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Goback Goback
2003
baritone
flute doubling piccolo
oboe doubling english horn
clarinet doubling bass clarinet
piano
harp
percussion
  bass drum, boobams, flexatone, 3 small gongs, hi-hat, log drum, marimba, 
  3 small suspended cymbals, tambourine, tom-tom, large triangle, vibraphone, 3 woodblocks
string quintet

duration 45'' 

commissioned by Paul and Catherine Buttenweiser for Collage New Music
first performance: 
David Kravitz with Collage, cond. David Hoose
Paine Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge / March 29, 2003

SCORE
From 'The Greenock Dialogues'
O Why Am I So Bright 
The Visit
Imagine A Forest
Falling Into the Sea
Enter A Cloud
Dear Bryan Wynter
Loch Thom

RECORDING
    cd or digital download of complete work available at
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PROGRAM NOTE
This work is about standing at the midpoint of life and reassessing. W.S. Graham's poetry can seem elliptical on first acquaintance. In fact it is quite direct but it uses jarring shifts of time and perspective. I have arranged eight of his poems into a three-part shape.

The first three songs are concerned directly with childhood; one—From The Greenock Dialogues—with the conjuring up of ghosts of remembered people and places; and two with nightmarish scenarios; O Why Am I So Bright is a galloping song of freedom cut off by rejection, The Visit tells of a nighttime encounter with a dark figure, perhaps Death.

The next three songs explore the body and the mind in transport, and in the here-and-now, but with a surreal, dreamlike quality. Imagine A Forest entraps the reader (or listener) in the very fabric of the poem; forcing him or her to become an actor in the poem's narrative–an uncomfortable and alarming place to be. This is a thoroughly earthy poem, set in a dark forest. Falling Into the Sea, the next, watery, song, is again about submersion; this time underwater rather than in a poem. Enter A Cloud is a tour-de-force of a text inspired by sky, wind, and air in which a welter of reveries are thrown out and connected in swirls of language.

The final two poems are about loss; they are those of an adult looking forward and backward pragmatically toward death in Dear Bryan Wynter and longingly toward childhood in Loch Thom.

As you would expect in a work where words and images keep folding back in on themselves, this music contains numerous echoes, returns, and connections. Some of the more noticeable ones are: 1) cluster chords signify the presence of ghosts. 2) the clarinet runs prominently through the first three (childhood) songs. 3) the overall direction of registers is downward e.g. the little solo which breaks the stanzas in Loch Thom is heard first on violin, then lower on viola, then lower still on cello; Falling Into the Sea is made of overlapping descending woodwind lines; the woodwind doublings get gradually lower as piccolo, oboe, and clarinet are left behind and; replaced by flute, english horn, and bass clarinet. 4) the; piano chords underpinning Falling Into the Sea are taken from halfway through The Visit. 5) the oboe ritornello in Imagine A Forest returns as the poet reaches the Great Kelp Wood at the close of Falling Into the Sea. 6) the simple descending triadic harmony introduced in The Visit becomes plainer and stiller as the work continues. 7) the last two songs each contain a passage of ascending note flurries; one depicting wind, one depicting grouse rising into the air.

The title Goback Goback is taken from the grouse's call in the final poem and works on many levels; in the poet's memory it is a sound from childhood, for the poet's ‘ghost’, revisiting the loch it is a warning to return to the present, for the poet's adult being it is a desire to reexperience lost childhood—a warning, an encouragement, in invitation, a dare, a requirement, a necessity, an impossibility.

REVIEWS
But this time around, there was some new music at the end of the program that really sounded new. . . Kravitz was back, and in fuller voice than ever, for Goback Goback. . . And Vores has somehow found the perfect "voice" to open up the poems—the rushing harmonic energy of minimalism, but applied to the pastoral English tradition. The results were often transporting, and were suffused with an intuitive connection to Graham's text—a long series of meditations on the approach of death, viewed as if from a dream of mid-life. And Vores's seemingly limitless gift for orchestration drew an astonishing number of moods from his ensemble—which he needed to match Graham's constantly-morphing poetry, in which mind moves through and into landscape at will . . . By the time Kravitz sang the final verse (which explains the odd title), I was wondering whether this wasn't the best piece of new music I'd heard in these parts for some time. Probably.
Thomas Garvey • The Hub Review  full review

•
Vores’s Goback Goback is a setting of eight poems by the almost forgotten 20th-century Cornwall poet (born in Scotland) W. S. Graham. These are works that deal with the contrary pulls of returning to a ghostly childhood and trying to live more fully in the present. Several of the poems remind me of the folk songs Mahler uses in his Des Knaben Wunderhorn cycle: "How would you like to be killed," says the mysterious voice at the beginning of The Visit. The title is the call of the grouse in the last poem, both a seduction and a warning. Goback Goback also begins with a harp, and here the bardic element is most explicit, reinforced by strumming strings, staccato beats, and snaky, slithery winds. In a marvelous interlude between the second and third sections, plucked cello (Joel Moerschel) and rhythmic bass (Jim Orleans) dissolve into ravishingly lyrical strings. 

Vores’s striking music conjures up the ghost worlds of Schumann, or Mahler, or Benjamin Britten, only on hallucinogens. "Imagine a forest,/A real forest," another poem begins, and the music wants to surround us in dark woods, submerge us in a fathomless sea, disintegrate us into an ephemeral cloud. And it captures Graham’s creepy comedy (Dear Bryan Winter begins, "This is only a note/To say how sorry I am/You died"). Baritone David Kravitz was the eloquent singer, conveying the sense that he knew what lurked behind the words and letting us hear every syllable. David Hoose led every piece with passion and precision. And the playing seemed flawless. It’s a rare new-music event that makes me want to hear each piece over again. And again. 
Lloyd Schwartz • The Boston Phoenix

•
The effect of Goback Goback was to be flung into a huge, pullulating Amazonian lushness. With only a few instruments at his disposal, Vores gave you the sense that he had an infinite number of orchestrational palettes at hand. . . This is not a composer for whom ideas—or ways of expressing them—are slow in coming.
Richard Buell • The Boston Globe

TEXTS
From the Greenock Dialogues 
O Greenock, Greenock, I never will 
Get back to you, but here I am,
The boy made good into a ghost 
Which I will send along your streets 
Tonight as the busy nightshifts 
Hammer and spark their welding lights. 

I pull this skiff I made myself 
Across the midnight firth 
Between Greenock and Kilkreggan.
My blades as they feather discard 
The bright drops and the poor word
Which will always drown unheard. 

Ah the little whirlpools go
Curling away for a moment back 
Into my wake. Brigit. Cousin 
Brigit Mooney, are you still there 
On the Old Custom House shore? 
You need not answer that, my dear. 

And she is there with all the wisps 
And murmurs in their far disguise. 
Brigit, help with the boat up 
Up over the shingle to the high 
Tide mark. You've hardly changed, only 
A little through the world's eye. 

Take my hand this new night 
And we'll go up to Cartsburn Street 
Burn's Mary sleeps fine in 
Inverkip Street far from Afton. 

Brigit, take me with you. 
Come, step over 
The gunwale. I think, it seems we're here
On the dirty pebbles of my home 
Town Greenock where somewhere Burn's Mary 
Sleeps and ghosts go 
Still. 


O Why am I So Bright
O why am I so bright 
Flying in the night? 

Why am I so fair 
Flying through the air? 

Will you let me in 
After all I've done? 

We see you as you go 
Across the fields of snow. 

We will not let you in. 
Never. Never. Never. 


The Visit
How would you like to be killed or are 
You in disguise the one to take 
Me back? I don't want to go back 
As I am now. I'm not dressed
For the sudden wind out of the West. 

Also sometimes I get lost. 
If I stay on for a bit and try
Upside-down to speak and cry 
HELP ME, HELP ME, will anything 
Happen? Will I begin to sing? 

What a fine get-up you have on,
Mister, if that is your entering name. 
How did you get through the window-frame 
To stand beside me? I am a simple 
Boy from Greenock who could kill 

You easily if it was not you. 
Please tell me if you come on business. 
You are too early. I have to kiss
My dear and another dear and the natural 
Objects as well as my writing table. 

Goodnight. I will mend the window.
Thank you for giving me time 
To kiss the lovely living game. 
So he went away
Without having touched me. 

He looked at me with courage. 
His head was a black orange. 


Imagine a Forest
Imagine a forest
A real forest 

You are walking in it and it sighs 
Round you where you go in a deep 
Ballad on the border of a time 
You have seemed to walk in before. 
It is nightfall and you go through 
Trying to find between the twittering 
Shades the early starlight edge 
Of the open moor land you know. 
I have set you here and it is not a dream
I put you through. Go on between 
The elephant bark of those beeches 
Into that lightening, almost glade. 

And he has taken
My word and gone 

Through his own Ettrick darkening 
Upon himself and he's come across 
A glinted knight lying dying 
On needles under a high tree. 
Ease his visor open gently 
To reveal whatever white, encased 
Face will ask out at you who 
It is you are or if you will 
Finish him off. His eyes are open. 
Imagine he does not speak. Only 
His beard moving against the metal 
Signs that he would like to speak. 

Imagine a room
Where you are home 

Taking your boots off from the wood 
In that deep ballad very not
A dream and the fire noisily 
Kindling up and breaking its sticks. 
Do not imagine I put you there 
For nothing. I put you through it 
There in that holt of words between 
The bearded liveoaks and the beeches 
For you to meet a man alone 
Slipping out of whatever cause 
He thought he lay there dying for. 

Hang up the ballad 
behind the door. 

You are home but you are about 
To not fight hard enough and die 
In a no less desolate dark wood
Where a stranger shall never enter. 

Imagine a forest 
A real forest. 


Falling into the Sea
Breathing water is easy 
If you put your mind to it. 
The little difficulty 
Of the first breath 
Is soon over. You
Will find everything right. 

Keep your eyes open 
As you go fighting down 
But try to keep it easy
As you meet the green 
Skylight rising up 
Dying to let you through. 

Then you will seem to want 
To stand like a sea-horse 
In the new suspension. 
Don't be frightened. Breathe 
Deeply and you will go down 
Blowing your silver worlds. 

Now you go down turning 
Slowly over from fathom 
To fathom even remembering 
Unexpected small 
Corners of the dream
You have been in. 

Now What has happened to you? 
You have arrived on the sea 
Floor and a lady comes out
From the Great Kelp Wood 
And gives you some scones and a cup 
Of tea and asks you 
If you come here often. 


Enter a Cloud
Gently disintegrate me 
Said nothing at all. 

Is there still time to say 
Said I myself lying 
In a bower of bramble 
Into which I have fallen. 

Look through my eyes up 
At blue with not anything 
We could ever have arranged 
Slowly taking place. 

Above the spires of fox 
Gloves and above the bracken 
Tops with their young heads 
Recognizing the wind, 
The armies of the empty 
Blue press me further 
Into Zennor Hill. 

If I half-close my eyes 
The spiked light leaps in 
And I am here as near 
Happy as I will get 
In the sailing afternoon. 

Enter a cloud. Between 
The head of Zennor and 
Gurnard's Head the long 
Marine horizon makes 
A blue wall or is it 
A distant table-top 
Or the far-off simple sea. 

Enter a cloud. the cloud's 
Changing shape is crossing 
Slowly an inch 
Above the line of the sea. 
Now nearly equidistant 
Between Zennor and Gurnard's 
Head, an elongated 
White anvil is sailing. 

And proceeds with no idea
Of destination along 
The sea bearing changing 
Messages. Jean in London, 
Lifting a cup, looking 
Abstractedly out through 

Her Hampstead glass will never 
Be caught by your new shape
Above the chimneys. Jean,
Jean, do you not see 
This cloud has been thought of 
On Zennor Hill. 

The cloud is going beyond 
What I can see or make. 
Over up-country maybe 
Albert Strick stops and waves 
Caught in the middle of teeling 
Broccoli for the winter. 
The cloud is not there yet. 

From Gurnard's Head to Zennor 
Head the level line 
Crosses my eyes lying 
On buzzing Zennor Hill. 
The cloud is only a wisp 
And gone behind the Head. . . 

Thank you. And for your applause. 
It has been a pleasure.
I have never enjoyed speaking more. 
May I also thank the real ones 
Who have made this possible. 
First, the cloud itself. And now 
Gurnard's Head and Zennor 
Head. Also recognize 
How I have been helped 
By Jean and Albert 
Strick (He is a real man.) 
And good words like brambles, 
Bower, spiked, fox, anvil, teeling. 

The bees you heard are from 
A hive owned by my friend 
Garfield down there below 
In the house by Zennor Church. 

The good blue sun is pressing 
Me into Zennor Hill. 

Gently disintegrate me 
Said nothing at all. 


Dear Bryan Wynter
This is only a note 
To say how sorry I am 
You died. You will realize 
What a position it puts 
Me in. I couldn't really 
Have died for you if so 
I were inclined. The carn 
Foxglove here on the wall 
Outside your first house 
Leans with me standing 
In the Zennor wind. 

Anyhow how are things? 
Are you still somewhere 
With your long legs 
And twitching smile under 
Your blue hat walking 
Across a place? Or am
I greedy to make you up 
Again out of memory? 
Are you there at all?
I would like to think 
You were all right 
And not unhappy or bored. 

Speaking to you and not 
Knowing if you are there 
Is not too difficult. 
Do you want anything? 
Where shall I send something? 
Rice-wine, meanders, paintings 
By your contemporaries? 
Or shall I send a kind 
Of news of no time 
Leaning against the wall 
Outside your old house. 

The house and the whole moor 
Is flying in the mist 

Bryan, I would be obliged 
If you would scout things out 
For me. Although I am not 
Just ready to start out. 
I am trying to be better, 
Which will make you smile 
Under your blue hat. 

I know I make a symbol 
Of the foxglove on the wall. 
It is because it knows you. 


Loch Thom
Just for the sake of recovering 
I walked back from forty-six 
Quick years of age wanting to see, 
And managed not to trip or stumble 
To find Loch Thom and turned round 
To see the stretch of my childhood 
Before me. Here is the loch. The same 
Long-beaked cry curls across 
The heather-edges of the water held 
Between the hills a boyhood's walk 
Up from Greenock. It is the morning. 

And I am here with my mammy's 
Bramble jam scones in my pocket. 
The Firth is miles and I have come 
Back to find Loch Thom maybe 
In this light does not recognize me. 

This is a lonely freshwater loch. 
No farms on the edge. Only 
Heather grouse-moor stretching 
Down to Greenock 
Or stretching away across 
Into the blue moors of Ayrshire. 

And almost I am back again 
Wading the heather down to the edge 
To sit. The minnows go by in shoals 
Like iron-filings in the shallows. 
My mother is dead. 
My father is dead 
And all the trout I used to know 
Leaping from their sad rings are dead. 

I drop my crumbs into the shallow 
Weed for the minnows and pinheads. 
You see that I will have to rise 
And turn round and get back where 
My running age will slow for a moment 
To let me on. it is a colder 
Stretch of water than I remember. 

The curlew's cry travelling still 
Kills me fairly. In front of me 
The grouse flurry and settle. GOBACK 
GOBACK GOBACK FAREWELL LOCH THOM. 

W.S. Graham (1918–1986)