Gilson Antunes, guitar (recorded in May 2021 -  youtube.com/gilsonantunes1972).

Schlechte Zeit für Lyrik (named after B. Brecht) was composed for the album Weiße Rose, a project conceived to mark the centenary of the birth of Sophie Scholl.
Each one of these “Songs of Hope” was written with a previous song in mind. The list of correspondences between each piece and the songs, presented below, is directed more towards the guitarist than to the public, as a means of grasping the particular sense of each moment in the performance.
- I [00:00​]. World Youth Song (Prague, 1947), composed by Anatoly Novikov to lyrics by Lev Oshanin; adapted by Quilapayun in the album X Viet-nam (Chile, 1968).
- II [02:16​]. There, far away, beyond the river (Там, Вдали За Рекой, 1924), set to lyrics by Nikolai Kool after the Russian Civil War to an anonymous folksong melody.
- III [04:06​]. A counterpoint between antifascist symbol Einheitsfrontlied (Bertolt Brecht & Hanns Eisler, 1934) and the traditional folksong Die Gedanken sind frei (also influenced by Gustav Mahler’s rendering of this verse in Lied des Verfolgten im Turm, 1898).
- IV [05:15​]. Nada más (Atahualpa Yupanqui), a homage to Che Guevara recorded in the album Mi tierra, te están cambiando (1973).
- V [06:39​]. If I had a hammer (Pete Seeger), from In Concert for Chile (London, 1974).
The cycle was written in São Paulo in march and april 2021, during an everlasting pandemic of extremely unequal impact - notwithstanding extreme and escalating widespread socioeconomic differences, but even still, facing the renewed outburst of shameless fascist and genocidal discourse and policies in Brazil.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdZ4GsQfBMs
Partitura: https://www.babelscores.com/catalogs/instrumental/6697-schlechte-zeit-fuer-lyrik
https://lessthanone.bandcamp.com/album/wei-e-rose

Weiße Rose

Schlechte Zeit für Lyrik (Hoffnungslieder für Gitarre)

Setting of Wilfred Owen's poem for Tenor & Piano by Isabelle Ryder

Anthem For Doomed Youth

Symphony No.1

Inspired by the poem by R. M. Rilke

Der Schauende

Ich sehe den Bäumen die Stürme an,
die aus laugewordenen Tagen
an meine ängstlichen Fenster schlagen,
und höre die Fernen Dinge sagen,
die ich nicht ohne Freund ertragen,
nicht ohne Schwester lieben kann.
 
Da geht der Sturm, ein Umgestalter,
geht durch den Wald und durch die Zeit,
und alles ist wie ohne Alter:
die Landschaft, wie ein Vers im Psalter,
ist Ernst und Wucht und Ewigkeit.
 
Wie ist das klein, womit wir ringen,
was mit uns ringt, wie ist das groß;
ließen wir, ähnlicher den Dingen,
uns so vom großen Sturm bezwingen, –
wir würden weit und namenlos.
 
Was wir besiegen, ist das Kleine,
und der Erfolg selbst macht uns klein.
Das Ewige und Ungemeine
will nicht von uns gebogen sein.
Das ist der Engel, der den Ringern
des Alten Testaments erschien:
wenn seiner Widersacher Sehnen
im Kampfe sich metallen dehnen,
fühlt er sie unter seinen Fingern
wie Saiten tiefer Melodien.
 
Wen dieser Engel überwand,
welcher so oft auf Kampf verzichtet,
der geht gerecht und aufgerichtet
und groß aus jener harten Hand,
die sich, wie formend, an ihn schmiegte.
Die Siege laden ihn nicht ein.
Sein Wachstum ist: der Tiefbesiegte
von immer Größerem zu sein.

Translation:

He Who Visions

The storm approaches, the tree tops bend,
The storm that gathered from days most fair
Against my trembling windows will tear,
A muffled murmuring fills the air
Of things that alone I cannot bear,
That I cannot love without a friend.
 
The storm, the great transformer will rage,
Sweeping through forests and on through time,
Levelling landmarks, anchored by age,
Till the landscape like the Psalter’s page
Opens out luminous and sublime.
 
How small is the thing against which we fight,
That which battles with us—how great its might;
If we by inanimate things were taught,
If the storm a change within us wrought,
We would mightily merge with the Infinite.
 
That which we conquer is slight and small.
Small we remain when with victory crowned;
The wonder for us will not befall,
The eternal by us will not be bound.
 
These two are the Angel the wrestler fought,—
It is written in the old Prophecies,—
Who felt his foe’s sinews under his hands
Stretching and straining like metal bands,
Beneath his compelling grasp grow taut
And vibrant like chords of deep melodies.
 
He whom the Angel vanquished that day,
The Angel who oft the fight did reject,
Came forth from the struggle great and erect,
The hard hand that moulded him like clay
While shaping, caressed him silently.
Triumph no more spreads beckoning wings.
His growth is: Profoundly conquered to be
By ever greater things.

Der Schauende

Giovanni Lonati

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