Stephenson, Into the Wreck_62782

Josephine Stephenson

Into the Wreck

pour chœur mixed (SATB) et récitant for mixed choir (SATB) and narrator

EXCERPT for perusal only

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Imprimé aux Pays-Bas

Commissioned by Tenebrae Choir with support from the PRS Foundation.

First performed by Tenebrae with Juliet Stevenson conducted by Nigel Short at St. Mary’s Parish Church, Haddington on 17 September 2021, as part of the Lammermuir Festival.

Texts by Adrienne Rich, Sappho, Anne Bradstreet, Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, Charlotte Smith, Sagawa Chika, Alfonsina Storni, Margaret Fuller, Edit Södergran, Else Lasker-Schüler, Christina Rossetti, Anne Wharton, Mary Coleridge, Emily Dickinson and Sarojini Naidu compiled with help from Bethany Hocken and Giuliana Kiersz.

Thank you to Philippa Boyle, Lisa Carlioth, Yuji Suzuki, Giuliana Kiersz and Felicitas Sonvilla for their guidance around the pronunciation of Ancient Greek, Swedish, Japanese, Argentine Spanish and German.

For mixed chorus SATB (minimum 12 singers, 4-2-2-4) and narrator.

PERFORMANCE NOTES -

: progressively change from one sound to the next

- letters in brackets are not to be pronounced - accidentals apply for a whole bar, including in the ‘Senza Misura’ sections - phonemes : [n], [m] : hum on the consonant [a] as in tap [e] as in French feu (/ø/) [o] as in roar in the narrator sections: - these sections are led by the narrator, who should feel free to read at the pace they desire. The timing of the text in the score where there are no pauses is only a guide.

- a word in bold indicates a move for the choir from a pause to the next musical event.

Duration: c. 20min.

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Into the Wreck First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask.

I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα καὶ Πληΐαδες, μέσαι δέ νύκτες, πάρα δ' ἔρχετ' ὤρα, ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω1 Silent alone where none or saw, or heard, In pathless paths I lead my wand’ring feet.

Långt från den storm, som världen skakar, i Lugnet jag min hydda fäst.2 Musing, my solitary seat I take, And listen to the deep and solemn roar. ፦΢ΡΘ΄΄䒐ΠΨஇͺ3 There is a ladder.

The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner.

We know what it is for, we who have used it.

Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment.

I go down.

Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air.

I go down.

My flippers cripple me,

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I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin.

En el fondo del mar, hay una casa de cristal.4 There is no end, and there need be no path.

Jag är främmande i detta land5 ᐺ΅य़्ΨͶͭ戛ΎΞ͜;ͭ ူ΅͘;͡ΟၾͭͼͭΔ΋6 Nor youth, nor strength, nor wisdom spring again nu hör jag verklighetens hårda klang mot mina sköra sköra drömmar.7 Mein silbernes Blicken rieselt durch die Leere8 [...] myself is that one only thing I hold [...]

Men ett har jag funnit och ett har jag verkligen vunnit – vägen till landet som icke är.9 First the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out and yet my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power the sea is another story the sea is not a question of power I have to learn alone to turn my body without force in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget what I came for among so many who have always lived here swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs and besides you breathe differently down here.

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Tropfen an Tropfen erlöschen Und reiben sich wieder, In den Tiefen taumeln die Wasser [...] Und wie alles drängt und sich engt Ins letzte Bewegen.10 A human secret, like my own, I trace En el bosque verde que me circunda, -din don … din dan-11 Det är makten, som darrar i min sko, det är makten, som rör sig i min klännings veck, det är makten, för vilken ej avgrund finns, som står framför eder.12 Yo soy esa mujer que vive alerta13 Jag är en del av alltets stora kraft, en ensam värld inom miljoner världar14 One presence fills and floods the whole serene; Nothing can be, nothing has ever been, Except the one truth that creates the scene.

Und ein Punkt wird mein Tanz In der Blindnis.15 I came to explore the wreck.

The words are purposes.

The words are maps.

I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail.

I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters.

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Finnes det ingen som fattar [...]?16 When the tempestuous sea did foam and roar, Tossing the bark from the long-wish’d-for shore, With false affected fondness it betray’d, Striving to keep what perish’d, if it stay’d.

Yo tengo el corazón como la espuma17 Jag är en flamma, sökande och käck, jag är ett vatten, djupt men dristigt upp till knäna18 "I am she!"

Jag följer ingen lag. Jag är lag i mig själv.19 Only upon the old can build the new Jag är den befallande styrkan. Var finnas de som följa mig?20 This is the place.

And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body.

We circle silently about the wreck we dive into the hold.

I am she: I am he whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes whose breasts still bear the stress whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot we are the half-destroyed instruments that once held to a course the water-eaten log the fouled compass Y sobre mi cabeza, arden en el crepúsculo, las erizadas puntas del mar.21 Tell all the truth but tell it slant — ᐺ΅ၹΎ䞳ͼΟ΢͵22 O, ich wollte, daß ich wunschlos schlief, Wüßt ich einen Strom, wie mein Leben so tief, Flösse mit seinen Wassern.23

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Vad fruktar jag? Jag är en del av oändligheten.24 [...] we must rise, [...] we must wander again let us gather the dreams that remain All Naturens ljus oss lärer At wi ej sku stilla stå.25 Μνάσεσθαί τινά φαμι καὶ ὔστερον ἀμμέων26 We are, I am, you are by cowardice or courage the one who find our way back to this scene carrying a knife, a camera a book of myths in which our names do not appear.

Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck" from Collected Poems: 1950-2012. Copyright © 2016 by The Adrienne Rich Literary Trust.

Copyright © 1971 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Recorded by permission of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

1. The moon has sunk / it is midnight / time passes / but I sleep alone 2. Far from the storm that shakes the world, / in the calm I fixed my hut.

3. I wait for the return of those who sleep 4. At the bottom of the sea / there’s a house / made of crystal.

5. I am a stranger in this land 6. I try to protest, raising my voice – / the waves come erase it from behind.

7. now I hear reality’s hard clang / against my fragile fragile dreams.

8. My silver gaze ripples in the void.

9. But I have found one thing and one thing I have truly gained / the path to the land that is not.

10. Liquid drops dissolve in drops / and rub on drops again, / Water tumbles in the deep / What an urging there is and a narrowing down / in the last impulse that seeks a shape!

11. In the green woods / that surround me / –ding dong…ding dang– 12. It is the power that quivers in my shoes, / it is the power that moves in the folds of my garments, / it is the power that stands before you – / there is no abyss for it.

13. I am that woman who lives alert 14. I am a part of the all’s great power, / a lonely world inside millions of worlds 15. And my dance is turning into a speck / upon the blindness that surrounds it.

16. Is there no one who understands?

17. I have a heart like foam 18. I am a flame, searching and brazen, / I am water, deep but daring up to the knee 19. I follow no law / I am a law unto myself.

20. I am the commanding strength. Where are those who will follow me?

21. And overhead, / little risen peaks of the sea / flare up in twilight.

22. I was abandoned in the ocean.

23. O that I slept a wishless sleep, / that a river ran as deep as my life, / and I with its waters.

24. What have I to fear? I am a part of infinity.

25. Of nature’s wisdom must we learn / that standing still is not our fate.

26. I say that someone will remember us even in the future

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for Tenebrae

INTO THE WRECK Josephine Stephenson Calmo q = c. 54 Narrator

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Tous droits d’ exécution, de reproduction, de transcription et d’ adaptation réservés pour tous pays

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carrying a knife, a camera /

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a book of myths / in which /

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our names do not appear.

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