Will Winter's Program Notes

Three Settings ("Setting I", "Setting II", "Setting III")

Composer: Will Winter
Major/Class: Undecided/Freshman
Hometown: Gainesville, Florida
Genre: Poetry set to Baritone (Hans Larson) and Soprano (Virginia Neisler) with Percussion (Tara Villa) and Viola (Kristen Clements).

This piece is a juxtaposition of three different poems by three different authors in three different languages. Each poem addresses issues of existence.
Setting I reflects the dry infinitude of Borges’ “Los Enigmas” with the baritone voice, accompanied solely by bells. In Setting II, Cummings’ “lets,from some loud unworld’s most rightful wrong” contrasts “Los Enigmas” as it is told by a soprano voice in communion at times with viola, at others with marimba, in a light, colorful, and sometimes naïve manner. A poem by Szymborska follows in Setting III, employing both of the singers, viola, timpani, bells and marimba. Unlike the first two settings, which are generally consistent in tone, this third setting mirrors a complex and multifaceted verse.

A special thanks to Natalie Pavelock for help with pronunciation in Setting III.

Please click on Setting I, Setting II, or Setting III to view their original text and translation (there is no midi file available for this piece).

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Main Composition Page

Setting I
Los Enigmas	The Enigmas
Yo que soy el que ahora está cantando Seré mañana el misterioso, el muerto, El morador de un mágico y desierto Orbe sin antes ni después ni cuándo. Así afirma la mística. Me creo Indigno del Infierno o de la Gloria, Pero nada predigo. Nuestra historia Cambia como las formas de Proteo. ¿Qué errante laberinto, qué blancura Ciega de resplandor será mi suerte, Cuando me entregue el fin de esta avendtura La curiosa experiencia de la muerte? Quiero beber su cristalino Olvido, Ser para siempre; pero no haber sido.	I who am singing these lines today Will be tomorrow the enigmatic corpse Who dwells in a realm, magical and barren, Without a before or an after or a when. So say the mystics. I say I believe Myself undeserving of Heaven or Hell, But make no predictions. Each man’s tale Shifts like the watery forms of Proteus. What errant labyrinth, what blinding flash Of splendor and glory shall become my fate When the end of this adventure presents me with The curious experience of death? I want to drink its crystal-pure oblivion, To be forever; but never to have been.
Jorge Luis Borges, from El otro, el mismo (The self and the Other), 1964	Translated by John Updike

Setting II

let's,from some loud unworld's most rightful wrong

cimbing,my love(till mountains speak the truth)

enter a cloverish silence of thrushsong

(and more than every miracle's to breathe)

wounded us will becausless ultimate

earth accept and primeval whyless sky;

healing our by immeasurable night

spirits and with illimitable day

(shrived of that nonexistence millions call

life,you and i may reverently share

the blessed eachness of all beautiful

selves who wholly which and inocently are)

seeming's enough for slaves of space and time

--ours is the here and now of freedom. Come

e.e. cummings, from 95 poems, 1958

Setting III
Wselki wypadek	There but for the Grace
Zdarzyć się mogło. Zdarzyć się musiało. Zdarzyło się wcześniej. Później. Bliżej. Dalej. Zdarzyło się nie tobie.	It could have happened.It had to happen. It happened sooner. Later. Nearer. Farther. It happened not to you.*
Ocalałeś, bo byłeś pierwszy. Ocalałeś, bo byłeś ostatni. Bo sam. Bo ludzie. Bo w lewo. Bo w prawo. Bo padał deszcz. Bo padał cień. Bo panowała słoneczna pogoda.	You survived because you were the first. You survived because you were the last. Because you were alone. Because of people. Because you turned left. Because you turned right. Because rain fell. Because a shadow fell. Because sunny weather prevailed.
Na szczęście był tam las. Na szczęście nie było drzew. Na szczęście szyna, hak, belka, hamulec, framuga, zakręt, milimetr, sekunda. Na szczęście brzytwa pływała po wodzie.	Luckily there was a wood. Luckily there were no trees. Luckily there was a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake, a frame, a millimeter, a second. Luckily a straw was floating on the surface.
Wskutek, ponieważ, a jednak, pomimo. Co by to było, gdyby ręka, noga, o krok, o włos od zbiegu okoliczności.	Thanks to, because, and yet, in spite of. What would have happened had not a hand, a foot, by a step, a hairsbreadth by sheer coincidence.
Więc jesteś? Prosto z uchylonej jeszcze chwili? Sieć była jednooka, a ty przez to oko? Nie umiem się nadziwić, namilczeć się temu. Posłuchaj, jak mi prędko bije twoje serce.	So you’re here? Straight from a moment still ajar? The net had one eyehole, and you go through it? There’s no end to my wonder, my silence. Listen how fast your heart beats in me.
Wisława Szymborska, from Wselki Wypadek (There but for the Grace), 1972	* “You” here and throughout the poem is intended in the plural sense (“you all”). Translated by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire.