Scott Ordway

PREMIERE

Premiere: 08 November 2018 at Orangerie im Günthersburgpark, presented by Musica+ (Frankfurt, DE)

Julia Dawson, soprano; Anna Naretto, piano

PRESS

“Though distinctly modern in all respects, Girl in the Snow possesses a timeless patina... Scott Ordway has found a kindred spirit in Augustine and extends the philosopher’s reach to tell the story of a woman… His composition, written for solo piano accompanying mezzo-soprano voice, is resonant, often propulsive and grippingly abstract...” (Schmopera)

“…the words and melodies serve as a contemplative and restorative balm, a quality particularly welcome in these discordant times… In the course of 11 songs, at just under 40 minutes total, a grand and beautiful story is told. The singing of mezzo-soprano Julia Dawson is, in a word, luminous.” (Broad Street Review)

“Sensitively performed, attractively presented and unexpectedly profound... Musically and spiritually speaking, it casts a spell that endures for some time.” (musicweb-international.com)

“Poignant, humanistic, and thought-provoking, Girl in the Snow is an accomplishment of high order... A rather Narnia-like wonder infuses the nature-based sections in a way that intensifies the work's already magical aura…The rendering of Ordway's lyrical, resonant score by Naretto and Dawson is exquisite in the extreme.” (Textura)

“Julia Dawson’s mezzo-soprano voice is hauntingly beautiful…Ordway’s originality shines through every aspect of this music.” (Phindie)

“…an intimate, philosophical journey… music that is rich in sounds and colours… solemn and ethereal” (The WholeNote Magazine)

MEDIA

NOTE

In Girl in the Snow, a woman near the end of her life reads the Confessions of St. Augustine (398 AD). In its better-known chapters, the fourth-century North African philosopher Saint Augustine of Hippo tells the story of his early life in elegant and deeply personal language. His narrative centers on two main themes: his love for his mother, Monica, and his relentless (and effective) search for bodily pleasure. He goes on to describe a gradual process of spiritual struggle and awakening that is directly related to his travels throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, and to his work as a teacher of rhetoric. In the final chapters, he turns from autobiographical narrative to a more abstract meditation on the nature of memory. He considers the relationship between time and the mind, and creates a series of powerful metaphors to describe the mechanisms of remembering.

Reading these passages, the narrator of Girl in the Snow considers the events of her own early life and how they must have shaped her experience of the world. As Augustine describes “the fields and spacious palaces of [his] memory”, the narrator creates an imaginary forest in her own mind. Wandering through this snowy, imagined landscape, she relives her first encounters with plants and animals, with trees and the sky, with rivers and the sea. 

She imagines the moment when she first understood what it meant to feel at home, and to long for this feeling. She imagines her first experience of love, which was the affection shown to her by her mother when she was so very tiny, when that love was the whole the world, the only thing there was. She imagines the first time that she considered the enormity and the great mystery of the world, and when she first wondered how it all came to be.

The song cycle alternates between these impossible-to-remember memories—images buried so deeply in our experience that they could never be recalled—and St. Augustine’s writings in which he describes the process through which we experience our past, our present, and our future. As the cycle draws to a close, the narrator slowly leaves her imagined forest, awakening to the present, and to the end of her life: “Everything is always ending / Only children remember heaven: The vast stillness, and the emptiness of time.”

Three readings from the Confessions are grouped together as “Memory Plays.” They share a restrained, ritualistic musical language in which repetitive, percussive piano accompaniment supports plain and folk-like melodic fragments. Throughout the cycle, a mood of earnest, childlike simplicity is chased by a feeling of emptiness and quiet sadness. The narrator explores a place that cannot exist, a memory beyond the boundaries of remembering.

—Scott Ordway

TEXT

Lyrics by Scott Ordway. “Memory Plays” created and adapted from lines of the Confessions by Augustine of Hippo (ca. AD 398), from the translation by Edward B. Pusey (1800–1882).

1. The Fox in the Snow

Good morning, my friend: 
It is a pleasure to find you here, 
It is a joy to have you near me. 

Good morning, my small friend: 
You are luck and you are chance 
And you are the very best of what’s to come. 

Where do you draw your deep breath, my friend? 
Where do you close your pretty eyes?
Where do you go when the snow is blowing round and round?
Where in the world do you go to rest your head? 

Standing here, alone and alive,
How do I look to you?

Show me your home, my friend: 
Show me the place you love the best
And I will follow you. 

2. The Clean Cold Air and the Great Blue Sky

I remember everything: 
The clean cold air and the 
Great blue sky. I remember 
Taking the first step 
Into the bright morning, 
Alone but not afraid,
Leaving the warmth of a good room 
And walking toward the sun. 

“Come with me!” I whispered to the trees; 
“Come with me!” I whispered to the little birds;
“Come with me this time!” I whispered to the distant waves, 
Far away, where the rivers empty into the sea.

And the trees, so dark, so sharp,
They came with me.
 And the little birds, singing with the breath of God, 
Which is in them too,
They came with me. 

But the distant waves,
So far away, where the rivers empty into the sea,
They waited for me.

3. The Mystery of Home

Hello! Is anyone there? 
Will anyone come out to greet me? 
May I address myself to someone
To ask a kind word, or a smile? 

Hello! Is this your home? 
Is this the place you love the best? 
Is this the place you go to rest your head? 
Is this, perhaps, my home? 

Might I stop here, and through the window watch 
The spinning world, lost above the waves, 
Buried in the woods, drifting out in space, 
Deep in sacred sleep? 

Yes! By your kind grace 
I will stop a while, 
And through the open window 
I will show the world my face. 

4. Memory Play No. 1

I do these things within, 
In that vast court of my memory. 
For there are present with me 
Heaven, earth, sea, and whatever 
I could think on therein, 
And what I have forgotten. 

There too I meet with myself, and recall myself, 
And when, where, and what I have done, 
And under what feelings. 
There is all I remember.

And so I speak to myself: and when I speak, 
Images of all I say are present, 
Out of the same treasury of memory. 

5. The Owl, Asleep in His Tree

Good night, my darling: 
I cannot see you, but I know you’re there, 
Sleeping, dreaming, alone above the world. 
Perhaps you’re dreaming of me? 

Or maybe you see a place you’ve seen before,
And feel the air a different way, 
And hear the sound of distant waves,
Falling on the land again, 
The great, deep breath of time itself.

But please! Oh, please! Dream of me, too. 
I want to feel the air in a different way, 
And hear the sound of distant waves,
And wander o’er that land again, 
And feel the breath of time itself:
The air that holds your wings. 

6. The Grove of Quaking Aspens

Thank you, trees! 
Thank you for your warm welcome; 
I appreciate your comforting embrace. 

I am guided by your soft and thoughtful words,
And careful not to take such things for granted. 
These enchanted woods have much to offer
A lost and grateful soul just like my own.

But much like every place I’ve known thus far, 
They also bring a measure of sadness, the deep and 
Beautiful sorrow that binds the world together 
And keeps our love from turning overwhelming.

This flowering grove of aspen trees
Reminds me that the world can speak so softly
And tell me things at the edge of silence,
Where only those at peace could hope to hear.  

But oh! how glad I am to find myself 
Alive and wandering these bright, lonesome woods,
Joined in ecstasy by all creation,  
Whispering in closest confidence.

7. The Mystery of Love

All, I am yours.
I am lost, but I know
This world was made for me.

I am love, 
And I am the goodness of all things. 
Let me stay with you.

8. Memory Play No. 2

For even though I dwell in darkness and silence,
In my mind I can produce colors, 
And discern black and white. Nor yet 
Do sounds break in and disturb the image 
Drawn by my eyes, which I am 
reviewing, though they are also there, lying 
Dormant, laid up, apart. 

For sounds too I call,
And though my tongue be still, and my throat 
Mute, so can I sing as much as I will. 

Yes, I discern the breath of lilies 
From violets, though smelling nothing; and I 
Prefer honey to sweet wine, smooth 
Before rugged, at the time neither 
Tasting nor handling, 
But only remembering.

9. The Rabbit, Warm in Her Burrow

Go ahead my darling, 
Take my love for granted, 
Go ahead my darling, 
Set your mind to rest. 

Did you leave the forest 
When you went out walking? 
Did you eat the green grass
Growing by the river? 

How did you find the world today? 
Did you take what you needed and leave the rest? 
Did you bask in the sun and drink from the stream?
Did these woods take care of you? 

Go ahead my darling, 
Close your eyes and sleep now, 
Let yourself become one 
With the home you’ve made. 

I can see you blinking, 
Drifting off to sleep now, 
Close your eyes and rest, dear, 
As the sun goes down. 

How long you wandered to find this place! 
How long you looked before you knew! 
But when you arrived, it set your heart to singing. 
When this place appeared, it put your mind to rest. 

How long the days can seem, 
How cold the nights can feel, 
How dark the winter’s day, 
When you’re searching for a home. 

Tell me, my darling:
What do you remember
Of those long days
When you were much smaller? 

Tell me, my darling:
Will you fall asleep now? 
Will you become one
With the home you’ve made? 

Don’t forget to dream of
Me as I’m passing
By your graceful burrow, 
Out of the cold. 

Tell me, my darling:
Will you fall asleep now? 
Will you become one
With the home you’ve made?

When this place appeared,
It put your mind to rest.

10. The Mystery of the World

Everything is always ending.
Only children remember heaven: 
The vast stillness, and the emptiness of time.

Oh, would that I could join them there! 
Passing from this shining forest
That has taught me, once again, 
To love the world, 
Leaving these anointed trees 
Resounding, together with the birds 
And all the living earth itself, 
And bringing forth the sacred peal 
That rings in silence, there behind 
The deep blue curtain of the sky 
And all throughout that holy, endless 
Night that binds the world together,
A sound that echoes gently
In the ears of those who listen:  

“Be still: you are home!” 

11. Memory Play No. 3

I will pass beyond this power of my nature, 
Rising by degrees unto him who made me. 

And I came to the fields and the spacious palaces
Of my memory, where are treasures
Of innumerable images.

When I enter there, I require 
What I will to be brought forth, 
And something instantly comes; others must be 
Longer sought after, which are fetched 
Out of some inner receptacle; others 
Rush out in troops, and while one thing is 
Desired and required, they say, “Is it perchance I?”
These I drive away with the hand of my heart, 
From the face of my remembrance; 
Until what I wish for be unveiled, 
And appear out of its secret place.