Scott Ordway

PREMIERE

Commissioned by Sasha Cooke

Premiere: 4 February, 2024. Bing Concert Hall; Palo Alto, CA. Presented by Stanford Live.

MEDIA

NOTE

1. On Love Letters

Of all literary genres, the love letter is among those with the costliest stakes. In this form, to express oneself too earnestly, too hesitantly, too obscurely, or too plainly can result in catastrophe. And while the love letter is a genre with an ancient provenance and with distinguished examples from every language, culture, and tradition, it is a form which is decreasingly represented in our contemporary communicative habits, trending as they are toward brevity, informality, and, often, a pernicious form of self-protective cynicism. When we do exchange written expressions of tenderness and affection, though, they become artifacts of our loves, sometimes outlasting the relationships themselves and at other times forming a kind of canon of foundational texts from which the stories of our  most important relationships emerge.

To compose a love poem is to admit something rather significant to yourself. To send that poem to its subject is to share that truth with another and, in so doing, risk jeopardizing the fragile and emergent reality upon which it is based. In the thrilling, disorienting, excruciating midst of a young love, sending an earnest letter is a risky move indeed.

When discussing a new song cycle with the American mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, I was therefore deeply moved when she shared a set of early-relationship love poems that she had exchanged with her now-husband Kelly Markgraf. She suggested that I might set them to music which she would, in turn, sing in a recital alongside music by both Gustav and Alma Mahler. The program would explore the theme of mutual inspiration within a relationship, replacing the tired—and tiresome—trope of the male artist and his “muse” with a more honest appraisal of the ways in which strong relationships generate and nurture creativity.

In sharing something so intimate and personal—words which were composed with no intention of publication—Sasha placed an uncommon amount of trust in me as a composer and, by extension, in her audiences. She trusted that I would read her words carefully, listen closely to what they said, and set them to music in a way which honored and respected their importance as literary objects, but also as artifacts of a real and meaningful relationship. She furthermore trusted that audiences, colleagues, and critics would approach them with a similar spirit of openness, respect, and sincerity.  This is no small act of trust. It is this kind of risk-taking which, in my view, leads to art that impacts people in a meaningful and lasting way.

2. On Art Songs

By tradition, art song composers select pre-existing texts for their works on the basis of their aesthetic value or, sometimes, because the words address a subject which is also important to them. In other cases, a composer and a poet collaborate directly and rely on the singer to interpret their work once it is completed. In other instances still, the composer serves as the author of the text, once again relying on the singer as an interpreter who enters the collaborative process after the piece is finished.

By setting Sasha’s words (along with those by Kelly Markgraf) to music, I hope to refashion the traditional relationships between poet, subject, composer, and interpreter. Sasha is the the author, subject, and interpreter of the texts. I, on the other hand, became an interpreter in the sense that I first needed to search her words for meaning, for emphasis, and for feeling before I could set them to music. The stakes for me felt much higher than they do when I work with either my own words or with those of another poet because the author of these words would also be singing them and would, presumably, take a strong interest in whether my interpretation accurately reflected their intended meaning.

For me, this was a fascinating challenge because it gave me the opportunity to work with a text that is beautiful because it is true.

3. On Text and Music

The most important structural feature of these texts is the fact that they are letters between two authors and thus represent two discrete sources of ideas and feelings. In a composition scored for just one singer, my challenge was to create a sense of dialogue between these two authors without resorting to fixed, binary vocal choices such as assigning words by one author to a high vocal register and words by the other author to a low vocal register. Instead, I chose to demarcate changes in speaker using shifts in musical texture. Each song’s form therefore follows the back-and-forth of the epistolary exchange, but the character of the music itself doesn’t pigeonhole either author into a fixed, characteristic mode of vocal expression. Both authors are represented by music that is assertive as well as contemplative, impassioned as well as reflective, and lyrical as well as plainspoken. As in life, each individual speaks in different ways at different times.

Working with these texts, I was continually inspired by the circumstances of their creation: in private, in secret, in earnest, and in love. While I happen to find them very beautiful in their own right, their real meaning comes from the fact that they were written in truth when it mattered most.

—Scott Ordway
December 2023

TEXT

Words by Sasha Cooke and Kelly Markgraf
Edited and arranged by Scott Ordway

Texts by Sasha Cooke are presented in italics.
Texts by Kelly Markgraf are presented in Roman type.

I.

Expanse of my soul:
Your voice like a heavy blanket
Easing me into the earth, and
I imagine your broad view and the
Simple room with the lone
Hook on the wall, and
You sit on the bed and
Weep and breathe and
Look out for hours.

Now coursing through me,
Waking from children
Laughing in the trees,
Silhouettes beckoning the
Ocean. Beams of light:
I know not where from,
I just feel and feel and feel.

It’s a pilgrimage, isn’t it?
I hesitate to say it, but God knows
It’s holy. It belongs. Is.
I have become yours.
At your side the fickle earth is velvet
that beckons each - next - step.

II.

Blindfolded entering the room
I know where to find you:
Here on an island of life.
I put the blindfold on again
And know once more
That you are there.
Your eyes gaze back at me:
A world of truth and clear.
They smile into my heart.

Now is our time and our place,
Our own sense of space
To decide by day and
By night what we are.
Tethered together,
Floating deep and afar,
Awareness our beacon
In waters spread wide.
May we be still and listen,
Ever-knowing the tide
That brings and takes and
Brings again.

Soft hands that cling to ours,
Still singing songs.
They smile and we know all is well.
Tis their love that blends this magic spell.

III.

Pockets of sand on my eyes,
Trickling down to kiss my soul
And twist up toward the sun.

No one hears the peace
Easing forth from those eyes
Which breathe calm and
home and warm.

Waves cleanse
And nourish this youth,
Bringing that light,
Carrying that warmth
Home to where it began
When ears became mouths and
Sighs became breath.

You are me. I am yours
In our lair, in our home.