A Festive Rite: Three Poems by Denise Levertov for high voice and ensemble (2005)
Written for Jennifer Bellamy
Premiere: April 2006, Tacoma WA

I. Aware


II. September 1961


III. Celebration

Live recording, October 2006
Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
Jerry Hui, director
Jennifer Russell , soprano

Note

The Three Songs on texts of Denise Levertov are not grandiose, sweeping, or complicated. Rather they seek to capture the intimacy and tenderness that is so characteristic of the song genre; they rely on the immediacy of the human voice, that most expressive of instruments. Levertov’s poetry seemed perfectly tailored for the sort of songs I wanted to write. Always concerned with the magic in the mundane, she recreates the beauty in the small details of life. She finds equal joy in the wonders of the natural world and in the ways we relate to one another. They invite the small forms that are so well suited to song-writing.

There is a clear progression throughout the song set. The first hovers between pitch-class based atonality and heavily “spiced” triadic harmony. The set on which it is based will play a significant role in both of the subsequent movements. By the end of this song, however, a clear move has been made toward the tonal language of the subsequent two songs.

The second song echoes Levertov’s text of quiet, personal discovery. It is the longest of the three, and displays the broadest range of emotion. The music follows the three-part form implied by the text, gradually slowing until it ends simply and consonantly with a tonic F# major triad, ostensibly the key of the song. The great freedom afforded by the so-called “emancipation of dissonance” is only truly a blessing if we still allow ourselves the use of consonance and beauty in music when it is called for. This song, hopefully, is a justification of this idea.

In keeping with this, the short last song is fast, joyful, and uncomplicated. Jazzy harmonies and effervescent syncopations abound, culminating in an ascending outburst that affirms the “joyful force” of Levertov’s poetry.

Text

Aware

When I opened the door
I found the vine leaves
speaking among themselves in abundant
whispers.
My presence made them
hush their green breath,
embarrassed, the way
humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,
acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if
the conversations had ended
just before you arrived.
I liked
the glimpse I had, though,
of their obscure
gestures. I liked the sound
of such private voices. Next time
I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open
the door by fractions, eavesdrop
peacefully.

September 1961

This is the year the old ones,
the old great ones
leave us alone on the road.

The road leads to the sea.
We have the words in our pockets,
obscure directions. The old ones

have taken away the light of their presence,
we see it moving away over a hill
off to one side.

The are not dying,
they are withdrawn
into a painful privacy

learning to live without words.
E.P. “It looks like dying” — Williams: “I can’t
describe to you what has been

happening to me” —
H.D. “unable to speak.”
The darkness

twists itself in the wind, the stars
are small, the horizon
ringed with confused urban light-haze.

They have told us
the road leads to the sea,
and given

the language into our hands.
We hear
our footsteps each time a truck

has dazzled past us and gone
leaving us new silence.
One can’t reach

the sea on this endless
road to the sea unless
one turns aside at the end, it seems,

follows
the owl that silently glides above it
aslant, back and forth,

and away into deep woods.

But for us the road
unfurls itself, we count the
words in our pockets, we wonder,

how it will be without them, we don’t
stop walking, we know
there is far to go, sometimes

we think the night wind carries
a smell of the sea…

Celebration

Brilliant, this day — a young virtuoso of a day.
Morning shadows cut by sharpest scissors,
deft hands. And every prodigy of green—
whether it’s ferns or lichen or needles
or impatient points of bud on spindly bushes—
greener than ever before
And on the way the conifers
hold new cones to the light for blessing,
a festive rite, and sing the oceanic chant the wind
transcribes for them!
a day that shines in the cold
like a first-prize brass band swinging along the street
of a coal-dusty village, wholly at odds
with the claims of reasonable gloom.