powers.
The island of Crete, according to Willis Barnstone, was thought to be the original place
of worship of Aphrodite.410 Sappho asks the goddess to leave Krete and come to a sacred
410
Barnstone, 288.
161
place—a holy temple with an apple grove where the singing voices of women
worshippers gathered for this ancient ritual, most likely at night under the full moon.
TABLE 26. Diane Rayor, Frag. 2
Come to me from Krete to this holy
temple, to the apple grove,
the altars smoking
with frankincense
Cold water ripples through apple
branches, the whole place shadowed
in roses, from the murmuring leaves
deep sleep descends,
where horses graze, the meadow blooms
spring flowers, the winds
breathe softly . . .
Here, Krypris, after gathering . . .
pour into golden cups
nectar lavishly
you pour as wine411
In the poem, Sappho’s calling on to Aphrodite conveys her personal relationship
with the goddess. Yet beyond this, she intercedes for all the women, her poem providing
a lovely description of the surrounding: "The altars are filled with smoke and aroma of
frankincense;" "cold ripples of water" produce a clear sound, and "the murmuring" or the
411
Rayor, 53; this poem is also set by Sheila Silver, see chapter 3, 61-5 and
appendix, 208.
162
rustling sound of the leaves creates an ambiance that causes one to relax and fall into a
"deep sleep." After sexual intercourse, one’s natural body response is physical fatigue or
a lethargic state which often results in falling asleep. Nonetheless, this is no ordinary
sleep, according to Margaret Williamson—it is "a trance induced by divine power, whose
effects embrace love as well as sleep."412
Sappho requests Aphrodite to "pour into the golden cups nectar lavishly . . . as
wine," as she is the mediator between the mortals and the goddess who represents beauty
and love.413 After Sappho summons Aphrodite, the goddess pours out her divine power
of love and beauty to her worshippers.
II. Music Analysis
The second movement is sung by women only: solo soprano, first and second
sopranos, and altos. A responsorial exchange is heard between the solo soprano,
representing Sappho’s plea to Aphrodite, and the first and second sopranos and altos,
representing the women worshippers. Van Ness’s music truly captures the essence of a
meditative prayer that is deeply evocative, mystical, and powerful.
The solo soprano sings recitation and melismatic Hildegard-like conjunct, chantlike lines over drones by the sopranos and altos. Antiphonal singing between the soloist
and the group can also be noted. The solo soprano rests while the women chorus finishes
the movement, with an evocation of mixolydian mode. Text painting can be noted with
412
Williamson, 143. For text analysis, see chapter 3, 61-5.
413
Barnstone, 288.
163
the strategic use of rests, after the Greek word koma, pertaining to "trance-like sleep." In
addition, word painting for the word "pour," occurs with descending notes, ending the
movement. Van Ness has indeed composed a genuine prayer to Aphrodite, giving a
haunting voice to Sappho and her followers, as they wait for the outpouring of
Aphrodite’s divine powers of love and beauty.
III. Text Analysis
As noted in the first movement, Van Ness uses only the first and third sections of
this poem in this song cycle. After a careful examination, Rayor’s translation appears to
be incomplete, and she makes no mention of two female characters—Gongyla and
Abanthis—in the poem. However, in the score, Van Ness includes the names of the two
female characters in the text and in the music. As previously noted, Sappho is the
speaker and she is addressing Abanthis in this poem. However, Diane Rayor omitted the
names of Abanthis and Gongyla.414 In the translations of Anne Carson, Josephine
Balmer (quoted by Margaret Williamson), and Jane McIntosh Snyder, Sappho is the main
speaker, who commands Abanthis to play her lyre and sing of her desire to Gongyla.
There is no information about Abanthis except that she was one of Sappho’s pupils.
Sappho’s encouragement for Abanthis to pursue Gongyla seems to suggest a
possible lesbian relationship. It is obvious that Abanthis had erotic feelings previously
for Gongyla, based on the words "desire again." Gongyla’s beauty and her dress attracted
414
Some words in square brackets were added in the missing letters in the papyrus
for content.
164
TABLE 27. Diane Rayor, Frag. 67 and Other Translations
Diane Rayor,
Frag. 67
Anne
Carson
Margaret
Williamson
415
. . . I urge you .
..
. . . taking .
..
the lyre, while
desire again . . .
wings round you
. . . I bid
you sing
of Gongyla,
Abanthis,
taking up
your lyre as
now again
longing
floats
around you,
Beautiful one,
since the dress .
..
you saw excited
you, and I
rejoice
because the
Kyprian herself
once blamed . . .
you beauty.
For her
dress when
you saw it
stirred you.
And I
rejoice.
. . . I bid
you,
[Ab]anthis,
take [your
ly]re and
sing of
Gongyla,
while desire
once again
flits around
you,
the lovely
one—for
her dress
made your
heart flutter
when you
saw it, and I
rejoice
so I pray . . .
this . . .
I want . . . 417
415
Jane
McIntosh
Snyder416
Movement
. . . I bid
III
you to sing
of Gongula,
Abanthis,
taking up . .
.
[your] harp,
while once
again desire
flutters
about you,
[As you
Omitted
gaze upon]
text
the beautiful
woman.
For the
drapery of
her clothing
set your
heart
aflutter as
you
looked, and
I take
delight.
I, VII
Williamson quoted the translations of Josephine Balmer.
416
Snyder, in Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho, 38-39; Snyder quoted the
translations of Eva-Maria Voigt.
417
Rayor, 58.
165
Abanthis so strongly that it set her heart with excitement. According to Snyder, "the
Greek word that Sappho uses to indicate those garments, katagogis, literally means
something ‘reaching downward.’"418 "Reaching downward" could mean the flow of
Gongyla’s dress or the way she moves, which causes Abanthis’s heart to overflow with
much excitement. Sappho includes herself in the threesome scene with the words "I
rejoice," for she delights at the sight of Abanthis, who in turn longs for Gongyla—all
signifiers of female eroticism. The aroused feelings of the women are a result of their
visual lust for each other in this love triangle surrounding Gongyla (see fig. 10). Sappho
neglects to specifically mention Gorgo, Gongyla’s yoke mate.
Sappho (desires Gongyla; delights in Abanthis’s lust for Gongyla)
Abanthis
(desires Gongyla)
Gongyla
[Gorgo (Gongyla’s lover; Sappho’s arch nemesis)]
FIGURE 10. Love triangle.
418
166
III. Music Analysis
In the third movement, Van Ness features the tenors, baritones, and basses. Why
she chose only male voices in the third movement is not known. However, it may be
because both Sappho and Abanthis show strong, manly qualities: Sappho’s authoritative
command for Abanthis to desire Gongyla; and Sappho’s delight in the erotic fantasy as
she also desires Gongyla for herself.
In movement two, the drones were in the bottom voice but here they are in the top
voice, sung by the tenors and baritones. The basses sing chant-like, melismatic melodies
that evoke a mixolydian scale. Van Ness instructs the singers to make the "melodic lines
extremely smooth"419 over the drones. Text painting occurs as the tenors prolong the
word "desire" with a long melisma as both women have longing desires for the Gongyla.
There are several striking tritones, which represent the women’s involvement in a
homoerotic, unrequited love triangle between Sappho and Gongyla and Abanthis.
IV. Text Analysis
The poem in the fourth movement refers to Sappho missing her favorite student,
presumed to be Atthis. According to Willis Barnstone, Atthis was a special friend, who
was "treated with great affection"420 by Sappho. Margaret Reynolds states that to
Sappho, Atthis was a "companion, a pupil, a girlfriend, or a novitiate."421 No information
419
Van Ness, The Voice of the Tenth Muse.
420
Barnstone, 306.
421
Reynolds, 4.
167
TABLE 28. Movement IV and Diane Rayor, Frag. 15
Movement
Omitted
. . . Sardis . . .
often holding her [thoughts] here
you, like a goddess undisguised,
but she rejoiced especially in your song.
IV
Now she stands out among
Lydian women as after sunset
the rose-fingered moon
exceeds all stars; light
reaches equally over the brine sea
and thick-flowering fields,
a beautiful dew has poured down,
roses bloom, tender parsley
and blossoming honey clover.
Pacing far away, she remembers
gentle Atthis with desire perhaps . . .
consumes her delicate soul;
to go there . . . this not
knowing . . . much
she sings . . . in the middle.
It is not easy for us to rival
the
beautiful form of goddesses . . . you might
have . . .
...
...
And . . . Aphrodite
. . . poured nectar from
a golden . . .
. . . with her hands
.422
Persuasion.
422
Rayor, 61-62.
168
is available on Atthis other than the mention of her name in three of Sappho’s poems,
inferring their close relationship. Van Ness omitted the first part of the poem.
According to Diane Rayor, this poem is about Sappho’s reminiscing over her
absent dear friend who used to be with her in Lesbos but is now in Sardis.423 Sappho
praises Atthis, who "stands out among Lydian women," and compares her to the beauty
of the moon, which "exceeds all stars" with its brightness. Her [beauty] "light reaches . . .
over the . . . sea and [the] flowering fields," as if both women are connected even across
the sea and the fields. Snyder states that the "rose-fingered moon" is also a descriptor
"used by Homer to describe Eos, or Dawn," another way to describe sunrise.424 Sappho
seems to compare the image of the moon’s brightness and beauty to the stars as it relates
to Atthis’s radiance and loveliness among other Lydian women.
The blooming roses and the pouring of dew are sexually "female-centered erotic
images,"425 as roses are associated to the female genitalia and the dew is associated with
the moisture in the female sexual organ. Anne Carson asserts that "Sappho’s relationship
with Atthis was controversial," based on the ancient lexicographer Suda, who claims that:
"‘Sappho had three companions and friends, Atthis, Telesippa, and Megara. Through her
relations with them she got a reputation for shameful love.’"426
423
Ibid., 163.
424
425
Ibid., 60.
426
Suda, quoted in Carson, 361.
169
Not only does Sappho cherish her memories with Atthis—her thoughts of lesbian
desire towards her much-loved student that "consumes her delicate soul"—but she also
grieves for losing her. According to Jane McIntosh Snyder, Sappho used the word
imeros in Greek for desire, which she claims has "a clear erotic context."427 She further
states that "memory connects lover and the absent beloved"428 together. Remembering
the image of Atthis and her absence further fuels Sappho’s intense desire for her former
companion, and she regards Atthis as a goddess. Snyder points out that "the goddess
Mnemosyne (Memory) was the mother of the nine Muses and the ultimate source of all
artistic creativity"429 from whom Sappho draws her gift as a poet and the tenth muse.
Sappho’s painful longing to be with her companion becomes wishful thinking
when she desires "to go there . . . ," perhaps where Atthis is, and Sappho pleads to
Aphrodite once again to grant her wish. Sappho also mentions "Persuasion," Peitho in
Greek, believed to be one of Aphrodite’s daughters.430 Sappho pleads to the goddesses to
intervene with their divine powers to satisfy her erogenous longing of Atthis.
IV. Music Analysis
In the composer’s own words, this movement should be sung "full and rich,
hymn-like." The song is full in sound, with all the voices building up to several climaxes.
427
428
Ibid., 45.
429
Ibid., 46.
430
Ibid., 53.
170
For example, the opening recitation of the first sopranos gradually sings an ascending line
to the octave; eventually, the rest of the voices also slowly climb up to the climax. The
first sopranos sing from mezzo forte, to forte, and finally to fortissimo, as they were the
first to reach a climax on the syllable "ah"—symbolizing an orgasm; while the second
sopranos and altos sing the phrase, " . . . beautiful dew has poured down . . . "—also
symbolic of the female sexual organ; and the men are silent—almost excluded in the
activity. Throughout the piece, all the female voices reach several climaxes, which seem
to have clear erotic and lesbian implications.
The song is also hymn-like as the soaring melodic phrases are sung by the high
voices, while the lower voices repetitively recite on long drones. The style is reminiscent
of late Renaissance choral music, in alternating between static chanted solo and choral
recitation, polyphonic four-part recitation style is based on root position triads, which is
similar to falsobordone—a style prominent during the fifteenth to the eighteenthcenturies,431 and voices sing in straight tones.
Open fifths sung by the first and second tenors resembles organum, especially at a
cadence. Sappho’s painful yearning to be with Atthis is represented by some prominent
dissonances, but these are quickly resolved to consonance in both major and minor keys.
In some cadences, however, the triads are incomplete, with no third, alluding again to
medieval sonorities. The recitations by the sopranos are sung emphasizing a half-step
interval, which briefly suggests a Phrygian scale. Following are some voice parts on
431
Murray C. Bradshaw. "Falsobordone," Grove Music Online, www.oxfordmu
siconline.com, accessed September 6, 2014.
171
stable pitches, while others sing in ascending scales. The harmonic movement is slow,
with voices singing the words together in a homorhythmic setting.
Close to the end of the movement, Sappho’s supplication to the goddesses
Aphrodite and Persuasion is conveyed with a long-drawn out melisma on the name
"Aphrodite" sung by the second sopranos. This is followed by the repeated calling of her
name by the second sopranos, altos, then first and second tenors. All voice parts reach to
a climax in range and richness in vocal texture on the word "goddesses." Due to singing
on suspended high "G" and "A," the composer warns the female singers: "Soprano I! Do
not kill yourselves! Breath lots and sing gently" (m. 63). Van Ness comments on writing
for the human voice, stating that all of her "songs were designed to inspire and stretch the
singer and in an active yet contemplative way."432 Near the end, word painting in the
first sopranos sing "ah" in a descending line on the word "poured," with a few more
suspended sky-high climaxes. The chorus’s decrescendo on the final call to the goddess
"Persuasion" represents Sappho’s closing prayer as she waits for a divine response.
V. Text Analysis
Van Ness chooses one of Sappho’s well-known poems for the fifth movement,
this time setting the text in a transliteration of the ancient Greek.
The opening line begins with Sappho comparing a man to a god. Sappho seems
to speak to the woman who sits next to the man, later telling how she feels about her.
The poem does not focus on the woman but on the desire of Sappho stimulated by her.
432
Patricia Van Ness, quoted in Higginson.
172
Greek scholars Margaret Williamson and Jane McIntosh Snyder agrees with Rayor about
the man only being "a figure of speech" and not actual man. Nevertheless, Sappho’s
desiring of another woman is a clear indication of homoerotic attraction.
To me it seems
that man has the fortune of gods,
whoever sits beside you, and close,
who listens to you sweetly speaking
and laughing temptingly;
my heart flutters in my breast,
whenever I look quickly, for a moment
I say nothing,
my tongue broken,
a delicate fire runs under my skin,
my eyes see nothing, my ears roar,
cold sweat rushes down me,
trembling seizes me,
I am greener than grass,
to myself I seem
needing but little to die.433
Sappho is greatly overwhelmed at the sight of the woman and she is excited to
hear her sweet voice in laughter. In addition, Sappho is overtaken with a plethora of
emotions: her heart flutters, her tongue freezes, her skin is on fire, her eyes see nothing,
her ears hear nothing, cold sweat pours down, she is trembling, green like grass: she
433
Rayor, 57; this poem is also set by Liza Lim, see chapter 5, 117 and appendix
B, 209.
173
seems like she is dying inside. In archaic lyric, ‘grass’ is considered to have sexual
undertones. ‘Moister than grass’ is a stronger image with "the listing of symptoms of
erotic excitement . . . [that Sappho] . . . is . . . close to death."434 Sappho’s articulation of
her bodily functions seems to be associated with an orgasmic experience, and stating that
she is almost dying may suggest a release or rest from sexual pleasure.435
According to Jane McIntosh Snyder, Sappho only mentions "the man" in the first
line and quickly shifts her focus to the object of her burning desire and the physical
reactions she is experiencing, caused by the "power of the erotic gaze."436 Sappho’s
fluttering heart is also a metaphor, but according to Ruth Padel, "the Greeks really did
believe that their emotions were centered in organs like the heart and the liver."437 The
broken tongue is not literal but signals speechlessness, further describing Sappho’s bodily
reaction to seeing the image and hearing the sweet voice of the woman. The fire in
Sappho’s skin confirms she is burning up with passion. Her eyes and ears no longer
function; it is as if time stands still while her sights are set on the woman. It is well
known that men are sexually aroused visually, but Sappho is perhaps the first female to
write of this visually induced passion for a woman, with a lust so powerful that it is
blinding her. After Sappho’s trembling, she is "greener than grass," which does not refer
434
Ibid., 162.
435
Dying is a typical symbolism in Renaissance literature for sexual climax.
436
437
Ruth Padel. "In and out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self," cited
in Snyder, ibid., 32.
174
to "green with envy," but "rather, a literal observation about her own physical condition .
. . .Whether Sappho means sweat, tears, or vaginal secretion,"438 she leaves it up to the
reader. According to Emily Vermeule, there is "an erotic context . . . .‘Death’ and
orgasm often become one and the same in the Western literary imagination."439 Sappho’s
response to seeing and hearing the beloved woman arouses erogenous passions yet she
seems to be dying of love, as if she cannot live without her.
There is some speculation by scholars that Sappho’s comparison of the man to a
god is merely a compliment to be sung at a wedding.440 However, there is no solid
evidence to support this: Sappho’s personal description of her physical sensations would
seem inappropriate for the wedding ceremony. Margaret Williamson suggests that
Sappho is merely praising the woman: "[that] . . . to be in her presence is to be blessed,
or . . . that her charms are so powerful that only a god could remain unmoved by
them."441 Williamson stretches her argument even further by asserting that it is actually a
praise song for the woman, for whom Sappho experience an "erotic admiration,"442
Williamson further expounds on the wedding song theory, suggesting the poem was
438
Snyder, ibid., 33.
439
Emily Vermeule. On the associations among sleep, death, and love, in
"Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry," cited in Snyder, ibid.
440
Barnstone, 285.
441
Williamson, 155.
442
Ibid., 156.
175
circulated "at the beginning of the century . . . to protect Sappho from charges of
lesbianism."443
The intense physical description of Sappho’s feelings may in fact show her true
emotions. William Barnstone confirms that Sappho shows her jealousy of godlike man
who is next to her beloved. Here, Sappho shows her vulnerability, as she openly
expresses her feelings of jealousy and tormented passion. Williamson also believes that
Sappho is silently expressing her jealousy at the sight of the two lovers, and her
homoerotic passions are aroused by her gaze of the woman in the last connection she has
with her.444 The physical effects Sappho feels may indicate the pain of losing her dear
student. Because of their separation, Sappho’s only possession left is her cherished
memories. That Sappho speaks of her dying suggests the isolation of being alone, with
her lover will soon leaving to be married. Williamson ties these ideas together,
suggesting that the "marriage . . . [is] . . . an occasion involving both joy and loss . . . of
one of her companions,"445 and thus Sappho’s feelings of joy and loss can also be
interpreted as both pleasure and pain.
V. Music Analysis
In the fifth movement, Van Ness again draws on elements of early music—
particularly chant and organum. Women sing in unison homorhythmic chords, at times
443
Ibid., 155.
444
Ibid.
445
Ibid., 156.
176
moving to a half-step dissonance, alternating with an organum-like style: the solo
soprano sings melismas drones by the sopranos and altos. Typical Hildegard-like vocal
lines are heard from the solo soprano, with her opening signature ascending fifth;
antiquity is also evoked with a suggestion of Phrygian mode, focusing on half-step D to E
flat. From time to time, Van Ness breaks away from modality to intense dissonance,
especially on the word "man" (m. 6), to emphasize Sappho’s jealousy when she sees her
beloved with someone else.
Van Ness also provides word painting and text painting in the vocal line of the
solo soprano. For example, the descending lines moving in half notes, to eighth notes,
and then to sixteenth notes suggests merriment by the woman on the word "laughing"
(mm. 15 and on). An example of text painting is a harsh dissonance sung by the
women’s chorus (m. 9), followed by the solo soprano who sings the word "sweetly" in a
beautiful line that is pleasant to the ears, embodying the sweet voice of the woman.
Another example of text painting, with melismas and perfect fifths, occurs on the words,
"my heart flutters in my breast, whenever I look [at you] quickly, for a moment . . . "
(mm. 22-27). Dissonance on the "tongue" (m. 34) is a perfect match for Sappho’s broken
tongue. Scale runs are appropriate on the phrase " . . . fire runs under my skin" (mm. 3738). The movement ends with a strong dissonant chord cluster (G, A, B flat, m. 56),
when Sappho speaks "I seem needing but little to die," representing her grief and pain of
separation from the woman she loves.
177
VI. Text Analysis
The poem in the sixth movement is divided into two topics: Helen’s journey to
Troy and the absence of Anaktoria, who was one of Sappho’s companions.
Some say an army of horsemen, others
say foot-solders, still others, a fleet,
is the fairest thing on the dark earth: I
say it is whatever one loves.
Everyone can understand this—
consider that Helen, far surpassing
the beauty of mortals, leaving behind
the best man of all,
sailed away to Troy. She had no
memory of her child or dear parents,
since she was led astray
[by Kypris] . . .
. . . lightly
reminding me now of Anaktoria
being gone,
...
I would rather see her lovely step
and the radiant sparkle of her face
than all the war-chariots in Lydia
and soldiers battling in shining
bronze.446
446
Rayor, 55.
178
Willis Barnstone explains that Sappho uses a poetic device called "a paratactic
trope" through the metaphor that compares the power of military forces with love. She
clearly emphasizes the "masculine world of war," which cannot contest with "the
illumination of love and physical beauty in her personal world."447 Barnstone, in fact, is
referring to parataxis, derived from the Greek expression, "side by side." It is a writing
technique to mark sentences or clauses that are connected from one, often another
without the use of conjunctions. Each sentence or phrase supports the previous one, and
forms a powerful building effect. "As a literary device, it can focus the reader on a
particular idea, emotion, or setting."448 The parataxis in Sappho’s poem is in the opening:
"Some say . . . others say . . . still others . . . I say." According to Anne Carson, Mary
Barnard, and Jane McIntosh Snyder, Sappho also uses the rhetoric device of a priamel,
which stated by Carson, "is to focus attention and to praise. The priamel’s typical
structure is a list of three items followed by a fourth that is different and better."449 In
this poem, the images are army of horsemen, the foot soldiers, a fleet, and finally
beauty—"the fairest thing on the earth." Here, the first three disguise the actual subject
of the poem, which we will see later on.
In Greek mythology, the story of Helen, queen of Sparta, exists in several
accounts: some scholars say that she was abducted by Paris, while others argue that she
447
Barnstone, 284.
448
"Parataxis," http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-parataxis.htm, accessed
September 19, 2014.
449
Carson, 362.
179
seduced by Paris and eloped with him to Troy. Sappho contends in her poem that Helen
willingly left her husband Menalaos, the king of Sparta, their daughter Hermione, and her
parents, so she could be with Paris. As stated by Rayor, "Sappho here uses myth to
illustrate her argument that ‘whatever one loves’ appears most desirable. Sappho
composed songs of desire for an individual and for relationships between people rather
than songs of battles and war."450 According to Snyder, Homer wrote about power and
the pageantry of war and weapons.451 On the other hand, instead of war, Sappho wrote
on love and desire because it is "the fairest thing on the dark earth" and "far surpassing
the beauty of mortals." Snyder further affirms that Sappho’s desire replaces the
"masculine way of seeing the world as a struggle for control through military might; the
splendor that the Sappho figure celebrates is not of swords but the beauty of a woman."452
Like Rayor, Margaret Williamson also suggests that Helen’s desertion of her
family "is linked with war. But the poem explicitly, defiantly, places an extravagantly
high value on her love, and the only possible hint of blame."453 After the words "led
astray," there are missing fragments, which possibly referred to goddesses Persuasion or
Aphrodite, who were blamed for Helen’s downfall. Therefore, Helen herself could be
blameless or perhaps she is responsible for her own actions. Williamson thinks that the
450
Rayor, 161.
451
452
Ibid., 71.
453
Williamson, 169.
180
poem refers to Helen’s journey to Troy: "far from admiring masculine heroism," she
abandons Menalaos. This makes her "a far more interesting and subversive figure, and
accentuates the poem’s ironic perspective on traditional military values."454 Sappho has
given us her view on the value of the masculine, military world. The subject changes
quickly, "setting the individual against the collective, love against war, and ultimately a
single female figure against the entire military might of the kingdom of Lydia."455
In the second part of the poem, Rayor affirms that the absence of the beloved;
"Anaktoria being gone," refers to "Sappho’s Muse here."456 Mary Barnard identifies
Anaktoria as one of Sappho’s pupils, from Miletus.457 Some scholars believe that the
name Anaktoria is aristocratic. The name Anaktoria is related to the word anax, which
refers to "lord" or "master."458 Barnard agrees with Barnstone that Sappho’s mention of
military forces may provide evidence of Anaktoria leaving Sappho "in order to marry a
soldier stationed in Sardis."459
454
Ibid., 55.
455
Ibid., 167.
456
Rayor, 161-162.
457
An ancient city in Asia minor, on the Aegean. "Miletus." Dictionary.com.
Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc., http://dictionary.reference.com/
browse/miletus, accessed September 19, 2014.
458
459
Barnstone, 303; Barnard, 112.
181
Sappho’s mention of Helen in the beginning of the poem was a brilliant plan to
link two female figures who were significant to her. Helen is praised as "the fairest thing
on the dark earth" and "far surpassing the beauty of mortals." However, Sappho seems to
be comparing Helen’s beauty with her beloved Anaktoria. Sappho’s use of Homeric
myths on Helen and the Trojan War has indeed enhanced her descriptions of her female
erotic-centered fantasies. Moreover, Sappho portrays the military invasion of Sparta, "an
army of horsemen, foot-soldiers, and a fleet." War displays power and splendor of armed
forces, but the end result is death and destruction. In comparison, Sappho expresses her
desire for Anaktoria that she "would rather see "her lovely step and the radiant sparkle of
her face." The woman is described with such beauty and charm that Sappho would gaze
at her if given the chance to see her once again; however, only distant memories and
longing desire is what she for the possess of the absent Anaktoria.
Williamson confirms that Helen is the bridge to connect to Anaktoria, the center
of Sappho’s homoerotic desire.460 It was imperative for Sappho to set up Helen’s story in
order to provide a smooth transition from mythology to personal memories and her desire
of Anaktoria. One could equate the love between Helen and Paris with Sappho’s love for
Anaktoria. Therefore, heterosexual love and homosexual love is no longer divided by
gender, but it is now equal in Sappho’s world.
460
Williamson, 170.
182
VI. Music Analysis
Van Ness continues to stress the styles of chant and choral recitation, showing her
admiration for medieval and Renaissance music. She begins the movement with open
fifths and parallel octaves, organum-like that is slow in tempo with melismas sung by the
sopranos. Similar to the fourth movement, the sixth movement is also reminiscent of late
Renaissance style, with choral recitation sung over long drones. The overall sound is
Palestrina-like: smooth flowing melodies that are chant-like and with some small
intervallic leaps, textural changes for clear declamation of words, and careful control of
dissonance. For example, the movement of the melody in the soprano line is mostly
stepwise with a few leaps of a third or fourth and within a range of an octave.
The changes in texture are done by means of contrapuntal imitation and voice
groupings. For instance, some voices pronounce the words "some say an army," while
others imitate the phrase in a different rhythm, but eventually the voices come together
when a climax is reached or near a cadence. In addition, the points of imitation alternate
with choral recitation. The polyphonic imitative texture supports the repeated military
theme—images of "an army of horsemen" and "foot soldiers." Although basses provide
sustained drones, they do not take part in the imitation. There is a melodic climax on
Helen’s name and the interweaving of melodic lines creates a tapestry of mellifluous
sounds appropriate to describe her beauty and Anaktoria. Van Ness evenly allocates
voice parts in groups, so that the text is clearly heard. An example of reduction in
voicing is heard when first sopranos and tenors sing "she had no memory," here, second
sopranos and altos rest.
183
There are prominent and unexpected modulations from A minor to G minor,
where the upper voices move by descending tritones. This occurs three times on
important phrases, such as the fourth point of priamel—"I say it is whatever one loves,"
on the name Anaktoria, and the changes in the image of Anaktoria’s face. In addition,
the control of dissonance is carefully executed between G minor and G major with
playing cross relation (B flat – B natural). There is some dissonance on the word
"battling," but the dissonance is released with a Picardy third smoothing out the sound
ending the movement.
VII. Text Analysis
We have seen that the poems in the first, second, and fourth movements are
prayers to Aphrodite; so too is the seventh movement poem. This is the only complete
poem known by Sappho, her ode to Aphrodite.
In the other poems considered, Aphrodite has responded to Sappho’s
supplications. Again, Sappho invokes Aphrodite to come to the rescue of her ailing
heart. Sappho offers her praises to the goddess and describes that Aphrodite left her
throne in a chariot drawn by sparrows across the sky.461 According to Diane Rayor and
Margaret Williamson, the sparrows "are a symbol of fecundity."462 A sparrow is known
to be a bird of love and it was a sacred bird to Aphrodite.
461
"Aphrodite and Sparrows," www.greekmythindex.com, accessed September
30, 2014.
462
Rayor, 160; Williamson, 163.
184
On the throne of many hues, Immortal Aphrodite,
child of Zeus, weaving wiles—I beg you
not to subdue my spirit, Queen,
with pain or sorrow
but come—if ever before
having heard my voice from far away
you listened, and leaving your father’s
golden home you came
in your chariot yoked with swift, lovely
sparrows bringing you over the dark earth
thick-feathered wings swirling down
from the sky through mid-air
arriving quickly—you Blessed One,
with smile on your unaging face
asking again what I have suffered
and why am I calling again
and in my wild heart what did I most wish
to happen to me: "Again whom must I persuade
back into the harness of your love?
Sappho, who wrongs you?
For if she flees, soon she’ll pursue,
she doesn’t accept gifts, but she’ll give,
if not now loving, soon she’ll love
even against her will."
Come to me now again, release me from
this pain, everything my spirit longs
to have fulfilled, fulfill, and you
be my ally.463
463
Rayor, 51.
185
Sappho asks the immortal, "unaging face" of Aphrodite to turn to her because she
is suffering from a rejected love. Aphrodite and Sappho seem to have a close relationship
as they have a conversational exchange: Sappho calls on the goddess, while Aphrodite
asks Sappho who has wronged her. Rayor asserts that the word "harness," in Aphrodite’s
response ("Again whom must I persuade back into the harness of your love?") suggests to
bring someone back to Sappho, so that Aphrodite "will make the other woman love
Sappho."464 Sappho wishes for a reciprocated love. Aphrodite is certain that the other
woman will love Sappho, "soon she’ll love even against her will."
Rayor and Williamson believe that this passage in the Greek provides a clear clue
to the gender of the beloved and perhaps evidence of Sappho’s sexuality. In 1835,
German editor Theodor Bergk published the closest translation of the manuscript
versions of the text: "even against her will." He asserts that "we are dealing with the
love of a girl,"465 which suggests that Sappho’s poem is about lesbian love. At the end
of the poem, Sappho asks for fulfillment in her fervent longing of the beloved and for
Aphrodite to be on her side. Most likely, Sappho’s request will be granted now and again
in the future to come as it has always been.
464
Rayor, ibid.
465
Williamson, 51-52.
186
VII. Music Analysis
In the seventh movement, the composer instructs the women to sing "legato and
chant-like." The song is similar to movements four and six with choral recitation that has
sustained and static melodic lines. The women sing in unison homorhythmic chords with
gradual alternating harmonic changes. For example, on the phrase "immortal Aphrodite
child of Zeus, weaving wiles," the D-E flat and E flat diminished chords are dissonant
sounding, which may suggest the supernatural being and the charming erotic powers of
the goddess. Van Ness uses text painting on the word "sorrow" with a dissonant E-flat
diminished chord to Sappho’s pleas to Aphrodite to soothe her spirit from pain. The
dissonant chord changes to a consonant G minor chord, which denotes Sappho’s humility
towards the goddess whom she calls her "Queen" on a G major chord.
Throughout the movement, Van Ness repeatedly integrates cross relationships
between chords. She gradually builds diminished chords into dissonant chord clusters
and then shifts them back to consonant minor to major chords. For instance, a series of
harsh dissonant chords and chord clusters are heard on words such as "leaving," "dark
earth," "suffered," "wild heart," and "wrongs." The harsh dissonance each time is
resolved by consonant chords in D minor, G minor, and G major on phrases and words
"lovely sparrows," "swirling down," "unaging face," and "I most wish." Van Ness also
uses dissonance to describe Sappho’s pain and consonance to paint text associated with
Aphrodite and her image, and also Sappho’s desire in her heart. Similar to the sixth
movement, Van Ness ends the movement with a Picardy third on the phrase "fulfill and
you be my ally," a closing that suggests Sappho’s prayer has been answered.
187
VIII. Text Analysis
The poem in the eighth movement is the same one from the first movement. The
main difference is that Van Ness composed a monody in the first part of the eighth
movement. As noted earlier, this part of the poem is Sappho’s prayer to Aphrodite. It is
a fragment from a poem that is about Sappho’s beloved student Gongyla.
TABLE 32. Movement VIII, I and Diane Rayor, Frag. 9
Movement
VIII, I
so I pray . . .
this . . .
I want . . . 466
VIII. Music Analysis
Van Ness has a prelude to the eighth movement with a free monody. The solo
soprano sings a typical Hildegard-like line in vocalise, with ascending open fifths over a
sustained drone by the tenors focused on the note C and sometimes shared by the altos an
octave higher. After the monody, the composer instructs the performers to go directly
into the eighth movement without a break.
The eighth movement is sung by men only, as if it is their turn to plead to
Aphrodite. The text is not as drawn out as in the first movement. However, it is mostly a
repetition of the pitches from the first movement, but allocated to different vocal parts.
466
Rayor, 58.
188
In the first movement, the first soprano line is now given to the first tenors; the second
soprano line goes to the second tenors; the baritone melody is still sung by the first and
second baritones; and the basses lines remains the same for the second basses. Only the
alto line was not used, as the first basses sing to newly compose melodic lines.
In some places, both first and second baritones and basses sing in unison. At
times, the men’s chorus sing melismatic passages, which draws out their pleading to
Aphrodite. The meditative and chant-like, ascending melodies with open fifths and
octaves makes the entire movement mystical and powerful; indeed Van Ness effectively
captures the haunting mood of Sappho’s prayer.
IX. Text Analysis
In the last movement, Van Ness sets only parts of a larger, fragmentary poem,
which according to Diane Rayor is about the departure of Sappho’s student as she recalls
their time together.467 In Rayor’s translation, Sappho does not mention a name, so the
identity—but not the gender—of the mysterious person is questionable. However,
Margaret Williamson asserts that the Greek words "weeping," "against my will," and
"happily" makes it clear that the other person is a female; thus other translators do agree
on the pronoun "she."468
467
Rayor, 163.
468
Williamson, 144.
189
TABLE 33. Diane Rayor, Frag. 14 and Other Translations
Diane Rayor,
Frag. 14
Mary Barnard,
Frag. 42
Willis
Barnstone,
Frag. 143
Margaret
Williamson469
Jane McIntosh
Snyder470
"I simply wish to
die." Weeping
she left me and
said this too:
"We’ve suffered
terribly Sappho I
leave you against
my will." I
answered, go
happily and
remember me,
you know how we
cared for you, if
not, let me
remind you
. . . the lovely
times we
shared.471
Frankly I wish I
were dead.
When she left, she
wept
Honestly I wish I
were dead!
Although she too
cried bitterly
. . . frankly I wish
that I were dead:
she was weeping
as she took her
leave from me
"Honestly, I wish I
were dead!"
Weeping many tears
she left me,
a great deal; she
said to me,
"This parting must
be endured,
Sappho. I go
unwillingly,"
when she left, and
said to me,
"Ah, what a
nightmare it is
now. Sappho, I
swear I go
unwillingly."
I said, "Go, and be
happy but
remember (you
know well) whom
you leave
shackled by love
"If you forget me,
think of our gifts
to Aphrodite and
all the loveliness
that we shared
And I answered,
"Go, and be happy.
But remember me,
for surely you
know how we
worshiped you. If
not,
then I want to
remind you of all
the exquisite days
we two shared;
how
and many times
she told [me] this:
‘Oh what sadness
we have suffered,
Sappho, for I’m
leaving you
against my will.’
So I gave this
answer to her:
‘Go, be happy but
remember me
there, for you
know how we
have cherished
you,
If not, then I
would remind you
[of the joy we
have known, of
all]
469
Williamson quoted the translations of Josephine Balmer.
470
Snyder quoted the translations of Eva-Maria Voigt.
471
Van Ness did not set this section of the poem.
190
Saying this as well:
"Oh, what dreadful
things have
happened to us,
Sappho! I don’t
want to leave you!"
I answered her: "Go
with my blessings,
and remember me,
for you know how
we cherished you.
"But if you have
[forgotten], I want
to remind you . . .
of the beautiful
things that happened
to us:
TABLE 33. Continued
Diane Rayor,
Frag. 14
Mary Barnard,
Frag. 42
Willis
Barnstone,
Frag. 143
Margaret
Williamson
Jane McIntosh
Snyder
the loveliness that
we have shared
together;
Movement IX
Many crowns of
violets,
roses and
crocuses
. . . together you
set before me
and many
scented wreaths
made from
blossoms
around your soft
throat . . .
. . . with pure,
sweet oil
. . . you anointed
me,
and on a soft,
gentle bed . . .
you quenched
your desire
"all the violet
tiaras, braided
rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined
around your
young neck
you took garlands
of violets and
roses, and when by
my side you tied
them round you in
soft bands,
"myrrh poured on
your head and on
soft mats girls
with all that they
most wished for
beside them
and you took many
flowers and flung
them in loops about
your sapling throat,
"while no voices
chanted choruses
without ours, no
woodlot bloomed
in spring without
song . . . "
how the air was
rich in a scent of
queenly spices
made of myrrh you
rubbed smoothly
on your limbs,
and on soft beds,
gently, your desire
for delicate young
women was
satisfied,
. . . no holy site .
..
we left
uncovered,
no grove . . .
dance
for many wreaths
of violets, of roses
and of crocuses
. . . you wove
around yourself
by my side
and many twisted
garlands [which
you had] woven
from the blooms
of flowers, you
[placed] around
[your] slender
neck
and . . .
you [were]
anointed with a
perfume, scented
with blossom,
[although it was]
fit for a queen
on a bed, soft and
tender . . .
you satisfied your
desire for . . .
"Close by my side
you put around
yourself [many
wreaths] violets and
roses and saffron . . .
"And many woven
garlands made from
flowers . . .
around your tender
neck,
"And . . . with
costly royal myrrh .
..
You anointed . . . ,
"And on a soft bed
. . . tender . . .
you satisfied your
desire . . .
"Nor was there any .
..
nor any holy . . .
from which we were
away,
. . . nor grove . . . "
and there was
neither . . .
191
TABLE 33. Continued
Diane Rayor,
Frag. 14
Mary Barnard,
Frag. 42
. . . sound . . . 472
Willis
Barnstone,
Frag. 143
Margaret
Williamson
and how there was
no dance and no
holy shrine we two
did not share,
nor any shrine
from which we
were absent
no sound, no
grove."473
Jane McIntosh
Snyder
nor grove . . .
dancing
. . . sound
According to Rayor, Williamson, and Snyder, it is not clear who utters the
opening death wish,474 whether it is Sappho or her former student. The poem reveals a
conversation between Sappho and her unnamed, soon to be former, companion. In fact,
Sappho vividly remembers her conversation with the young woman, who is in despair
and reluctant to leave her teacher. Sappho answers her with comforting words and
reminds her not to forget the memories they have shared together.
In the poem, there is beautiful imagery of flowers. Rayor explains that the
anointed one is perhaps Sappho, as "she is anointed like a queen"475 by her woman
friend. The young woman is also adorned by "many scented wreaths made from
blossoms" around her neck. According to Williamson, violets, crocuses, and roses are
472
Rayor, 60.
473
Barnstone, 71.
474
Rayor, 163.
475
Ibid.
192
associated with Aphrodite worship.476 In addition, the scented oil (in some translations
"myrrh") is also connected to the goddess, who used it to seduce her mortal lover
Anchises.477 The story of Aphrodite and Anchises is recorded in the Homeric Hymn,
which is a collection of ancient hymns to the Greek gods and goddess written not by
Homer but by thirty-three anonymous Greek authors.478 Young women in Sappho’s
school were taught to preserve their beauty, adorn themselves with flowers, and attract
their lover with perfume. For this reason, there is a link between Aphrodite and the
unnamed young woman—their use of perfume oils, possibly to seduce their lovers, and
likely resulting in lovemaking. In the poem, Sappho seems to describe an erotic, intimate
session between two female lovers, mentioning bodies adorned with flowers (associated
with female sexuality), "a soft throat," and "a soft, gentle bed." Furthermore, Rayor
expounds that, in the line "you quenched your desire," Sappho reveals that their desires
has been extinguished by satisfaction—after lovemaking.479 The nature of Sappho and
the student’s relationship, whether sexual or not, is unclear. Since sexual relationships
between older and younger men were common in ancient Greece, it is likely to be
476
Williamson, 145.
477
Ibid., 145.
478
"Homeric Hymn," http://www.perseus.tuffs.edu/hopper/collection?collection=
Perseus%3Acorpus%3Aperseus%2Cauthor%2CHomeric%20Hymns, accessed October
16, 2014.
479
Rayor, 163.
193
practiced as well in a community of older and younger women. Overall, the poem is not
only about the female-centered erotic images, but also does infer a lesbian relationship.
IX. Music Analysis
The last movement of Van Ness’s song cycle opens with a static and metrical
chanted choral recitation in octaves, sung between altos and first tenors over steady slow
moving open fifths by the second tenors and basses who vocalize on select syllables from
the text. The open fifths eventually change to full triads, providing a rich, full sound.
Van Ness emphasizes the text " . . . with pure, sweet oil," with a solo soprano, who sings
a Hildegard-like line (m. 45) in a free monodic style with some melismas over octave
drones by tenors, baritones, and basses, similar to the previous movement. The text
emphasis by the soloist seems to convey sweet seductions by a lover.
The solo soprano sings a melodic fragment from measure 45, now in measure 78,
on the words " . . . no holy site . . . ," with a rising fifth, then ascending a fourth (C-G-C)
over octave drones by the first and second tenors and baritones. The exact same melodic
line was heard from the first movement: Van Ness loves to recycle melody lines with
ascending arches in her compositions. For this reason, she clearly wanted to connect the
first and last movement. The second sopranos and altos join in the intimate moment
between the two women on the words "we left uncovered." Near the end, clear word
painting occurs on the word "dance," sung by the first and second sopranos with a
wavelike line in eighth-note motion, suggesting movement (mm. 90-91). The song closes
with two, long chords, a dissonant major seventh chord (C-G-B), on the Greek word
psophos, which means "sound." The dissonance is released to open octaves and the last
194
sonority is treated with a long crescendo, then decrescendo. The Greek word psophos
sounds like Sappho’s name in Greek: Psappho. Thus, the closing sonority not only
offers a quiet memory of the woman that Sappho loves, but poses a powerful effect on
the ears of the modern listener—the fading name and haunting voice of the tenth muse.
Because Van Ness’s music is profoundly influenced by medieval and renaissance
music, her setting of Sappho’s poems is all the more powerful and effective in the
portrayal of women’s emotions. The fragments Van Ness focuses on the present themes
of attraction, passion, homoerotic love, sexual imagery, jealousy, grief, and pain.
Van Ness perceives Sappho as a spiritual and sexual leader and with her text, the
composer is able to create moods in each movement that is deeply meditative; each is an
evocative or mystical setting or a quiet, but powerful moment that links these women of
the past and present.
195
CONCLUSION
This chapter is a study of thematic and poetic connections between the works of
our female composers and how each of them elucidate the image of Sappho. It is
challenging to summarize all the compositions under consideration here collectively.
Therefore, we will consider five poems, each chosen by two composers for their musical
setting, the settings of which can be generally compared.
As noted earlier, most of our women composers chose Mary Barnard’s translation
of Sappho’s poetry. Although Willis Barnstone is generally considered the foremost
translator of Sappho, our composers’ overall preference is for female interpreters: four
composers used the translations of Mary Barnard, including Carol Barnett, Sheila Silver,
Elizabeth Vercoe, and Mary Ellen Childs; and Patricia Van Ness used Diane Rayon’s
translation. 480 It should be noted that Carol Barnett also used one translation by Willis
Barnstone and Augusta Read Thomas and Liza Lim solely used male translators Willis
Barnstone and Constantine Trypanis.
The most popular themes in our composers’ poem selections are goddess worship,
attraction, love, passion, homoeroticism, and jealousy. Other themes featured are
marriage, loss of virginity, unrequited love, misandry, and old age, all highly gendered.
480
See appendix A, 203.
196
The poetic themes are connected to musical devices employed by our female composers,
including harmonic language, extended vocal and instrumental techniques and text/word
painting. We will observe here how our composers interpreted the same poems in
different genres and musical styles, each in her own way, to musically create their own
reading of Sappho’s work and how each understood Sappho’s image.
Sheila Silver’s song cycle Chariessa: A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from
Sappho and Patricia Van Ness’s choral work The Voice of the Tenth Muse, both set
Sappho’s invocation to the goddess Aphrodite.481 Their settings and interpretations are,
however, quite different. In Silver’s song cycle, the goddess is evoked through very
contemporary sounds: atonality, chromaticism, and disjunct movement. To highlight the
setting of Sappho’s text, Silver explores music/text connections through dynamic
changes, flowing sequential passages, and special score instructions such as
"grace/tranquil," "serene," "evocative," and "speaking" to create a mysterious ethereal
sound, which matches Sappho as a mysterious figure. Van Ness’s choral work, on the
other hand, evokes the goddess through strict modality, chant-like lines over drones, and
text/word painting based on melismas, thereby achieving a deeply spiritual, meditative,
and mystical sound world, which fits Sappho as a spiritual leader.
Sappho’s poems about attraction, love, and passion are set by Carol Barnett in her
song cycle Sappho Fragments and in Sheila Silver’s Chariessa. Again, each composer
has her own musical take on the same poem. Carol Barnett’s third song, Whirlwind, is
481
For text comparison, see appendix B, 208.
197
unique in her cycle for its evocation of exotic cultures. In addition, she conjures
Sappho’s image of love as a whirlwind in both voice and tessitura, and allows the singer
to express her shattered heart in high, sustained tone. Similarly, Sheila Silver suggests
the whirlwind through fast-moving, disjunct instrumental lines and her score instructions
tell the singer to perform "passionately," "alluring," and with "renewed passion," for a
convincing, attractive, and seductive effect. Both close the songs on a high sustained
high note, and both composers portrays Sappho’s image with powerful feminine
emotions of love, sexual desire, and heartbrokeness.
The poetic themes of jealousy and homoeroticism are conveyed musically in Liza
Lim’s song Voodoo Child and the fifth song of Van Ness’s The Voice of the Tenth Muse.
While both composers selected the same poem, they chose different translators: Lim
chose Constantine Trypanis and Van Ness chose Diane Rayor. Generally, Lim uses
modern techniques of atonality, dissonance, transcending textures, layering of sounds,
extended vocal/instrumental techniques, as well as text painting to convey the disturbing
and melancholy images in Voodoo Child. Her musical expression of Sappho’s jealousy is
achieved through extended instrumental techniques of screeching sounds and trills,
producing ethereal, ghost-like sounds. Sappho’s homoerotic sensations are portrayed
through numerous extended vocal techniques, such as raspy throat sounds, tongue rolls,
and strained inhaling effects, which evoke Sappho’s frozen tongue and produce a
distorted sound. Dynamic and tempo changes as well as metric shifts point to Sappho’s
trembling body. Performance instructions such as "choking inarticulacy of the person’s
feelings," "uncontrollable shaking," and "explosively expelling breath," adds powerful
198
effects to Sappho’s feelings and emotions. In Patricia Van Ness’s musical interpretation
of the same poem, she once again draws elements of medieval music with the vocal lines,
evocative melismas, and sustained drones. However, Van Ness breaks away from
modality moving to intense dissonance to emphasize the deepest feelings of jealousy in
Sappho seeing her beloved with someone else. Moreover, Van Ness uses word/text
painting to express Sappho’s homoerotic feelings: on the word "laughing" with
descending lines, suggesting the girl’s gaiety, "sweetly" with an exquisite phrase that
represents the girl’s sweet voice; and text painting suggestive of Sappho’s fluttering heart
with melismas and perfect fifths. She further emphasizes Sappho’s broken tongue with
dissonance and fire under her skin with scale runs. Composers Lim and Van Ness views
Sappho as a powerful mystical and sexual figure.
Homoeroticism is also portrayed in Augusta Read Thomas’s song cycle In My Sky
at Twilight Songs of Passion and Love and again in Sheila Silver’s sixth song from
Chariessa.482 In the poem, Sappho tells of love bringing both pleasure and pain, its
power resembling a reptile overwhelming a person’s body. Her erotic expression in
language and imagery is captured by Thomas’s use of extended vocal techniques, highly
descriptive score instructions, such as word painting, and dynamic emphasis, all to
underscore poetic imagery and to enhance the sensuous mood in the song. Thomas
instructs that the song must be performed in a "blazing, urgent, passionate" manner, as if
a person is feeling the powerful effects of love. The singer is given the option to sing the
482
Sheila Silver sets three different poems of Sappho in the sixth song of
Chariessa.
199
words in a whisper or sing on provided pitches. The text "Love bittersweet, irrepressible"
is sung in recitation style in a sustained high register. Thomas gives the soprano clearly
gendered directions of mood, asking at times to be "delicate," "daydream of something
sensuous," "erotic," "graceful," "elegant." Thomas also gives instrumental directions
including "intimate," "spunky and intense," "like a quick tickle," "fiery," and "alluring,"
to suggest pleasure and pain caused by the effects of love. Thomas also employs word
repetition, extreme dynamics, and vocalise, and she accentuates Sappho’s orgasms
aroused by her beloved student Atthis and the power of homoerotic love overtaking her
body through fortissimo dynamics. In a similar manner, Sheila Silver arouses homoerotic
love with Sappho’s text through detailed score instructions, word painting, and dynamic
stress. She instructs the soprano to sing "with renewed passion" on the word "love" on a
high A, with a growing crescendo to an orgasmic fortissimo, which represents the power
of love on Sappho. Silver’s direction to the soprano to sing "slow and alluring" on the
word "reptile-like" matches the animal’s movement; she slithers "furiously" on the phrase
"strikes me down," conveying the powerful effects of Sappho’s homoerotic passion for
Atthis. Both Thomas and Silver see Sappho as feminine figure, who freely expressed
feminine emotions of love and passion.
As one of the last stages in life, the poetic theme of old age is set by Sheila Silver
in her fifth song in Chariessa and Carol Barnett in her fourth song in Sappho Fragments.
Both composers have selected the same poem by the same translator. Silver’s evocation
of "old age" is underscored by a performance direction to be "ethereal," setting up a
melancholic mood in the song. The soprano sings "youth goes," and the piano’s pedal
200
points provides not only a strong tonal effect, but also a strong emphasis on Sappho’s
complaints about old age. The soprano sings "I am in bed alone," in a sustained, lowpitched recitation line, as if her acceptance of her fate in old age and aloneness is finally
realized. Carol Barnett’s depiction of old age is conveyed through the singer on low,
sustained notes, complaining "youth goes," which symbolizes her slowly fading beauty.
Sappho’s last words, "I am in bed alone," sung without accompaniment, may strongly
suggests that a lover, her beauty, and her youthfulness have all left her in solitude. Both
Silver and Barnett presents Sappho with feminine emotions of old age complaints.
The portrayal of Sappho’s image is multi-faceted. Each composer presents
Sappho according to their own interpretation of her poetry and musical style. The impact
of Sappho’s writing is still powerful today, as can be heard in the compositions of each of
our female composers. The songs they have created are each unique in its own way,
giving voice to Sappho in the modern world. As more clear-cut evidence of Sappho’s
works has come to light recently,483 these poems will bring increasing awareness to
musical setting, especially by female composers, highlighting to their compositions and
hopefully including them more frequently in concert programs. The legacy of Sappho’s
work not only offers a voice for women in a musical world dominated by men, but
composers can aspire to be heard, gain an identity, and an individual and artistic
expression through her gendered and evocative poetry.
483
See chapter 1, 14.
201
APPENDICES
202
APPENDIX A
OVERVIEW OF REPERTORY AND POETIC THEMES
203
204
205
206
APPENDIX B
CONCORDANCE OF POETIC THEMES
207
208
209
210
211
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212
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