Narcissus and Echo (2022)
Duration: 4:00 minutes
Instrumentation: soprano, baritone, and piano
Premiere: March 25, 2023 by Joélle Harvey, soprano, John Moore, baritone, Allen Perriello, piano, presented by Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Philadelphia, PA
Notes:
A brief duet on an echo poem by Fred Chappell, brilliantly constructed as a “dialogue” between Narcissus and Echo. Echo’s words are formed only out of the final sounds of each line of Narcissus’ self-absorbed monologue. The song is repeated, first with baritone and soprano, second with soprano only, which allows echo’s voice to be heard.
Shall the water not remember Ember
my hand’s slow gesture, tracing above of
its mirror my half-imaginary airy
portrait? My only belonging longing;
is my beauty, which I take ache
away and then return, as love of
of teasing playfully the one being unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure Is your
moves me. I live apart heart
from myself, yet cannot not
live apart. In the water’s tone, stone?
that brilliant silence, a flower Hour,
whispers my name with such slight light:
moment, it seems a filament of air, fare
the world become cloudswell. well.