|
Imperceptible for Soprano and Piano |
|
|
|
Imperceptible for Soprano and Piano, poetry translated by Kenneth Rexroth from his book One Hundred Poems of the Japanese
Japanese haiku, poetry, and art have fascinated me ever since I began
visiting the Japanese Pavilion of Art at the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art...
The poetry and art both offer simple lines and beautiful
imagery – qualities I strived for in creating this piece. As I
searched for poetry, I found Kenneth Rexroth’s beautiful translations
from his book One Hundred Poems from the Japanese graceful and sensual,
but at the same time powerful and haunting.
 Keiko Clark at Timothy Zerlang rehearse in Oakland, California
In 2005 a collaboration with the soprano Keiko Clark, who is a good
friend of mine from the University of Southern California, came about
to write her a new piece of music for a concert of new vocal music
sometime in late 2006. Knowing of Keiko’s amazing vocal agility
and beautiful color, I wanted to write something that would allow her
to tell a story through Rexroth’s translations. As I began
working with these poems, I found that by linking the shorter poems
together into one large work, I could tell the story of one woman’s
wait for her lover, her loss and grief, and her questioning of the
delicate human heart. The title itself helps to clarify the mood
of the piece, and is taken from the final poem in the song:
“Imperceptible
it withers in this world,
this flower-like human heart.”
It was important to create a sense of timelessness while allowing the
performer to interpret the tempos and moods in various parts of the
piece. The piece begins and ends similarly with the piano and the
voice quietly acting as the mist, an eternal song that mournfully
floats ghost-like above a ‘spring meadow’.
Listen to the song
View part of Imperceptible score!
WATCH Keiko perform Imperceptible on YouTube
Purchase
Poems translated by Kenneth Rexroth, from ONE HUNDRED POEMS FROM THE
JAPANESE, copyright © All Rights Reserved by New Directions Publishing
Corp.
Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation
I. Mist floats on the Spring meadow.
My heart is lonely.
A nightingale sings in the dusk.
-Yakamochi
II. Out in the marsh reeds
A bird cries out in sorrow,
As though it had recalled
Something better forgotten.
-Ki No Tsurayuki
III. Someone passes,
And while I wonder
If it is he,
The midnight moon
Is covered with clouds.
-Lady Murasaki Shikibu
IV. This is not the moon,
Nor is this the spring,
Of other springs,
And I alone
Am still the same.
-Ariwara No Narihira
V. I waited for my
Lover until I could hear
In the night the oars of the boat
Crossing the River of Heaven .
-Hitomaro(?)
VI. I should not have waited.
It would have been better
To have slept and dreamed,
Than to have watched night pass,
And this slow moon sink.
-Lady Akazome Emon
VII. Will he always love me?
I cannot read his heart.
This morning my thoughts
Are as disordered
As my black hair.
-Lady Horikawa
VIII. No, the human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always.
-Tsurayuki
IX. In the eternal
Light of the spring day
The flowers fall away
Like the unquiet heart.
-Ki No Tomonori
X. Imperceptible
It withers in the world,
This flower-like human heart.
-Komachi
|
Compositions 
