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Head Down Legs Up

PROGRAM NOTE
All Sings, All Dances, and All is Loud is made up of tiny sections—three groups of material associated with the fish (scales), the bird (trills), and the marmot (itchy semitones)—the three animals celebrated in the text. Ploughing on Sunday is built on pedal notes and snatches of color for certain key words; wind, rain, bluster, etc. The setting is simple and jaunty with a puzzled waltz stranded at its center. Tombeau, a brief rather static violin solo, is followed by in space; declamatory and rough, with a flavor of the opening song's marmot music. Long Ago is a reverie—heady and nostalgic. The final movement is a rapid run-through of the fish, bird and marmot sounds. The texts are arranged to present a progression from the wild exuberance of jungle life through the still innocent pleasure of cultivating the land to expertise, sophistication, and self-regard. Following this there is a pulling away from present noise to something half-recalled. Envoi starts everything rolling around again. 

TEXTS
All Lives, all Dances, and all is Loud
The fish does . . . HIP
The bird does . . . VISS
The marmot does . . . GNAN 

I throw myself to the left,
I turn myself to the right,
I act the fish,
Which darts in the water, which darts
Which twists about, which leaps– 
All lives, all dances, and all is loud. 

The fish does . . . HIP
The bird does . . . VISS
The marmot does . . . GNAN 

The bird flies away,
It flies, flies, flies,
Goes, returns, passes,
Climbs, soars and drops.
I act the bird– 
All lives, all dances, and all is loud. 

The fish does . . . HIP
The bird does . . . VISS
The marmot does . . . GNAN 

The monkey from branch to branch,
Runs bounds and leaps,
With his wife, with his brat,
His mouth full, his tail in the air,
There goes the monkey! There goes the Monkey!
All lives, all dances, and all is loud. 
traditional (Gabon Pygmy) trans. C.M. Bowra 


Ploughing on Sunday
The white cock's tail
Tosses in the wind
The turkey-cock's tail
Glitters in the sun. 

Water in the fields.
The wind pours down.
The feathers flare
And bluster in the wind. 

Remus, blow your horn!
I'm ploughing on Sunday,
Ploughing North America.
Blow your horn! 

Tum-ti-tum,
Ti-tum-tum-tum!
The turkey-cock's tail
Spreads to the sun. 

The white cock's tail
Streams to the moon.
Water in the fields.
The wind pours down. 
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) 


in space
head down
legs up
he leaps into space
from which he came 

he has no more honour in his body
his mouth is no longer stopped up
with a stopper
he no longer returns greetings
he doesn't even stop is someone 
bows down before him 

head down
legs up
he leaps into space
from which he came 

like a hairy dish
like a quadruped
and mammalian chair
like a dull branch of echo
half full
half empty 

head down
legs up
he leaps into space
from which he came 
Jean Arp (1887–1966) trans. Joachim Neugroschel 


Long Ago
I'd like to speak of this memory
but it's so faded now
as though nothing's left
because it was so long ago,
in my adolescent years. 

A skin as though of jasmine . . .
that August evening
was it August? 

I can still just recall the eyes:
blue, I think they were . . .
Ah, yes, blue:
a sapphire blue. 
C.P. Cavafy (1863–1933) trans. Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard