contemporary music for a time of changecontemporary music for a time of change

Elliott Gyger:From the hungry waiting country

Stuart Greenbaum:Easter Island

Elliott Gyger:From the hungry waiting country

Stuart Greenbaum:Easter Island

ideas.unimelb.edu.au

From the hungry waiting country

music by Elliott Gyger (2006)

performed byHalcyon

Alison Morgan sopranoBelinda Montgomery soprano

Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo-sopranoJo Burton mezzo-soprano

Genevieve Lang harp

Part I (Wet)

S1 A2 duet: Ambrosia(William Hart-Smith)He lifted a drop of ambrosiaon a length of brittle strawand let the bead of nectar runback along the strawtowards His hand.Lifted the strawand tilted it towards the earth again until where thedroplet gathered

S2 solo: Thanksgiving Hymn 14Dead Sea Scrolls 1QH [Hebrew]

I give thanks, Lord,because you have set me

at the source of streamsin a dry land,

at the spring of waterin a parched land,

in a garden wateredby channels…

A1 solo: Ishmael(Randolph Stow)

Oasis. Discovered homeland.seven colours flashed.With it he touched

My eyes drink at your eyes.a creature’s being,the creature of all creatures

that he most loved and treasured.Noon by noon, under leaves,

my dry lips seek you.One assumes

the quantity was not precisely measured.

S2 A1 duet: 1 Enoch 48:1[Ethiopic]

Furthermore, in that place I sawthe fountain of righteousness,

which does not become depleted

and is surrounded completelyby numerous fountains of wisdom.

All the thirsty ones drank from themand were filled with wisdom,

and their dwellings werewith the righteous

and the holy and the chosen.

S1 A1 A2 trio: Isaiah 45:8 [Latin]Shower, O heavens, from above,

and let the skies rain down righteousness;let the earth be opened, and salvation spring up,and let it cause righteousness to spring up also;

I the Lord have created it.

A1 A2 duet: Tch’mala: the Rainbow Serpent(Mark O’Connor)His mass is mountains. Roaris elder brother of the sea’s blood-purr.His rumble from Mission Beach down past Murdering Pointis a palm’s back-sway, taipan’s long hiss.

His trails are the endless oncomings of mistlow into the water-choked valleys – his scalesthe mountain slopes shiny with rain; his accompanistthe willful drub of rain that greetsthe giant toad’s rasping heat-cry.

S1 S2 duet:3 Enoch 22B:8 [Hebrew]

There pour out rivers of joy,streams of rejoicing,

rivers of gladness,streams of exultation,

rivers of love, streams of friendshipoverflowing from before the throne of glory,

and, gathering strength,flow through the gatesof the paths of Arabot,

at the melodious soundof his creatures’ harps,

at the exultant soundof the drums of his wheels,

at the sound of thecymbal music of his cherubim.

Though he breaks the good trees with the flail of his tail,through him are all hatchlings and fruit. Grass-renewer,his sperm are the eels that fall from Heaven. He restocksthe swamp, fills the rock-hole above falls. Through him,what survives is reborn in water.

The sound swellsand bursts out in a mighty rush:

Holy,holy,holy,

Lord of hosts,

the whole earthis full of his glory.

His cave of retreatmakes the dry season.

His aftersign is the bridge of beautyglimpsed through shifting cloud.

S1 S2 A2 trio: Odes of Solomon 30 [Syriac]Fill for yourselves water from the living spring of the Lord,

because it has been opened for you.

And come all you thirsty and take a drink,and rest beside the spring of the Lord.

Because it is pleasing and sparkling,and perpetually pleases the self.

For more refreshing is its water than honey,and the honeycomb of bees is not to be compared with it;

Because it flowed from the lips of the Lord,

His faithful are buried in hills and

reserves.

S1 A1 duet: Gospel of Thomas 108 [Coptic]Jesus said, “Whoever drinks from my mouth

will become like me;I, too, will become like that person,”

and it was named from the heart of the Lord.

And it came boundless and invisible,and until it was set in the middle they knew it not.

Blessed are they who have drunk from it,“and to that person

the obscure things will be shown forth.”and have rested by it.

Hallelujah.

A1 solo: Ishmael(Randolph Stow)

The red earth arches away to gibber and dune.I shall not return to this uncharted spring.

Part II (Dry)

A1 solo: Ishmael (Randolph Stow)Antarctic seas work statuary of ice,

and sand-toothed wind,in the hungry waiting country,

S1 solo: Day with its drypersistence (Vincent Buckley)In day with its dry persistence

S1 A1 duet:Gospel of Thomas 74 [Coptic]

He said, “O Lord,”S2 A1 A2 trio: Psalm 63:1 [Latin]

O God my strength, you are of the light;I seek you, my soul thirsts for you;

“there are many around the drinking trough”

my flesh faints for you,

in a dry and weary land without water.

“but nothing in the well.”

In night warm with the first star

raises unseen its pale memorialsDown the midnight-passagesOr in the small corners of silence

to lioness, sphinx and man. Or at the bedside hot with death

These blinding imagesI call to mind to mould the mind,

inviting desert and sky to take me,wind to shape me,

S2 A2 duet: The Memory (Elizabeth Riddell)The memory is of grass like a green pondAnd of the scent of melons between a drought and a rainIt was autumn and the tides were always going outAnd all the moons were yellow.

A restlessness that clings and will notBe rubbed off on paper.

strip me likewise of softness, strip me of love,leaving a calm regard, a remembering care.

Yet there are some tempos that prefer me,Some twigs that burst with shaking

Blossom and dew, some lights that are constant,

Some movements of the earth that bring me

Whoever loves you, whoever is loved by you,

It was a gentle time without rage or anxiety

As we waited for the flames to die

S2 solo: Thanksgiving Hymn 14Dead Sea Scrolls 1QH [Hebrew]

But if I remove my handit will be like the acacia in the desert,

its trunk like nettles in salt flats,

in its furrows thorns and reeds shoot up;

speaks from my heart.

In constant pilgrimage to Genesis,

That said, enough of speaking,A clean break now. My ghost will not come creeping.

To the bright shapes and the true names,One night for words, and then my tenure ends.

Oh my Lord.

And for the wax to crust on the altar

to brambles and thistles […]of its banks will turn into sour vines;

And for the last petals to lieOn the marble and gilt

because of the heat its leaves wither,they do not open in the spring water.

And for the singing to end

And for the prayers to fail, again.

S1 S2 A1 trio:“Suns through a lofty bleakness fall”(Gwen Harwood)Suns through a lofty bleakness fall.Horizon, earth and sky remain.Above the aching wildernessa warmth is kindled, glows with air.Birds of prey with fiery quillsscissor the fabric of the light.

Time drips to stone. A child knocks overa dusty god stuck in a case.Doomed to repeat their honeycombBees hum in an empty mask.

S1 A1 duet:Gospel of Thomas 10 [Coptic]

Jesus said, “I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am watching over it until it blazes.”

Unbearable, a voice intones:

Suffer and love,

burn,

shine and sing.A1 solo: Ishmael (Randolph Stow)The hawks wheel in the dawn light,

the dawn breeze blowsfrom the heart of drought,

from the hungry waiting country– and what have I to leave, but this encumbering

tenderness, like gear for ever unclaimed.

A2 solo: Ezekiel 19:10, 12-13, 14c [Latin]

Your mother was like a vine in your family planted by the water.Its fruit and leaves flourished

from the abundant water. But it was plucked up in fury

and cast down to the ground;the scorching wind dried up its fruit,

its strong branches withered and were dried up;the fire consumed it.

And now it is transplantedinto the wilderness,

into a tracklessand thirsty land.

This is a lament,and will be used

as a lament.

S1 S2 A1 A2 quartet: Australia (A. D. Hope)A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate greyIn the field uniform of modern wars,Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched pawsOf Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.They call her a young country, but they lie:She is the last of lands, the emptiest,A woman beyond her change of life, a breastStill tender but within the womb is dry.Without songs, architecture, history:The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,The river of her immense stupidityFloods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.In them at last the ultimate men arriveWhose boast is not: ‘we live’ but ‘we survive’,A type who will inhabit the dying earth.

And her five cities, like five teeming sores,Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-stateWhere second-hand Europeans pullulateTimidly on the edge of alien shores.Yet there are some like me turn gladly homeFrom the lush jungle of modern thought, to findThe Arabian desert of the human mind,Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dareSprings in that waste, some spirit which escapes The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes Which is called civilization over there.

Stuart Greenbaum

for instrumental septet

2007

Easter Island

Mardi McSullea solo flute

Grania Burke bass clarinet

Jennifer McNamara piano

Silo String Quartet

Aaron Barnden violin

Andrea Keeble violin

Ceridwen Davies viola

Caerwen Martin cello

Elliott Gyger conductor

prelude: uninhabited island

chapter 1: arrival

interlude 1: stone heads

chapter 2: expansion

interlude 2: premonition

interlude 3: stone heads (reprise)

chapter 3: collapse

elegy

postlude: ‘…to dust we shall return’