Lives of Women
Help-mate, singer, wife, mother. The Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, a gift from her husband, gives a glimpse into the life of Bach’s second wife. A world away and Debussy is inspired to put to music the poetry of his friend Pierre Louÿs. Bilitis is a figment of one man’s imagination. She’s exotic, Lesbian, sensual, erotic and of course she exists. Diana Blom is an Australian composer. She is an academic, teacher, pianist, composer, writer and our colleague and friend. Music by, for and about women.
Performers include Hester Wilson (voice), Mary Sambell (piano), Diana Weston (piano, harpsichord).
Wednesday November 12 at 1.15pm
St Jude’s Church, Bendooley St, Bowral.
Saturday November 22 at 4 pm
Mosman Art Gallery, Mosman
Lives of Women
Program
Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach – selections
- JS Bach: Choral Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten BWV 691
- JS Bach: Gib dich zufrieden und sei stille BWV 512
- Composer unknown BWV Anhang 121: Menuet
- JS Bach: Aria BWV So oft ich meine Tobackspfeife BWV 515
- CPE Bach: Polonaise BWV Anhang 125
- GH Stölzel: Bist du bei mir BWV 508
- JS Bach: Aria BWV 988
Claude Debussy/Pierre Louÿs.
Trois Chansons de Bilitis
- La flute de Pan (Pan’s flute)
- La Chevelure (Tresses)
- Le tombeau des Naiades (Naides’ tomb)
Diana Blom
- Tango (February)
- Three poems of Walter de la Mer (The Witch, the Horseman, The Bees’ Song)
- Darley Road Walk
Notebook addendum
JS Bach: Recitative and Aria Ich habe genug! BWV 82
Songs of Bilitis by Debussy. Inspired by the prose-poems ‘Bilitis’ by Pierre Louÿs
Trois Chansons de Bilitis
- La flute de Pan (Pan’s flute)
- La Chevelure (Tresses)
- Le tombeau des Naiades (Naides’ tomb)
1 Pan’s Flute
For the festival of Hyacinthus
he gave me a syrinx, a set of pipes made
from well-cut reeds joined
with the white wax
that is sweet to my lips like honey.
He is teaching me to play, as I sit on his knees;
but I tremble a little.
He plays it after me, so softly
that I can scarcely hear it.
We are so close that we have
nothing to say to one another;
but our songs want to converse,
and our mouths are joined
as they take turns on the pipes.
It is late:
here comes the chant of the green frogs,
which begins at dusk.
My mother will never believe
I spent so long
searching for my lost waistband.
2. Tresses
He told me: “Last night I had a dream.
Your hair was around my neck,
it was like a black necklace
round my nape and on my chest.
“I was stroking your hair, and it was my own;
thus the same tresses joined us forever,
with our mouths touching,
just as two laurels often have only one root.
“And gradually I sensed,
since our limbs were so entwined,
that I was becoming you
and you were entering me like my dream.”
When he’d finished,
he gently put his hands on my shoulders,
and gazed at me so tenderly
that I lowered my eyes, quivering.
3. Nymph’s Tomb
I was walking along in the frost-covered woods;
in front of my mouth
my hair blossomed in tiny icicles,
and my sandals were heavy
with muddy caked snow.
He asked: “What are you looking for?”
“I’m following the tracks of the satyr –
his little cloven hoofprints alternate
like holes in a white cloak.”
He said: “The satyrs are dead.
“The satyrs are dead, and the nymphs too.
In thirty years there has not been such a terrible winter.
That’s the trail of a he-goat.
But let’s pause here, where their tomb is.”
With his hoe he broke the ice
of the spring where the water-nymphs used to laugh.
There he was, picking up large cold slabs of ice,
lifting them toward the pale sky,
and peering through them
