Description
Premiere
19 November 1974
Master Singers / Catherine Roma, conductor
Mills Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI
Text
Sappho
Commissioner
Commissioned by the Master Singers of the Choral Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madision
Publisher
Biscardi Music Press No. B48-74-3 (available on request)
Program Notes
I. I am not one of the spiteful in spirit,
but I have the heart of one who is gentle.
II. So, like a child after its mother, I go about on wings.
III. I begin with words of air which are yet dreams.
IV. But, with my two arms, I do not aspire to touch the sky.
V. The stars about the fair moon lose their bright beauty
when she, almost full, illumines all earth with silver.
Transliterations from the Ancient Greek by Paul C. Ortloff, Department of Classics, Yale University. Translations from the Ancient Greek compiled from information from The Poems of Sappho, by Edwin Marion Cox (London: William & Morgate, Ltd., 1925).
