Sea and Sky Chorus and Orchestra
Paul Paccione
Sea and Sky (2018) for Chorus and Orchestra Music by Paul Paccione Texts by Stéphane Mallarmé (translated by Arthur Symons) Instrumentation 2 Flutes 2 Oboes 2 Clarinets in Bb 2 Bassoons 2 Horns on F 2 Trumpets in Bb 2 Trombones Percussion: Triangle, Glockenspiel and Chimes Celesta Choir (SATB) Violin I Violin II Violoncello Double Bass Program Note for Sea and Sky Sea and Sky is a musical setting of two poems (Brise Marine/Sea-Wind and Soupir/Sigh) by the French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé, as translated by the Victorian English poet and critic Albert Symons. It was Symons who first introduced Mallarmé’s poetry to English-speaking poets at the beginning of the twentieth-century. Both Mallarme’s poems, and Symons’s translations, exemplify a poetry of suggestion and subtle nuance rather than one of direct description. What initially attracted me to these poems was their inherent musicality. Not surprisingly, both Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel set the poem Soupir/Sigh to music. In both poems a human relation is brought into alignment with the elements of nature. In Soupir/Sigh this element is the sky. The poem itself is in the form of a sigh, where a rising arc in the opening lines gives way to a fall in the second verse. In Brise Marine/Sea-Wind the central element of the sea is symbolized by the rise and fall of sea waves in a storm, by the swaying rope of the mast and by the image of the mother rocking her baby to sleep. In my musical setting of these poems this wavelike arc is reflected in various fluctuations, shifts and modulations in harmony, musical line, tone color and tempo. It is also reflected in the layout of the texts and the framing of Brise Marine/Sea-Wind by verses one and two of Soupir/Sigh. (Paul Paccione)
Sea and Sky was composed for the Western Illinois University Singers (James Stegall, conductor) and WIU Symphony Orchestra (Richard Hughey, conductor), with the support of a 2017 Summer Stipend grant from Western Illinois University. Texts Stéphane Mallarmé translated by Arthur Symons Sigh (Verse I) My soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, whereon scarce grieves An autumn strewn already with its russet leaves, And towards the wandering sky of thine angelic eyes, Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards the blue! Sea Breeze The flesh is sad, alas! and all the books are read. Flight, only flight! I feel that birds are wild to tread The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the skies! Naught, neither ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes, Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its delight, O nights! nor yet my waking lamp, whose lonely light Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits best, Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on her breast. I will depart! O steamer, swaying rope and spar, Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar! A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still clings To the last farewell handkerchief’s last beckonings! And are not these, the masts inviting storms, not these That an awakening wind bends over wrecking seas, Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere long? But, O my heart, hear thou, hear thou, the sailors’ song! Sigh (Verse II) Towards the blue pale and pure that sad October knew, When, in those depths, it mirrored languors infinite, And agonizing leaves upon the waters white, Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun, Where, in one long last ray, lingered the yellow sun. Whitely towards the blue!