Blaze of the Rose Tree
for tenor, flute, viola and harp
Composition Date: 2011
Duration: 15'
Instrumentation: T, Fl, Vla, Hp
Information:
Commissioned on the 20th July 2009 by Stephan Nawrocki, for Alison Nicholls.
Programme Note:
BLAZE OF THE ROSE-TREE
for tenor, flute, viola and harp
Sally Beamish
2011
Commissioned on the 20th July 2009 by Stephan Nawrocki, for Alison Nicholls
BLAZE OF THE ROSE-TREE
1. Blaze of the Rose-Tree
2. Metaphysics
3. Love Haiku
4. I Love You in this Way
1. Blaze of the Rose-Tree
(Love Sonnet LXIX)
Pablo Neruda /trans.Stephen Tapscott
Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be.
2. Metaphysics
Tessa Ransford
This birth is a planetary affair
since nothing worldly is a fraction worth
this present incarnation upon earth
and into our safe-keeping now and here.
His mother, weakened by her valiant strength
in labour, now shall never lose or lack
the love he needs; his cries, his very breath
of steady life her food, as she gives suck.
Weak is with strong alternately translated
from love to love in love by love created.
3. Love Haiku
Sally Beamish
the ordinariness
of waking next to you
this is love
watching you
calm in the clamour of the new day
my heart quickens
this happiness
you, stirring soup
sun in your hair
everyday gesture
that turn of your hand
overwhelms me
tilt of your face
our child at your breast
drowsy with love
your breathing
soft, familiar
safe
holding you
silk of your hair
your heart next to mine
4. I Love You In This Way
(Love Sonnet XVII)
Pablo Neruda/trans.Stephen Tapscott
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of
loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
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