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Weir, Judith On the Palmy Beach
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Chester Music Limited Part of the Music Sales Group
Judith Weir ON THE PALMY BEACH for soprano (or mezzo-soprano), cello and piano
1. Fabliau of Florida Wallace Stevens 2. The Glass-hulled Boat Kathleen Jamie 3. Basking Shark Norman MacCaig 4. I started Early Emily Dickinson
CHESTER MUSIC
ON THE PALMY BEACH 1. Fabliau of Florida (Wallace Stevens)
3. Basking Shark (Norman MacCaig)
Barque of phosphor On the palmy beach,
To stub an oar on a rock where none should be, To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.
Move outward into heaven, Into the alabasters And night blues. Foam and cloud are one. Sultry moon-monsters Are dissolving. Fill your black hull With white moonlight. There will never be an end To this droning of the surf.
But not too often – though enough. I count as gain That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain, That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain. He displaced more than water. He shoggled me Centuries back – this decadent townee Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree. Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling, Emerging from the slime of everything. So who’s the monster? The thought made me grow pale For twenty seconds while, sail after sail, The tall fin slid away and then the tail.
2. The Glass-hulled Boat (Kathleen Jamie) 4. I started Early – Took my Dog – (Emily Dickinson) First come the jellyfish: mauve-fringed, luminous bowls like lost internal organs, pulsing and slow. Then in the green gloom swaying sideways and back like half-forgotten ancestors – columns of bladderwrack. It’s as though we’re stalled in a taxi in an ill-lit, odd little town, at closing time, when everyone’s maudlin and really, ought just to go home, you sorry inclining pillars of wrack, you lone, vaguely uterine jellyfish – whom I almost envy: spun out, when our engines churn, on some sudden new trajectory, fuddled, but unperturbed.
I started Early – Took my Dog – And visited the Sea – The Mermaids in the Basement Came out to look at me – And Frigates – in the Upper Floor Extended Hempen Hands – Presuming Me to be a Mouse – Aground – upon the Sands – But no Man moved Me – till the Tide Went past my simple Shoe – And past my Apron – and my Belt And past my Bodice – too – And made as He would eat me up – As wholly as a Dew Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve – And then – I started – too – And He – He followed – close behind – I felt his Silver Heel Upon my Ankle – Then My Shoes Would overflow with Pearl – Until We met the Solid Town – No One He seemed to know – And bowing – with a Mighty look – At me – The Sea withdrew –
Commissioned by Kings Place, and ďŹ rst performed there on 24th October 2019 by Ruby Hughes (soprano), Natalie Clein (cello) and Julius Drake (piano).
Duration c. 13 minutes
Score and cello part on sale Order No. CH88077
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