Hear an excerpt of this piece.
Composer: James Aikman
Instrumentation: Singer (tenor or soprano), 2 flutes (1 dbl. alto flute),
2 clarinets in B-Flat (1 dbls. both bass clarinet and sop. saxophone), 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, 2 percussion (including timpani), piano, harp and strings
Year Composed: 1998
Duration: 17 minutes (4 songs)
Cost:
Recording:
These songs are a gift to my dear friends, Thomas J. and Ania Beczkiewicz
on the occassion of their 25th Anniversary. Tom wrote the poetry,
published by the University of Louisville Press, 25 years ago in
celebration of their union. The text follows:
I
Force me prone love, horizontal
so I can not see the shadows
turning backwards into seasons
before ours. But gently, gently.
You are at times almost too sharp:
A chromatic cascade or wave
of white Sunday Light
that
curves
reluctant to touch
my frightened earth before the
dazzling
second of your noon sings my spine
warm
for the look of you.
II
My eyes hold your like (mon dieu
you're fragile) violets fluttering
in an April wind,
exposed
under glaring day.
But you don't shrink nor
do violets - that's a myth -
but coyly
hang in gladdest garlands sure
sweetness of late Spring on
my
nose
and, my darling, make me close
my eyes till they match
the darkness (oh so cool, yes)
of violets and of you
and pray for night.
III
Your deafness is a dimension still
a rapt space circling
gravity, a vibrant
grace that can tune
its own spheres in a centrifugal Now.
You wait giving
your eyes only
that hear beyond
when suddenly they smile
across time's lightening
years to ring one star -
flung infinity of Yes
as you become word
and my eyes all ears.
IV
We tried to light a candle
rather than to curse the dark
but there was no candle and
the darkness came and it was
kind and whispered a soft word we couldn't hear because we
were singing so loud that the
darkness left and even our
shadows danced and disappeared.
- T J Beczkiewicz