Fallen Eve: I. Reveille

Geoffrey Gordon's song cycle, Fallen Eve, commissioned by the Abelson Foundation, is inspired by the work of British poet laureate Ted Hughes, and sets five Hughes texts for mezzo soprano and mixed chamber ensemble. The texts are not linked in any formal or aesthetic way, other than that they all convey the same antiquitious struggle between good and evil, or perhaps more precisely, innocence and carnal experience. The ubiquitous presence of the serpent in these texts is instructive, and no accident.

Here is the text for this, the first song in the cycle:


Reveille
_____________________

No, the serpent was not
One of Gods ordinary creatures.
Where did he creep from,
This legless land-swimmer with a purpose?

Adam and lovely Eve
Deep in the first dream
Each the everlasting
Holy One of the other

Woke with cries of pain.
Each clutched a throbbing wound--
A sudden, cruel bite.
The serpents head, small and still,

Smiled under the lilies.
Behind him, his coils
Had crushed all Edens orchards.
And out beyond Eden

The black, thickening river of his body
Glittered in giant loops
Around desert mountains and away
Over the ashes of the future.
________________________

This is a performance by Soprano Marcy Stonikas and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), from the world premiere, December 17, 2005, Concert Hall of the Music Center, Columbia College, Chicago.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Geoffrey Gordon
• Ted Hughes
• Fallen Eve
• classical music
• contemporary music
• chamber vocal music
• ICE