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The good listener will notice that this composition is very different from the previous one (Autumn), also on a poem by M. Vasalis. This is not meant to be presumptuous - everyone has their own listening and musical preference after all. It therefore is more about my ideas and sentiments while composing.
You will find many key changes and chromatic escapades that came to my mind while composing, inspired of course by the text of Vasalis. If you don't have perfect pitch and/or don't read along with the score, you won't notice any of this. That is one of the assignments to myself while composing, apart from a few clearly intended volta.
So I impose my text interpretation on you in the music. That's good, after all, that's what a composer does: record in music what emotion, hesitation, cheerfulness, sadness, etc. he/she tastes. You may have different notions as you read the poem.

The poem comes from the collection Vistas and faces that was published in 1954.

Sotto Voce means in a soft voice or whispering.
In a non-Italian speaking environment, the term is used internationally in music scores as an indication for the musicians/conductor.
For the first time I integrated the title in the lied because I considered it such a clear poetic statement. Certainly bearing in mind that Vasalis also often gave no titles to her poems.

Vasalis's poem speaks for itself. In this poem, the poet again makes ample use of parallels between human emotions and elements from nature. In this case the 'skeleton of a leaf' figures: with all the consequences of the past and for the future. With this 'parable' she illustrates the present very aptly in my opinion.

For people who do not know her yet: M. Vasalis is the pseudonym of Margaretha Droogleever Fortuyn-Leenmans. She was a Dutch poet and a psychiatrist by profession. She lived from 1909 to 1998.

In 1982 she was awarded the P.C. Hooftprijs - a renowned literary price in the Netherlands - and in the same year her last poetry bundle was published, as well as a number of novellas which went along.

As early as 1988 I wrote my first composition on her poem Skeleton - a title that may not be very accessible - but that is only an illusion. It's a nice story. You can here listen to that composition and read the poem. I later added a piano accompaniment to it and recently made minor tempo adjustments. The poetess gave me personal permission for the use of that poem at the time and she liked the result very much.

In this cycle of songs have appeared so far:

1. My spring and my love are gone
2. Skeleton
3. Time
4. The Idiot in the bath
5. Autumn
6. Sotto voce
In the menu at the top of this page, click on Compositions to go to the different lieder.

On Wikipedia there is more valuable information on Vasalis, might you be curious.

Aristos

The poem

Sotto Voce

So many kinds of sorrow,
I don't mention them.
But one, renouncing and divorcing.
And not the cutting hurts so much,
but being cut off.

It is still beautiful, the skeleton of a leaf,
butterfly light resting on the earth,
only worth his being.
But between the veins of suffering
nothing more to rejoice with:
meshes of your absence,
held together by some pain
and growing with time.

Poor and ashamed to be so poor.

You can get an impression of the songs below.

© The complete copyright of the music (also this electronic version) has been deposited. This means that you can only listen but not use it nor partially, nor completely for your own purposes. Let alone that you use it for your own performances or productions. For citation rights please contact the publisher and the Buma/Stemra organization in the Netherlands.

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