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Contemporary Music Review

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Texts
Harrison Birtwistle & Christopher Logue
Published online: 24 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Harrison Birtwistle & Christopher Logue (1989) Texts, Contemporary Music
Review, 5:1, 97-100, DOI: 10.1080/07494468900640561

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494468900640561

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 Contemporary Music Review, (~) 1989HarwoodAcademicPublishersGmbH
1989, Vol. 5, pp. 97-100 Printed in the United Kingdom
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Texts

H a r r i s o n Birtwistle a n d C h r i s t o p h e r L o g u e
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A M U S I C I A N ' S TEXTS
Two poems by Harrison Birtwistle, written for setting by himself.

Songs by myself
"Words for music are hard to come by. These were dredged from the silt of my
subconscious during spates of holiday melancholy on the island of Symi in the
Southern Dodecanese in the spring of 1983".
(The setting was completed in 1984 and is scored for soprano, flute, violin,
viola, cello, double bass, piano and vibraphone.)

I
O light set a flame in amber, and freeze
the rose's pulse.

II
I lean against a shade: cold thoughts
so warm your heavy lids with still
shrouded dreams.
The wind which caught me leaving
becalmed its own s h y n e s s . . , so twist
its keen direction toward a final end.

III
Cold statements thaw time's stillness
but once the daydream's midnight
belled slow refrain ends - listlessly
dipping my finger in the petrified waters of
its daytime ring, I move the fretting pulse
of yesterday's tomorrow.

IV
Steps; bequeathed entrances, falling
below a line of s h o r e . . , lie still,
move your eyes, let this vision of time
declare itself void.
 98 HarrisonBirtwistle

V
This silence before light cuts a knot
of d r e a m s .
1-2 2-1 1-2 2 - 1 . . .
glass framed shadows from blue
circles
stops my breath.
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Words overheard

A composed fragment
(This s e t t i n g w a s c o m p l e t e d in 1985 a n d is s c o r e d for s o p r a n o , flute, o b o e ,
bassoon and strings.)

A s o n g s s l o w n u m b e r s lie b e n e a t h t h i s n i g h t s c o l d w r a p s . .
.... sing., sing again again again and a gain a...
. . . . t h e m o o n s still r e a l m m o v e s . . . . a g a i n a g a i n
a n d a g a i n . . , t w i c e o n c e m o r e . . . . . at t h i s t i m e . . . .
9 she would smile ...... and on that day ....
.. when we had met.., she was so... well.. I...
did not wait.., when.. I. 9 say.., that she could
.. not.. when... I.. say that she.. could not.., when
I say.. that she could., not ...........
....... and.., then., one.. day.. she. could
forget ..... must find., that day. 9 . would smile...
. . . a n d l i k e . . , t h a t s all . . . . s h e w a s s o w e l l . . , w o u l d
be secret, and then ..... stained glass windows ....
9 crossed my mind now ..... I say that she..
now.. her tiny fingers., that all.. find poor.
9 . she would forget now.. I did not.. one day... I did
n o t w a i t . , d i d n o t s t a y at t h i s . . , t i m e n o w
this time., thats all.., next day.., thats all.. this time..
n e x t d a y . . , t h a t s all 9 t h i s . , t i m e t h a t s all n e x t d a y
t h i s t i m e . . . . t h a t s all . . . . n e x t . . , d a y . . , t h a t all t h i s
... time ..... next .... day .... thats all...
This ...... time ..... that day she would
f o r g e t t h e s k y . . , b u t like I w o u l d o n e d a y . . . .
when I ..... say that.., she ......
..... again .......

Reprinted by arrangement with Universal Edition, London

A POET'S TEXTS

These poems by Christopher Logue, not easily available, were by no means

i n t e n d e d for m u s i c a l s e t t i n g (just a s A . E . H o u s m a n ' s w e r e n ' t ) , b u t H a r r i s o n
B i r t w i s t l e m a d e t h e m t h e b a s i s r e s p e c t i v e l y o f t w o of h i s m o s t s u c c e s s f u l e a r l y
 Texts 99

works: Ring a Dumb Carillon for soprano, clarinet and percussion (1964--5) and
Meridian for mezzo-soprano, female chorus and ensemble (1970-1). Christopher
Logue's poems are from Wand and Quadrant, Paris: Collection Merlin, Olympia
Press, 1953.

A Matter of Prophecy
He sleeps as sound as any tide
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Cast stone; and thinks the cromlech

Deep in buttercups like infant
Plato jettisoned in Syracuse by
Chance, or careless w o m e n gods.
Nudged by the wind the wise-stone nods
To the buttercups nod to the dreamful
Deep as an oracle asleep beside
His core of serpents or his womans will.

One slow turn of the world. The cromlech

Whirled once nodding and the buttercups
Ring a dumb carillon of gold in his ear,
Chiming against the twist of the world
A wind-honed prophecy, wake him half
Up to see the moon's white flotsam. He
One turn out of this dull measure
Heaves, crushing a thousand dewpods
With his head, sleeps again; like Plato
On the beach at Syracuse, a radium in lead.

The woman gods stir and the python core

Shard their diamonds in his brain scooped
Out by the bright dreamknife. A wind heaves
Invisible chimneys, and the buttercups
Flog their gold on the cromlech's flank. One
Slow turn of the world and the moon, flotsam
As Plato in tyrants yard, is watched
By this blind and moves cantharides his brain.

Woman and dream have sung but, and before,

And have smelted this endymion into
An image of slag, buttercup ruled, bound
In fore talking and the time of night.
Marooned in the yet his mind levers
His tongue. The cromlech pivots dumb
As any stone. His tongue crankshafted
To the buttercups makes one slow turn
Ringing them back to gathering,
As when, and when, the honeytongued
 100 ChristopherLogue

Contraption seer w e n t h o m e to Athens

His p h i l o s o p h y and his back in rags.
Dame gods g r o w n thin with p y t h o n spittled
Tack, nag in his mind blank gantrys
Railed with w o r d s to make t h e m safe,
A n d match the cromlech's s h a d o w as it
Maims the sun. A n d the u n a n s w e r e d
Buttercups are shrivelled back to seed
Inside his sleeping hand, cold as stone.
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The image of love grows,

Petal to petal
T h o r n and thorn
A n d is the root and briar
A n d at once the rose.

A n d on the briar
Swings the d u n c e of birds:
A n d in the m o o n
His comb is like a wizard's
Hat, and w o r d s
Are in his beak, and rose
Coloured as if it t r a p p e d
The blizzard,
In his eye.

A n d like the m o o n his comb

Is figured, white and skew:
H e sings, as if, he, phoenix,
K n e w the origin of flames
That b u r n his thigh.

The song is lie or nonsense.

The rose grows on
Year into year and waits
Flowering, for w h e n
He comes again, to thorn and curl
A n d lacerate his wing's dihedral.

Reprinted by arrangement with Universal Edition, London and Christopher Logue.