Barbara Strozzi ( ) arr. Héloïse Werner

Tuesday 26 January 7.30pm

The Hermes Experiment

Marianne Schofield double bass

Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) arr. Héloïse Werner

Tradimento from Diporti di Euterpe Op. 7 (1659) (Giorgio Tani)

Tradimento, tradimento! Amore e la speranza Voglion farmi prigioniero, E a tal segno il mal s'avanza, Ch'ho scoperto ch'il pensiero Dice d'esserne contento. Tradimento, tradimento! La speranza per legarmi, A gran cose mi lusinga,

S'io le credo avvien che stringa Lacci sol da incatenarmi. Mio core all'armi, S'incontri l'infida, Si prenda, s'uccida, Su presto, su presto! E periglioso ogni momento. Tradimento, tradimento!

Betrayal

Betrayal! Treason! Love and Hope

want to make me a prisoner and my sickness is so advanced that I have discovered that I am happy just thinking of it.

Betrayal!

Hope, in order to bind me, entices me with great things. The more I believe what she says

the tighter she ties the laces that enchain me. My heart, take arms

against the treacherous one! Take her and kill her,

hurry, hurry!

Every moment is dangerous. Betrayal!

Text and translation supplied courtesy of The Hermes Experiment. Translation by Candace A. Magner. Please note that this translation may only be reproduced with the express permission of the translator.

Anna Meredith (b.1978) arr. Marianne Schofield

(Philip Ridley)

you wore your fin like a flower and by petal and perfume enticed me beyond land’s end to your teeth oh, consume me piece by piece

oh, no release I’m in your power my fin like a flower

Text supplied courtesy of The Hermes Experiment and printed with permission from Philip Ridley. Please note that this text may only be reproduced with the express permission of the author.

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) arr. Marianne Schofield

(Maurice Maeterlinck)

Sous l’eau du songe qui s’élève Mon âme a peur, mon âme a peur. Et la lune luit dans mon coeur Plongé dans les sources du rêve!

Sous l’ennui morne des roseaux. Seul le reflets profonds des choses, Des lys, des palmes et des roses Pleurent encore au fond des eaux.

Les fleurs s’effeuillent une à une Sur le reflet du firmament. Pour descendre, éternellement Sous l’eau du songe et dans la lune.

Reflections

Beneath the water of the dream that rises, my soul is afraid, my soul is afraid.

And the moon shines into my heart that is bathed in the dream’s source!

Beneath the sad tedium of the reeds, only the deep reflection of things, of lilies, palms and roses,

still weep on the water’s bed.

One by one the flowers shed their leaves upon the firmament’s reflection

to descend, eternally,

beneath the dream’s water and into the moon.

Translation by Richard Stokes.

Please note that this translation may only be reproduced with the express permission of the translator.

Alex Mills

(‘Samsara’ by Konstantinos Papacharalampos)

[Birth: Morning]

I who name myself

Am present under this invisible rain

I who am transformed this morning into transparent rain

I who drop myself into this bright ocean am fluid My name is fluid

The light of past shadows

I who drop myself into this bright happiness

[Interlude: I find myself in this circular room of existence.]

[Growth: Afternoon]

You can clearly be yourself

As our hair grows, as our eyes can see As those clouds travel above the sea

I found you, you find me

We choose this land beyond the sea

Touch my hand, we start again

Give me your kiss, your body is not to miss

Here is an ocean Here is you and me

I swim in peace, I grow, I breathe I live and it’s such bliss

I dream of new oceans With just you and me This dream is not to miss

This new life now is such a dreamy bliss

[Interlude: In this room of existence I am what I find myself to be.]

[Decay: Night]

This dream is too long

I heard them saying at the port And this rain may never stop

I was told a ship is difficult to build How long? How long?

I was told an ocean is difficult to cross How long? How long?

I was told there is this point When the day is gone

When light seems like it had never been born

I was told I may now be too old My body will be gone

Gone!

Now light seems never born

Tonight

I am staying on my own Observing this rain and me Away from the ocean

Observing how life is moving And rain rain rain on me

Away from the sea

You are no longer with me

[Interlude: I find myself as I lose myself within my circle of existence.]

[Death: Dawn]

This dawn the sea is dark and silent

This dawn the sea contains all the water ever present All the faces ever seen

All the dreams ever dreamed

The sea contains everything that had been Everything about you and me

This dawn the sea is aware and silent And this kingdom rests in water And the water is contained and aware Of nothing and everything

Eyes closed Eyes shut

Water is to become What light one day Will overcome

[Interlude: I am I am I am I am within my existence and I find myself in this circular room.]

Original text printed by permission from Konstantinos Papacharalampos. https://twitter.com/Kon_Papach

https://www.instagram.com/neofuturist/

https://www.facebook.com/Konstantinos.Papacharalampos

Please note that this text may only be reproduced with the express permission of the author.

Freya Waley-Cohen (b.1989)

(Octavia Bright)

I. Oyster

Watching you drink me, feeling you think me, I drown in the threads of your thoughts as they struggle to sink me.

Alchemy.

Notes trill through my teeth like krill through a reef and I atrophy. Barnacled bricks stuck limpet slick,

Knuckles are shredded, my blood runs thick,

II. Agua Dulce

My roundels and mounds were yours to be found You scaled them at speed

And then slid down my downs and you drowned.

Deafened by the toll of your principles I dream of a lake

(And I) wait for the ache to abait.

Sun glimmer on the brown shimmer Hear the low-flying flock and let go, Let me drown

For the deep, reckless call of the infinite blue Speaks to my spine

To my hot, live marrow.

III. Delta Song

Liver soft plum licker glides the satin mushroom cap As somewhere south of leather, soft fruit begins to grow.

Slithery grip on catfish hips

Their whiskers a whisper from molten lips

Your sideways jive hums in my muscles Mammalian jazz, a two-step hustle

Swallow my screams as a citadel falls Where hills are flocked in velvet green.

Your body an atlas, but I’ve lost my map, Soul bent in two by your wild, wild gravity.

Texts supplied courtesy of The Hermes Experiment and printed with permission from Octavia Bright. Please note that these texts may only be reproduced with the express permission of the author.

Helen Grime (b.1981) arr. Oliver Pashley

(Fiona Benson)

The registrar asks If this is our first

live-born child;

and I think

of the shuttered room and rolling screen –

my empty womb and that failed scrap of foetal sac –

then remember again the corridor

of the labour ward

and that woman sitting weeping with her man

having given birth to a death – small grey face,

no breath,

something you cannot help but love –

habibi, akushla, I go home alone but carry you, courie you,

little slipped thing, to the ends of the earth.

Council Offices

Poems taken from the collection Bright Travellers by Fiona Benson Published by Jonathan Cape, 2014

Copyright © 2014 Fiona Benson All Rights Reserved.

Reproduced by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Ltd.

Please note that this text may only be reproduced with the express permission of the copyright holder.

Philip Venables (b.1979)

(Cordelia Lynn)

In our early discussions about this song, Cordelia and I decided to collect old photographs to start a process of collaboration. We asked friends for family photos, we asked Héloïse Werner (the singer for whom it was written), and I collected some from my own family. In the end, Cordelia chose one of my family photos as the starting point for a fictional song. I didn’t tell Cordelia who was in the photo, nor when or what the event was. The photograph was taken in 1967.

Don’t try to find me, I don’t want to be found.

I’m calling from a red phone box,

a red phone box in an empty place, I don’t know where I’m going, I never knew where I came from.

The phone box is so red in the dark...

Can you hear the rain on the red on the glass? Red is not the colour of love, red is the ember colour of loss.

Can you see the red? Can you see the red?

Text and image supplied courtesy of The Hermes Experiment, and printed with permission from Philip Venables and Cordelia Lynn.

Please note that this image and text may only be reproduced with the express permission of the composer and author.

Misha Mullov-Abbado (b.1991)

(Tom Parker & Amy Vanmeenen)

Upon a distant hillside There stands a linden tree; As children we would play there, My friends and you and me.

We thought that it would never end For children never see:

We thought that we would always play

One day your eyes were misty As eyes can sometimes be; You told me that you loved me Beside the linden tree.

I thought you’d always be around For lovers never see:

I thought our children soon would play

Around the linden tree, around the linden tree.

But then the trumpet sounded And love was not to be; The call to death or glory Took you away from me.

You thought that you would never die For soldiers never see:

But we will never meet again

Beneath the linden tree, beneath the linden tree.

And now I lay my flowers Beside the linden tree.

Text supplied courtesy of The Hermes Experiment.

Emily Hall (b.1978)

I am happy living simply (2017)

(Marina Tsvetaeva, tr. Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine)

I am happy living simply: like a clock, or a calendar.

The end of the ending (2017)

(Marina Tsvetaeva, tr. Emily Hall)

We’ve reached the end of the ending And there is nothing left to lose: We’ve reached the end of the ending, So I stroke and stroke your face.