Description

Voicing: medium-high voice and piano

Level: 4

Duration: 4:45

To see perusal score, please contact Jocelyn.

This art song was commissioned for a wedding and the poem was chosen by the couple. I was immediately drawn to the first two lines of text: “Your breast is enough for my heart, and my wings for your freedom.” It reminds me of the bond between two married people, and how when you are married to another person you are also inevitably married to compromise. This piece reflects the art of compromise between the singer and the pianist. The accompaniment sets up the piece in common time, but the singer begins outside of that rhythmic scheme. For most of the piece, the musicians go back and forth between different time signatures and tempos, until the last verse, where they finally settle into their own rhythm. The tonality also reflects this compromise, never completely settling into a key.

Text

Para mi corazón basta tu pecho, para tu libertad bastan mis alas. Desde mi boca llegará hasta el cielo lo que estaba dormido sobre tu alma.

Es en ti la ilusión de cada día. Llegas como el rocío a las corolas. Socavas el horizonte con tu ausencia. Eternamente en fuga como la ola.

He dicho que cantabas en el viento como los pinos y como los mástiles. Como ellos eres alta y taciturna. Y entristeces de pronto, como un viaje.

Acogedora como un viejo camino. Te pueblan ecos y voces nostálgicas. Yo desperté y a veces emigran y huyen pájaros que dormían en tu alma.

– Pablo Neruda

Translation:

Your breast is enough for my heart, and my wings for your freedom. What was sleeping above your soul will rise out of my mouth to heaven.

In you is the illusion of each day. You arrive like the dew to the cupped flowers. You undermine the horizon with your absence. Eternally in flight like the wave.

I have said that you sang in the wind[Text Wrapping Break]like the pines and like the masts. Like them you are tall and taciturn, and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage.

You gather things to you like an old road. You are peopled with echoes and nostalgic voices. I awoke and at times birds fled and migrated that had been sleeping in your soul.

– translated by W.S. Merwin