Support London Song Festival Friday 4th December 2020, 7pm ROADS TO SOLACE Liebestod James Cleverton – baritone Nigel Foster – piano Programme devised by Nigel Foster All translations © Richard Stokes Songs 1-3 – Michelangelo-Lieder – Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) 1) Wohl denk’ich oft Wohl denk’ ich oft an mein vergang’nes Leben, I often recall my past life, Wie es, vor meiner Liebe für Dich, war; As it was before I loved you; Kein Mensch hat damals Acht auf mich gegeben, No one then paid heed to me, Ein jeder Tag verloren für mich war. Each day for me was a loss; Ich dachte wohl, ganz dem Gesang zu leben, I thought to live for song alone, Auch mich zu flüchten aus der And flee Menschen Schar… The thronging crowd. Genannt in Lob und Tadel bin ich heute, Today my name is praised and censured, Und, dass ich da bin, wissen alle Leute! And the entire world knows that I exist! 2) Alles Endet Alles endet, was entstehet, All must end that has beginning, Alles, alles rings vergehet, All things round us perish, Denn die Zeit flieht, und die Sonne sieht, For time is fleeting, and the sun sees Dass Alles rings vergehet, That all things round us perish, Denken, Reden, Schmerz und Wonne; Thought, speech, pain and rapture; Und die wir zu Enkeln hatten, And our children’s children Schwanden wie bei Tag die Schatten, Vanished as shadows by day, Wie ein Dunst im Windeshauch. As mists in a breeze. Menschen waren wir ja auch, We were also human beings, Froh und traurig, so wie ihr; With joys and sorrows like your own. Und nun sind wir leblos hier, And now there is no life in us here, Sind nur Erde, wie ihr sehet; We are but earth, as you can see; Alles endet, was entstehet, All must end that has beginning, Alles, alles rings vergehet! All things round us perish! Support London Song Festival Fühlt meine Seele Fühlt meine Seele das ersehnte Licht Does my soul feel the longed-for light Von Gott, der sie erschuf? Ist es der Strahl Of God who created it? Is it the ray Von and’rer Schönheit aus dem Jammertal, Of some other beauty from this vale of tears Der in mein Herz erinnrungweckend bricht? That storms my heart, awakening memories? Ist es ein Klang, ein Traumgesicht, Is it a sound, a vision in a dream Das Aug’ und Herz mir füllt mit einem Mal That suddenly fills my eyes and heart In unbegreiflich glühn’der Qual, With inconceivable, searing pain, Die mich zu Tränen bringt? Ich weiss es nicht. Reducing me to tears? I do not know. Was ich ersehne, fühle, was mich lenkt, What I long for, what I feel, what guides me Ist nicht in mir: Sag’ mir, wie ich’s erwerbe? Is not in me: tell me how to achieve it! Mir zeigt es wohl nur eines And’ren Huld. Only another’s favour is likely to reveal it. Darein bin ich, seit ich Dich sah, versenkt; Mich treibt ein Ja und Nein, ein This has absorbed me, since seeing you. Süss und Herbe... I am torn between yes and no, bitterness and sweetness – Daran sind, Herrin, Deine Augen Schuld! Your eyes, my lady, are the cause! Songs 4-10 - Premiere of the 2020 London Song Festival Commission The Man With Night Sweats – Iain Bell (b. 1980) and Thom Gunn (1929-2004) 1) The man with night sweats I wake up cold, I who Prospered through dreams of heat Wake to their residue, Sweat, and a clinging sheet. My flesh was its own shield: Where it was gashed, it healed. I grew as I explored The body I could trust Even while I adored The risk that made robust, A world of wonders in Each challenge to the skin. I cannot but be sorry The given shield was cracked, My mind reduced to hurry, My flesh reduced and wrecked. I have to change the bed, But catch myself instead Stopped upright where I am Hugging my body to me Support London Song Festival As if to shield it from The pains that will go through me, As if hands were enough To hold an avalanche off. 2) Lament I Your dying was a difficult enterprise First, petty things took up your energies, The small but clustering duties of the sick Irritant as the cough’s dry rhetoric Those hours of waiting for pills, shot, X-ray Or test (while you read novels two a day) Already with a kind of clumsy stealth Distanced you from the habits of your health. In hope still, courteous still, but tired and thin, You tried to stay the man that you had been, Treating each symptom as a mere mishap Without import. But then the spinal tap. It brought a hard headache, and when night came I heard you wake up from the same bad dream Every half-hour with the same short cry Of mild outrage, before immediately Slipping into the nightmare once again Empty of content but the drip of pain. No respite followed: though the nightmare ceased, Your cough grew thick and rich, its strength increased. Four nights, and on the fifth we drove you down To the Emergency Room. That frown, that frown: I’d never seen such rage in you before As when they wheeled you through the swinging door. For you knew, rightly, they conveyed you from Those normal pleasures of the sun’s kingdom The hedonistic body basks within And takes for granted—summer on the skin, Sleep without break, the moderate taste of tea In a dry mouth. You had gone on from me As if your body sought out martyrdom In the far Canada of a hospital room. Once there, you entered fully the distress And long pale rigours of the wilderness. A gust of morphine hid you. 3) Still life I shall not soon forget The greyish-yellow skin To which the face had set: Lids tights: nothing of his, No tremor from within, Support London Song Festival Played on the surfaces. He still found breath, and yet It was an obscure knack. I shall not soon forget The angle of his head, Arrested and reared back On the crisp field of bed, Back from what he could neither Accept, as one opposed, Nor, as a life-long breather, Consentingly let go, The tube his mouth enclosed In an astonished O. 4) Lament II Your lungs collapsed, and the machine, unstrained, Did all your breathing now. Nothing remained But death by drowning on an inland sea Of your own fluids 5) Memory unsettled Your pain still hangs in air, Sharp motes of it suspended; The voice of your despair — That also is not ended: When near your death a friend Asked you what he could do, ‘Remember me,’ you said. We will remember you. Once when you went to see Another with a fever In a like hospital bed, With terrible hothouse cough And terrible hothouse shiver That soaked him and then dried him, And you perceived that he Had to be comforted, You climbed in there beside him And hugged him plain in view, Though you were sick enough, And had your own fears too. 6) The reassurance About ten days or so After we saw you dead You came back in a dream. I’m all right now you said. Support London Song Festival And it was you, although You were fleshed out again: You hugged us all round then, And gave your welcoming beam. How like you to be kind, Seeking to reassure. And, yes, how like my mind To make itself secure. 7) Words for some ash Poor parched man, we had to squeeze Dental sponge against your teeth, So that moisture by degrees Dribble4d to the mouth beneath. Christmas Day your pupils crossed, Staring at your nose’s tip. Seeking there the air you lost Yet still gaped for, dry of lip. Now you are a bag of ash Scattered on a coastal ridge, Where you watched the distant crash, Ocean on a broken edge. Death has wiped away each sense; Fire took muscle, bone, and brains; Next may rain leach discontents From your dust, wash what remains. Deeper into damper ground Till the granules work their way Down to unseen streams, and bound Briskly in the water’s play; May you lastly reach the shore, Joining tide without intent, Only worried any more By the currents’ argument. I wake up cold. Support London Song Festival Songs 11-13 – Franz Schubert (1797-1828) - Three songs to poems by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) Die Stadt Am fernen Horizonte On the distant horizon Erscheint, wie ein Nebelbild, The town with its turrets Die Stadt mit ihren Türmen Looms like a misty vision, In Abenddämmrung gehüllt. Veiled in evening light. Ein feuchter Windzug kräuselt Die graue Wasserbahn; A dank breeze ruffles Mit traurigem Takte rudert The gloomy waterway: Der Schiffer in meinem Kahn. With sad and measured strokes The boatman rows my boat. Die Sonne hebt sich noch einmal Leuchtend vom Boden empor, The sun rises once again, Und zeigt mir jene Stelle, Gleaming from the earth, Wo ich das Liebste verlor. And shows me that place Where I lost what I loved most. Ihr Bild IIch stand in dunkeln Träumen, I stood in dark dreams, Und starrt’ ihr Bildnis an, And gazed at her likeness, Und das geliebte Antlitz And that beloved face Heimlich zu leben begann. Sprang mysteriously to life. Um ihre Lippen zog sich Ein Lächeln wunderbar, A wonderful smile played About her lips, Und wie von Wehmutstränen And her eyes glistened, Erglänzte ihr Augenpaar.