CD of Joe St

TRACKS

1 The Year of the Green Parrots

(flute, piano)

2. Enemy

(flute, bass clarinet, piano, cello)

3. On Waking

(flute, violin I, violin II)

4. Poplars on the Epte

(alto flute, bass clarinet, piano, violin I, violin II, viola, cello)

5. The Landscape under the Snow

(alto flute, piano)

6. Old Wine

(violin I, violin II, viola, cello)

7. Defeating Innuendo

(bass clarinet, piano, violin I, violin II, viola,cello)

8. Doppler Shift

(alto flute, bass clarinet, piano)

9. Fear of Flying

(violin I, violin II, viola, cello)

10. Cold Spell

(alto flute, piano)

11. The Butterfly

(flute, bass clarinet, piano, violin I, violin II, viola, cello)

My song cycle ‘The Year of the Green Parrots’ (January 2002) is for three sopranos or mezzo sopranos and chamber orchestra, using eleven from the fourteen poems of poet and singer Jane Wyatt with this title. The poems, in elliptical and allegorical style, tell of a year of illness and heartbreak which ends in healing and calm. I find the poems magical and dramatic and I intend the music to reflect this mood. I have not enquired as to the particular circumstances behind the poetry, but Jane tells me the green parrots were real, and that there is an urban legend relating to them. A barge was travelling down the Thames carrying, amongst other cargo, a consignment of exotic green parrots. It foundered between Staines and Chertsey and started to sink. The bargee released the caged birds into the wild rather than let them drown. A flock of the green parrots, survivors or descendants, can now be seen flying on the Surrey and Middlesex border!

Among many influences in the gestation of the work is the Schoenberg Opus 21 song cycle with quintet ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ (1912), which introduced the mode of half-speaking, half singing called Sprechstimme. This work uses a similar device. Schoenberg defines Sprechstimme (or Sprechmelodie) as 1) adhering to the notated rhythm, 2) indicating notated pitch but abandoning it by rising or falling. However, performances of ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ are remarkable for the different interpretations singers make of these instructions. There is of course an infinitely variable range of expression between speech and song. I have formalised four versions: bel canto singing; declamatory sung speech with shortened vowels and lengthened consonants, pitches maintained; more speechlike with much expression (growls, croaks, squeals), pitches only approximate with much portamento; pure speech - poetry reading - pitches natural (not notated), but rhythm approximately as per notes.

The performer’s task is to derive the mood and character of the individual pieces from the words as much as from the music and to feel entirely free to add whatever her artistic feeling suggests as appropriate. The work will only exist as it is performed and the creative act is ultimately that of the performer. Jane has said ‘when you give your words to someone they will put their own energy into them and those words will evolve - in this case into music - and when that music has been written and is given to the singer, that singer will invest her own energy and change the music in ways that the composer did not expect. In the end the poetry/song will gain because of these dynamics - it will not take any energy or meaning away’.

The work is for three sopranos or mezzo-sopranos rather than the conventional one voice. It is hoped that three contrasting voices and styles of delivery will further increase the range of Sprechstimme presented. No indication is made as to which singer will take which song - leaving this interesting matter as an aleatoric element from the composer’s viewpoint. Joe St.Johanser August 2002

1. The Year of the Green Parrots

It was the year that I first saw the green parrots.

Swooping swiftly in the early sun,

They performed aerial pirouettes

While feathered fragments

From their emerald tails float

Down to the new mown lawn.

Black beaded eyes, longingly,

Observe their lost lustrous plumage.

The flamboyant escapees, still wearing

Their scarlet bracelets, were freed by accident. Craving

Forever the torrid climate of their aviary

And the ancient rain forest. Screeching

Contemptuously from grey beaks.

Their cracked voices railing

Sonorous disgust at fate and English Weather.

Sipping ice cold tea into infinity,

Powerless in the sultry conservatory, I waited for

The latest verdict. Breathless.

I watched the blithe acrobats rise on hot thermals

Towards the blueness of heaven. Miraculously

Transmuted. To the naked eye, they became invisible.

2. Enemy

So harmless behind transparent glass.

Narrow fingers stretching from the core.

Drowning in a sea of formalin,

They reach out blindly for a safe shore.

Anaesthetised, eternally waiting

To arrest their unwilling creator.

3. On waking

Staring at the low ceiling,

The cloistered climate is comforting.

My shared, impaired space has patient cataloguers,

Dead flowers sent by well-meaning friends.

Familiar corridors of stainless steel trolleys,

Starch cocoon of cotton sheets

Wrapped tightly,

All signifies safety.

The chrysalis in my mind is forever earthbound.

4. Poplars on the Epte

Luxuriant golden leaves with magenta veins

Entwine slight cobalt stems like skeins of

Wild silk.

Rays of spectral sunshine illuminate

The river bank and sky to recreate

Their radiant reflections.

But we sit on awkward orange plastic

Chairs in the basement. The black stick

Legs scrape on the floor.

Peeling paintwork. The surviving pages

Of tattered magazines, indeterminate in age

Are abandoned by their readers.

On the wall, the framed print, the Poplars on the Epte,

Has trees that shimmer like us in thin exaggerated elegance

We see that the Impressionist has painted dominant

Vertical shapes that shadow smaller less distinct versions.

Artificially bright, splashed with bold purples.

We imagine sitting on that faraway bank,

Safe within a charmed circle of friends,

Debating how life and sultry summers nights are endless.

5. The Landscape under the snow

A winter's night --

When distant stars

In an ebony sky

Throw tiny pinpoints of light

On a thousand frost pearls

Festooning the tassels

Of the fir tree with delicate

Filigree bracelets.

My mirror reflects

A brilliant mask.

Made for a celebration.

A sparkling chandelier refracts

The light illuminating the brittle

Facade of fresh ice crystals

That with the impact of sound

Cascaded shattering to the ground

To reveal the landscape under the snow.

6. Old wine

I passed round the old wine

In the cut glass from Bohemia

A full-bodied rich ruby red.

The decanter was etched with

Tiny birds in filigree.

Golden and burnished

On its abundant rounded curves.

They nestled in an exotic tree

While underneath its branches

Sat a voluptuous concubine.

A sybaritic sultan lay supine at her painted feet

Slowly sipping from a goblet.

The shadow of a shared smile.

Oak aged wine retains a sour taste

Of tannin. I refilled your glass,

No longer appreciating its qualities

Understanding your new thirst.

7. Defeating Innuendo

Like a sirens song --

You pour sticky honeyed half-truths into eager ears.

Trapping them like flies in gossamer by your secret sentences woven in web like runes.

Cloying lips disclose the rumour to them alone.

Silencing their suspicions with a treacherous sweet song.

The victims lie moribund in their separate dank chambers.

Incommunicado -- until an unknown word is spoken

And the shared spell is broken.

Small scintilla of sweat shines like doubt on your predacious face.

It reveals the ugliness beneath your beauty

And illuminates the bleached skulls on the floor of your cave.

Freed from trance, the prisoners break open their cells and run screaming from you.

The rolled rock at the entrance

Allows truth and daylight to enter your lair

Until under this gaze you shrivel and wither like a wizened prune.

8. Doppler shift

The air is wrapped tightly round

the earth like in opaque white

bandage, wet and clammy

from a newly opened wound.

Nothing stirs in this silent night

at the aphelion, except the

perfect cadence of my heart.

No percussive sounds of daylight

to mask a message from the mist.

Vibrations from your voice

still echo eternally in the

ether. Remnants of words exist

confused in my memory.

If wishes had the power of

paradox, I could defuse your dead

syllables into droplets of symmetry.

9. Fear of flying

Drifting in my dreams -- through soft clouds

Guided in the summer sky by imprints

Of the moon, hanging motionless in the void

High above me.

I float through rarefied air,

Dissonant thoughts distilled in distant memory.

Remembered voices heard only as

Resonant whispers in the atmosphere.

In this quiet night I have no fear of flying.

10. Cold spell

Aquamarine eyes, hidden by dark glass,

Stare coldly from behind their clouds,

Like the moon at midnight in an arctic winter.

Muscles are out of tune with the skin

That binds them to my body.

11. The butterfly

Frightened, I emerge delicately

From the' shreds of tight cocoon,

Shaking out the filigree fragments

Of my new gossamer wings in the bright sun.

Amid the frenzied mass of chaotic colours

I see warm dark shadows of tall trees.

I hear the soft sighs of

Glistening branches covered in dew

And the sharp bladed grass at their feet.

My shallow breath floats on the breeze.

I can smell the moist, sweet scent

Of early hyacinths. Honeyed perfume

I stretch the tips of my wings to touch them,

Embrace them.

Testing my cobweb strength,

A deep involuntary breath and then

Intoxicating rush

Oxygen!

And suddenly I soar unafraid...

...With the blithe acrobats that rise on the hot thermals

Miraculously transmuted

To the naked eye -- I become invisible.