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Duo
2018
19 min.
Piano
Tenor
More Details
- Program Notes
- "Markings" Song cycle of poems by Dag Hammarkskjöld, translated by WH Auden Dag Hammarskjöld served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. He was killed in a plane accident travelling to hold peace talks in the Congo in 1961. Throughout his life he kept a journal, Vägmärken, a collection of poems and reflections which was found after his death in his New York flat with a note to the Swedish Permanent Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, Leif Belfrage. Giving him permission to publish them, he referred to the diary as ‘a sort of white book concerning my negotiations with myself – and God.’ They were translated into English by Leif Sjoberg and W.H. Auden, the latter taking great care in particular over the many Haiku Hammarskjöld composed. Pairs of these act as interludes in this song cycle placed between four ‘songs’ that appear in chronological order, so as to maintain the sense of a ‘life’s quest’ which comes across strongly in the original journal. Generally, Hammarskjöld did not give his poetry titles (the exception being the first diary entry, Thus is was) so I have either used adjacent text, or a line from the poem. 1. Thus it was (1925) 2. The Goldenrod stirs (Interlude 1, Two Haiku, Hudson Valley, 1959) 3. The anguish of loneliness (1950) 4. Trees quiver in the wind (Interlude 2, Two Haiku, Hudson Valley, 1959) 5. Over Poughkeepsie (1961) 6. A warm autumn night (Interlude 3, Two Haiku, Hudson Valley, 1959) 7. A new country (1961)
- Ensemble Name
- Simon Davies (tenor)