Songs of Yearning

Program Notes

Songs of Yearning was commissioned anonymously as a private gift in celebration of a wedding anniversary. The work is a four-movement song cycle for soprano, bassoon, violin, and viola, setting ancient Japanese "Waka" poetry of Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu. Each text in the cycle centers on love and yearning, and the music tries to carefully reflect the emotion and mindset of the subjects in each poem.

In Movement I. “It is already dawn,” a gentle bassoon melody rises and bends, hovering like the warm air of an Autumn night. As the soprano gazes into her lover's eyes, time passes and the bassoon returns, melting into the dawn. Movement II. “Worlds” begins with the soprano singing “Yoyo” (worlds), and time is suspended as the soprano longs to look upon her distant lover just once in person. In Movement III. “The Scent of the Plum” there is surprising aroma of ripe fruit hanging on a tree. Yet, in spite of this sweetness, the soprano describes how “yami koso hito wa” (she is filled with longing in the dark Spring night). Here the music has playful hints of pastoral life emerging, but there is a subtle undertone of darkness. Movement IV. “Along the Road of Dreams” begins with a slow descending string figure; at the climax, the soprano sings out “yumeji wo sae ni / hito wa togameji” (I visit you at night along the road of dreams) and the music winds away, like a distant, fading, dream. – D.T.

— Daniel Temkin

Movement I – It is Already Dawn
(Poet: Ono no Komachi, c.825-900)

Movement II – Worlds
(Poet: Izumi Shikibu, c.976-1033)

Aki no yo mo
na nomi narikeri
mafuto ieba
kotozo tomo naku
akenuru mono wo

Movement III – The Scent of the Plum
(Poet: Izumi Shikibu, c.976-1033)

Kagirinaki
omoi no mama ni
yoru mo komu
yumeji wo sae ni
hito wa togameji

My longing for you—
too strong to keep within bounds.
At least no one can blame me
when I go to you at night
along the road of dreams.

All translations are used here by express permission of Jane Hirshfield, as they appear in:
The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan. Translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani. (Vintage Classics Publishing)

Copyright © 1988 of Jane Hirshfield. All Rights Reserved.

ORIGINAL POETRY IN PUBLIC DOMAIN; TRANSLATIONS MAY NOT BE REPRINTED.