Libby Larsen: Pharaoh Songs (cycle)
Libby Larsen: Pharaoh Songs (cycle)
Composer: Libby Larsen
Poet: Egyptian Love poems, 13th c. BC, tr. John L Foster
Voicing: Bass- Baritone & Piano
Date: 2017
Duration: 14:00
About: “I created a loose, fantasized narrative which exists solely in the mind of the lover. Desire, fantasy, tension, frustration, reunion and fulfillment are projected on the object of the lover’s desire.”
Text / Lyrics
My love is one and only, without peer
Papyrus Chester Beatty I: Verso
My love is one and only, without peer,
lovely above all Egypt’s lovely girls.
On the horizon of my seeing,
see her, rising,
Glistening goddess of the sunrise star
bright in the forehead of a lucky year.
So there she stands, epitome
of shining, shedding light,
Her eyebrows, gleaming darkly, marking
eyes which dance and wander.
Sweet are those lips, which chatter
(but never a word too much),
And the line of the long neck lovely, dropping
(since song’s notes slide that way)
To young breasts firm in the bouncing light
which shimmers that blueshadowed side fall of hair.
And slim are those arms, overtoned with gold,
those fingers which touch like a brush of lotus.
And (ah) how the curve of her back slips gently
by a whisper of waist to god’s plenty below.
(such thighs as hers pass knowledge
of loveliness known in the old days.)
Dressed in the perfect flesh of woman
(heart would run captive to such slim arms),
she ladies it over the earth,
Schooling the neck of each schoolboy male
to swing on a swivel to see her move.
(He who could hold that body tight would know at last
perfection of delight—
Best of the bullyboys,
first among lovers.)
Look you, all men, at the golden going,
like Our Lady of Love,
without peer.
If I could just be the washermanCairo Ostracon 25218, Augmented by Ostracon Deir el Medineh 1266
If I could just be the washerman
doing her laundry for one month only,
I would be faithful to pick up the bundles,
sturdy to beat clean the heavy linens,
But gentle to touch those finespun things
lying closest the body I love.
I would rinse with pure water the perfumes
that linger still in her tunics
And I’d dry my own flesh with the towels
she yesterday held to her face.
The touch of her clothes, their textures,
her softness in them…
Thank god for the body
its youthful vigor!
Ho, what she’s done to me—that girl
Papyrus Chester Beatty I: Recto
Ho, what she’s done to me—that girl!!
And I’m to grin and just bear it?
Letting me stand there huge in her door
while she goes catfoot inside.
Not even a word: “Have a quiet walk home!”
(dear god give me relief)
Stopping her ears the whole damned night
and me only whispering, “Share!”
I love you through the daytimes
Cairo Ostracon 25218, Augmented by Ostracon Deir el Medineh 1266
I love you through the daytimes,
in the dark,
Through all the long divisions of the night,
those hours
spendthrift, I waste away alone,
and lie, and turn, awake till dawn.
And with the shape of you I people night,
thoughts of hot desire grow live within me.
What magic was in your voice
to bring such singing to my flesh,
To limbs that now lie listless on my bed without you?
Thus I beseech the darkness:
Where gone, O love?
Why gone from me whose love
can pace you, step by step, to your desire?
No loving voice replies.
And I perceive
how much I am alone.
My love is back, let me shout out the news
Cairo Ostracon 25218, Augmented by Ostracon Deir el Medineh 1266
My love is back, let me shout out the news!
My arms swing wide to embrace her,
And hear pirouettes in its dark chamber
glad as a fish when night shades the pool.
You are mine, my mistress, mine to eternity,
mine from the day you first whispered my name
When I hold my love close
Cairo Ostracon 25218, Augmented by Ostracon Deir el Medineh 1266
When I hold my love close
(and her arms steal around me),
I’m like a man translated to Punt
or like someone out in the reedflats
When the whole world suddenly bursts into flower
In this dreamland of South Sea fragrances,
My love, you are essence of roses.
Source Notes
“Pharaoh Songs” was premiered at Source Songs Festival August 7, 2017 by Alan Dunbar, bass-baritone, and Mark Bilyeu, piano. Sundin Sundin Music Hall in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Performer Notes
The cycle’s narrative arc is so well-crafted; I love how the character slowly begins to show himself as the work progresses. The centerpiece of “I love you through the daytimes” is itself a journey, and such a rewarding musical experience. -MB
Composer Info
“Music exists in an infinity of sound. I think of all music as existing in the substance of the air itself. It is the composer’s task to order and make sense of sound, in time and space, to communicate something about being alive through music.”
– Libby Larsen
Libby Larsen (b. 24 December 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over twelve operas. Grammy Award winning and widely recorded, including over fifty CD’s of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory.
As a vigorous, articulate advocate for the music and musicians of our time, in 1973 Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composer’s Forum, which has become an invaluable aid for composers in a transitional time for American arts. A former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony and the Colorado Symphony. www.libbylarsen.com
Libby Larsen has ben a pivotal part of Source Song Festival since its launch in 2014.
Poet Info
John L. Foster was a Research Associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, where he studied, translated, and wrote about ancient Egyptian literature from 1966 until his death in 2011.