Description
Lyrics: poem by Mexican artist Jaime Goded
Written: 2003
Language: Spanish
Duration: 4:20 minutes; 8 pages
Difficulty level: Moderate ensemble parts; 3rd sting = F#; 10-string guitar optional
World premiere: August 5, 2005
International Guitar Festival, Arequipa Peru, by Duo LiveOak
LISTEN to Elizabeth Merrill, mezzo; Christian Waugh, baritone; Jeremy Lyons, guitar in recital at Peabody Conservatory in Griswold Hall on Sept. 22, 2012
ABOUT
We met Jaime Goded through his art in San Miguel in the summer of 2001 while there on vacation. Jaime has a beautiful studio on the plaza where we met his wife, Evelyn, and gave her a CD in admiration of Jaime's work. The next day she returned with this poem, hand-written, as a gift to us. I wrote the song four years later for the Arequipa Guitar Festival, where Duo LiveOak debuted it.
La Canción
Ocurre la forma del azul
con la mirada
que marca el paso
del crepúsculo
y pretende proseguir y se detiene;
las manos y su fuerza musical
aprietan
escuchando de la boca
el parpadeo.
Inicia el canto.
Empieza la musica.
El dibujo es la poesía dispuesta
y la escultura organiza la danza.
Inicia el canto
que no acaba.
Jaime Goded
Marzo de 1999
San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, México
The Song
The shape of blue emerges
with the glance
that marks the approach
of dawn
and it pretends to follow
but it holds back;
its hands
and its musical strength
holding
listening to the mouth's
fluttering.
The singing begins.
The music commences.
Drawing is poetry willing
and sculpture
organizes the dance.
The song begins
that never ends.
translation: Nancy Knowles