Sappho's 16th fragment set to music
Sep. 17th, 2013 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzula posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poetreeI was asked by jjhunter if I wanted to chant/sing this piece, and I was happy to take on the challenge, and was really inspired by the poem! I know very little about ancient Greek poetry and music, and I didn't even know that it was originally meant to be chanted/sung with lyre accompaniment. So the music here is straight from my own head. Er, I guess the recording is a bit rough--I've had a cold and am not quite recovered. Okay, enough excuses. The text is here, for reference, and here's my recording:
Alternative link in case the Soundcloud streaming doesn't work: click through for streaming.
The most important thing for me here was to bring out the text with the help of the music. I often use very free rhythm when I don't have any musical accompaniment, which I like because it lets me use the natural rhythm of the phrases of the poem. I also like to savor the sounds of the words.
The melody of the first few lines relies on fourth and fifth intervals, which can sound austere and strict and possibly even martial to me, to reflect the subject. And then comes the contrasting "But I say it is what you love." Which, okay, still a fourth interval there, but hopefully my phrasing conveys a difference.
In the next two verses I'm trying for a storytelling sort of melody, where the important thing is to make the phrases hang together and tell a story. I had a whispering choir on "Helen" to suggest the crowds of adoring admirers.
And then come the fragments. I decided to break up the melody a bit here to try to suggest the incompleteness, which is why there's speaking/whispering instead. And at the end I bring back the melody on "who is gone", ending it on the tonic to suggest finality.
The next verse is kind of divided in two. The first two lines are so full of grief to me, so that's what I tried to bring out. Then I'm back to a martial sort of sound again in the last two lines, and then comes more sadness (gah, those lines are heartbreaking!) Also bringing back the whispering here, for the fragments.
And then came the most surprising part of it for me, when I realized that the last line is actually pretty ambiguous. It could be...well, a happy ending is probably too much to hope for. But there's something happening here, something that shifts from grief into...I don't know what? So I suggested that by ending it on the major third, which suggests a major chord and also breaks off from the minor key of the rest of the song. And I guess the fact that the melody doesn't return to the tonic points to something unfinished/something yet to happen.
jjhunter if I wanted to chant/sing this piece, and I was happy to take on the challenge, and was really inspired by the poem! I know very little about ancient Greek poetry and music, and I didn't even know that it was originally meant to be chanted/sung with lyre accompaniment. So the music here is straight from my own head. Er, I guess the recording is a bit rough--I've had a cold and am not quite recovered. Okay, enough excuses. The text is here, for reference, and here's my recording: Alternative link in case the Soundcloud streaming doesn't work: click through for streaming.
The most important thing for me here was to bring out the text with the help of the music. I often use very free rhythm when I don't have any musical accompaniment, which I like because it lets me use the natural rhythm of the phrases of the poem. I also like to savor the sounds of the words.
The melody of the first few lines relies on fourth and fifth intervals, which can sound austere and strict and possibly even martial to me, to reflect the subject. And then comes the contrasting "But I say it is what you love." Which, okay, still a fourth interval there, but hopefully my phrasing conveys a difference.
In the next two verses I'm trying for a storytelling sort of melody, where the important thing is to make the phrases hang together and tell a story. I had a whispering choir on "Helen" to suggest the crowds of adoring admirers.
And then come the fragments. I decided to break up the melody a bit here to try to suggest the incompleteness, which is why there's speaking/whispering instead. And at the end I bring back the melody on "who is gone", ending it on the tonic to suggest finality.
The next verse is kind of divided in two. The first two lines are so full of grief to me, so that's what I tried to bring out. Then I'm back to a martial sort of sound again in the last two lines, and then comes more sadness (gah, those lines are heartbreaking!) Also bringing back the whispering here, for the fragments.
And then came the most surprising part of it for me, when I realized that the last line is actually pretty ambiguous. It could be...well, a happy ending is probably too much to hope for. But there's something happening here, something that shifts from grief into...I don't know what? So I suggested that by ending it on the major third, which suggests a major chord and also breaks off from the minor key of the rest of the song. And I guess the fact that the melody doesn't return to the tonic points to something unfinished/something yet to happen.
