Faculty Recital
Dialectic in Music
Works by Luigi Nono and
Lewis Nielson
Warner Concert Hall
November 8, 2009, 8:00 pm
Concert No. 49
“Hay que caminar” soñando (1989)
Part I
Luigi Nono
(1924–1990)
Leah Asher, Samantha Bounkeua, violins
To Hell with Paganini (2008)
Lewis Nielson
(b. 1950)
John Langford, Dave Vohden, percussion
“Hay que caminar” soñando
Part II
Nono
Leah Asher, Samantha Bounkeua
Siete Cançiones Simples de Amor y Revoluçión
Text by Roque Dalton (1935–1975)
Nielson
Laura DellaFera, soprano
Nathan Heidelberger, piano
“Hay que caminar” soñando
Part III
Leah Asher, Samantha Bounkeua
Please silence all cell phones and refrain from the use of video cameras
unless prior arrangements have been made with the performers.
The use of flash cameras is prohibited. Thank you.
Nono
Text and Translations
“Hay que caminar” soñando
From an inscription on a monastery wall in Tolédo, Spain:
Caminante, no hay caminos. Hay que caminar
Wanderer, there is no path, still you must walk
(trans. Lewis Nielson)
From Proverbios y cantares XXIX in Campos de Castilla
by Antonio Machado (1875–1939)
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar
Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road-Only wakes upon the sea.
(trans. Betty Jean Craige)
Nono
Siete Cançiones Simples de Amor y Revoluçión
from Un Libro Levemente Odioso (A Slightly Repellent Book)
by Roque Dalton (La Letra Editores, SA: Mexico City, 1975, 1988)
Used by permission of publisher.
(trans. by Lewis Nielson)
I. Tampoco Asi
“Poesiya
Poecìa
Pohesia
Cierto indefinido encanto que
Halaga y suspende el ànimo
Versitos de ustedes
Puetas
Virus de la melomanìa
Logogrifo de la logomanquia
Logìstica de la declamaciòn
Poesilla
De ustedes
Queridos
Portaliros
Gay-subior
Liróforos
Panidas
Aedas
Floripondios
Vates
Trovadores
Bardos
Juglares
Rimadoes
Pensanautas
Lìridos
Cantors himnastas
Musaguetas
Pues-si-ya
Querida
Què harìamos sin ti
Los cultus
Los duros
Los responsables
Los preocupados
Los dueños del futuro
Los Premio Nobel in fieri
Los Hombres Nuevos de segunda mano
Los monolìticos
Los firmes
Los la-Guardia-muere-pero-no-se-rinde
Entre el tercero y cuarto trago
Al despertar en plena primavera
Nielson
I. Not this Way
“Poesy
Poetry
Pohesia
A certain indefinite delight that
It pleases and saps the strength
Little verses for you
Little one.
Virus of the meglomania
Logorhythm of the logomanquia
Logistics of the declamation
Poesilla
Of you darlings
Lords
Flowery ones
Dressed up
Troubadours
Bards
Jugglers
Rhymers
Deep thinkers
Lyricists
Hymn singers
Followers of “the Muse”
Pussies
Darling
That croons without you
The cults
The ones responsible
The ones who are preoccupied
The guardians of the future
The flaming First Nobels
The second-hand New Men
The monoliths
The roads
The Guard-that-dies-but-never-surrenders
Between a third and a quarter drunk
Waking up in the clear Spring
At the time of the games with Esther
To excuse myself to the people
Having been alone
With the autocritical ones”
A la hora de los jugos con Esther
Al decir pueblo que me escuchàis
Al estar solos
Al auticriticarnos.”
II. Las Mujeres
Es una de las caretas que Eleanor
le habia enviado
se leyó lo siguiente:
"Sé que hay muchachas con el cuerpo mejor formado
pero esto no me preocupa.
Yo gozo de la mayor felicidad:
eres un hombre digno y nuestro amor
es profundo, verdadero, eterno.
Mi corazón es tuyo, mi vida es tuya.
Puede que mi cuerpo no sea bello,
puede que mi piel no sea bella,
pero yo te pertenezco para siempre..."
El forense se limitó a comprobar que en la herida de Eleanor
Mills
había larvas de gusanos y que, por ello,
el cadáver tendría ya uno o dos dias.
El ha logrado escapar, hasta el memento.
II. Women
It is one of the notes that Eleanor
had sent him
containing the following text:
" I know that there are girls with better looking bodies
but this does not worry me.
I enjoy the greatest happiness:
you are a worthy man and our love
it is deep, real, eternal.
My heart is yours, my life is yours.
Maybe my body is not beautiful,
Maybe my skin is not beautiful,
but I you belong forever ... "
After [reading] this forensic exercise, he limited himself to verifying that there were
grub larvae in the wound he left in Eleanor
Mills'
and so
the corpse was already one or two days old.
He managed to escape, except for this little memento.
III. 27 Años
Es una cosa seria
Tener veintisiete años
En realidad es una
De las cosas màs serias
En derredor se mueren los amigos
De la infancia ahogada
Y empieza a dudar uno
De us immortalidad.
III. 27 Years old
It’s a serious thing
To be 27 years old
And to realize that
It’s a thing more serious
Than that the friends of my youth
Are dying off
And I start to no longer believe
In my own immortality.
IV. Tu Compañia
Cuando anochece y tibia
Una forma de paz se me acerca
Es tu recuerdo pan de siembra, hilo mistico
Con que mis manos quietas
Son previsoras para corazòn
Dirìase: para el ciego lejano
¿què mâs darà la espuma, el plovo?
Pero es tu soledad la que puebla mis noches.
Quien no me deja solo, a punto de morir.
Somos de tal manera multitud silenciosa…
IV. Your Company
In the warm darkness
I feel peacefulness come over me
Your memory [is like] the harvest, a mystical thread
For my silent hands
Waking up my heart.
Someone might ask:
what are foam and dust to a blind man?
But it is longing for you that fills my nights.
And won’t leave me alone, even on the verge of dying.
That’s what we’re like, this silent multitude …
V. Minipoemas
Muchacha Cubana en un comedor estudiantil
Era llena de gracia,
Como las vietnamitas
La Nueva Generacion
El ingenio de Francia de su boca fluia
Pero los muchachos terminaron por llamarla
La Panzona.
Mas bien presumidillo
Yo soy el gallo
De la gallina de los huevos de oro.
Actividades culturales de esta semana
Conversatorio sobre
Poesía conversacional.
Mesa redonda sobre
El círculo vicioso.
Latinoamerica en la decade de los setenta
El zapatero a sus zapatos, la bomba
Al Consulado de los Estados Unidos.
Para la historia
Communicado conjunto
De un hombre y una mujer.
Poeta soñoliento
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche…
V. Minipoems
Cuban girl in a student dining room
She was full of grace,
Like the Vietnamese.
The New Generation
The French ingenuity of his mouth was flowing,
But the boys ended up calling her
The Panzona.
A bit presumptuous
I am the rooster
Of the hen that lays the golden eggs.
Cultural activities this week
Conversation on
Conversational poetry.
Round table on
The vicious circle.
Latin America in the decade of the seventies
The shoemaker to his shoes, the bomb
To the Consulate of the United States.
For the record
Joint Communication
Of a man and a woman.
Sleepy poet
Tonight I can write the saddest poems …
VI. Sueño de oro
Delirio de grandezas otro modo
Como el que mâs de vivir pobre
De volverse enemigo de uno mismo
Mùsica de trompeta para el tango
Lo peor para la vesìcula biliar.
VI. Dreams of Gold [Golden Sleep]
The delirious dreams of the rich are quite different
From those of the poor.
[It’s] their own worst enemy
A tango played on a trumpet
The worst possible thing for a blister
VII. Como Tú
Yo como tú
amo el amor,
la vida,
el dulce encanto de las cosas
el paisaje celeste de los días de enero.
También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan,
de todos.
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí,
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos
VII. Like You
Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of living, the clear light of our
land in January days.
And my blood rises
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the beginnings of tears.
I know the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
land and bread,
the poetry of everyone.
Program Notes
Each work is a duo, and each duo is either an eguale or highly conventional 2-part
combination. This alone creates an internal commentary with regard to the degree of
complementation and identity each duo may possess. More than this, each work has, in
the post-modern sense, a “text” that gives it shape, obviating the need for additional
commentary: the Machado poem and inscription for Nono’s “Hay que caminar”
soñando, the sculpture of the same name for Paganini (consisting of an incinerated violin
laminated in plastic), and the poetry of Dalton in the Siete Cançiones. These, however,
reflect only the most superficial characteristics of that combination of the perceptible and
notional that engage dialectic. Of all arts, music alone may provide understanding (the
utterly spatial as score) together with its negation (the utterly temporal moment-tomoment connection of the spatial array) that yields the conceptual wholeness that takes
place completely in the simple performance of itself: a self-consciousness present to the
performers and audience alike. But this connection, once perceived, must be used as a
focus to guide compositional structure in order to create the concentric spiraling outward
and inward that dialectic comprehends. In contemporary music in the first decade of the
new century, whether conscious or not, intended or not, dialectical processes mediate the
composition with and perception of the increasingly refined timbre, pitch, and rhythm
materials arrayed on the musical “camino.” But there is no one way to walk or find
one’s footing. Whether narrow or broad, the dialectical relations construct multiple
approaches in response to the imperative: “hay que caminar.”