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O'Regan, Tarik Three Motion Settings
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Three Motion Settings
I In the attic 1 II To whom it may concern 6 III What language to speak 9 Programme Note This cycle sets three poems written by Andrew Motion at three distinct stages of his career. Motion (b. 1952), currently Poet Laureate, cites In the attic as ‘the first one I’d ever done which felt anywhere near right’. The subject matter of the text, composed when he was 20 years old, is a theme that Motion has returned to throughout his creative output: the ten years his mother spent in a coma and her subsequent death. To whom it may concern represents a sardonic outlook on the state of contemporary poetry, while What language to speak sets two meditative sentences from the extended poem, Lines of Desire. The settings are simple, largely modal and influenced by the sonorities achieved in Samuel Barber’s works for piano. There is an air of slow recitative in the outer numbers, which aims to create the sense of melancholic recollection prevalent in the text. Tarik O’Regan NewYork, December 2005 Durations In the attic, 3’ 30”; To whom it may concern, 1’; What language to speak, 1’ 45”
Texts
In the attic Even though we know now your clothes will never be needed, we keep them, upstairs in a locked trunk. Sometimes I kneel there touching them, trying to relive time you wore them, to catch the actual shape of arm and wrist. My hands push down between hollow, invisible sleeves, hesitate, then take hold and lift: a green holiday; a red christening; all your unfinished lives fading through dark summers entering my head as dust. To whom it may concern This poem about ice cream has nothing to do with government, with riot, with any political scheme. It is a poem about ice cream.You see? About how you might walk into a shop and ask: One Strawberry Split. One Mivvi. What did I tell you? No one will die. No licking tongues will melt like candle wax. This is a poem about ice cream. Do not cry. What language to speak (extract from Lines of Desire) What language to speak in a world apart? How to describe peace in a heart?
3
23
touch - ing them,
5
wore
mf
try
-
them,
5
29
ing to
5
to catch
the actual shape of arm and wrist.
you
5
5
( )
( )
(
)
p
down
More spacious q = 63 f
( )
My hands push
mp colla voce
re - live time
5
(Ped.)
(Ped.)
quasi recit.
mf
mp
(Ped.)
26
be - tween
f
Ped.
6
II To whom it may concern
q = 136
f
po - em
a - bout
has
no - thing to
a - ny po - li
-
p
scheme.
f
Ped.
mp
ri - ot, with
mp
mp mf
Music © Copyright 2006 Novello & Company Limited Text © Copyright 1997 by Andrew Motion
with go - vern - ment, with
Ped.
f
ti - cal
mp
do
p
9
mp
6
ice - cream
p
sfp
mp
pp
p
Ped.
This
always sprightly p
3
sfz
sfp
f