Instrumentation: 2(A.Fl.)2.(E.H).2(BClr.)2(Cbsn.)-3.1.1.0-1perc-hrp-MezzoSop-str.
Duration: ca. 27 minutes
Using the theme of wine and its many poetic meanings as a point of departure, The Clustered Vine is a meditation on the grief of loss, and the memories that help us to live more at ease with such loss. Though commissioned in memory of a dearly beloved spouse and mother, this work was also inspired by the feelings of loss that I and so many experienced during the pandemic lockdowns and the continuing uncertainty as the world tries to move forward.
Scored for mezzo-soprano and a medium sized orchestra the texts in this five movement work are from Euripides’s Baccahe, the 14th-century Andalusian Sufi poet Al-Shushtari, Rainer Maria Rilke, and the 8th-century Chinese poet Li Po.
This work was premiered at the Grand Teton Music Festival on August 11 & 12, 2023 with soloist Kelley O’Connor, and conductor Sir Donald Runnicles with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra.
Libretto
THE CLUSTERED VINE
SONGS OF LOVE, LOSS, & REMEMBRANCE
I. The Gift of Wine
from The Bacchae by Euripides (480 – 406 BC)
Translated by Alexander Kerr (1828 – 1919) and adapted by Kareem Roustom.
(Public domain)
First there was Demeter, goddess of the Earth;
She gave us grains to feed us and sustain us.
Then came Dionysus, who gave us wine.
He gave the pleasures of wine to rich
And poor alike, to release us all from pain;
He gave laughter to the flute,
And the losing of cares
In cool forgetting.
When we have no wine, nothing is left,
No love, no joy;
With wine comes sleep, and in our sleep
We forget the fret and fever of the day.
For we live only briefly.
Briefly…
II. Cup After Cup
Abu Hassan Al-Shushtari (1214 – 1270)
Adaptation by Judith Chalmer (b. 1951), and edited by Kareem Roustom
Used with permission
Your love has filled for me cup after cup.
Its brightness has unveiled my essence
For me the night now turns to day
The sun and the stars are mine
A realm of love from the heights to the depths
My heart, the guiding star
Your love has filled for me cup after cup.
Turning away from the life I led
I see myself, as I am:
All that was hidden newly revealed,
Its meaning richer than gold.
Your love has filled for me cup after cup.
Look to the monastery
There I’ll be found
Dreamy among jugs of wine
Filled with a limitless love for all
Whose companionship revives the soul.
(For knowledge of the heart
Requires company).
III. Life and Death
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926)
Translated by Thomas Stumpf (b. 1951), and edited by Kareem Roustom
Used with permission
Life and death: at their core they are one.
Who understands himself and his own roots
presses himself into a drop of wine
and throws himself into the purest flame.
IV. The Death of the Beloved
Rainer Maria Rilke
Of death he only knew what we all know:
it takes us into silence.
But when she, who had not been torn from him,
no, just softly released from his eyes,
floated across to unknown shadows,
in that moment he knew the dead so well,
as if through her he was closer
to each and every one; he let others talk
and did not believe them and said, that land
was in a good place and ever sweet –
And searched there for her footprints.
V. Taking Leave of a Friend
Li-Po (701 – 762)
Translated by Shigeyoshi Obata (1888 – 1971), and adapted by Kareem Roustom.
Public domain.
The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes,
Leaving faint ripples in our bowls of wine.
Rise and dance
In the westering sun,
while the urge of youthful years is yet unchecked!
Our wine is now gone. So, farewell!
Here we part, my friend, one last time. Once, forever.
You go ten thousand miles, drifting away
Like an unrooted water-grass.
One brief journey between heaven and earth,
Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand
ages.
Oh, the floating clouds and the thoughts of a wanderer!
Oh, the sunset and the longing for an old friend!
We ride away from each other, waving our hands,
While our horses neigh softly, softly…