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About the Composer
Jenni Brandon
Graphite Publishing
Imperceptible
Japanese poems tell of one woman’s wait for her lover, her loss and grief, and her questioning of the human heart.
high voice, piano
“Imperceptible” is a collection of ten translated Japanese poems by Kenneth Rexroth woven together into a single work to tell the story of one woman’s wait for her lover, her loss and grief, and her questioning of the delicate human heart. This dramatic work includes the soprano singing into the strings of the piano, creating an eternal song that mournfully floats ghost-like above a “spring meadow.”
Composer’s Notes
Japanese haiku, poetry, and art have fascinated me ever since I began visiting the Japanese Pavilion of Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Both the poetry and art offer simple lines and beautiful imagery. As I searched for poetry, I found Kenneth Rexroth’s beautiful translations from his book One Hundred Poems from the Japanese reflected this ideal, being both graceful and sensual, but at the same time powerful and haunting.
As I began working with these poems, I found that by linking these short poems together into one large work I could tell the story of one woman’s wait for her lover, her loss and grief, and her questioning of the delicate human heart. Creating a sense of timelessness, the piece begins and ends similarly with the piano and the voice quietly acting as the mist, an eternal song that mournfully floats ghost-like above a “spring meadow.”
– Jenni Brandon
Text
I. Mist floats on the Spring meadow.
My heart is lonely.
A nightingale sings in the dusk.
– Yakamochi
II. Out in the marsh reeds
A bird cries out in sorrow,
As though it had recalled
Something better forgotten.
– Tsurayuki
III. Someone passes,
And while I wonder
If it is he,
The midnight moon
Is covered with clouds.
– Lady Murasaki Shikibu
IV. This is not the moon,
Nor is this the spring,
Of other springs,
And I alone
Am still the same.
– Ariwara No Narihira
V. I waited for my
Lover until I could hear
In the night the oars of the boat
Crossing the River of Heaven.
– Hitomaro(?)
VI. I should not have waited.
It would have been better
To have slept and dreamed,
Than to have watched night pass,
And this slow moon sink.
– Lady Akazome Emon
VII. Will he always love me?
I cannot read his heart.
This morning my thoughts
Are as disordered
As my black hair.
– Lady Horikawa
VIII. No, the human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always.
– Tsurayuki
IX. In the eternal
Light of the spring day
The flowers fall away
Like the unquiet heart.
– Ki No Tomonori
X. Imperceptible
It withers in the world,
This flower-like human heart.
– Komachi
Poems translated by Kenneth Rexroth, from ONE HUNDRED POEMS FROM THE JAPANESE, copyright © All Rights Reserved by New Directions Publishing Corp.
Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation
$18.00 per licensed PDF
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