The world premiere of composer Stephanie Griffin's song cycle "Beautiful You Are" for soprano, clarinet, viola and piano (2022) 

Sharon Harms, soprano
Benjamin Fingland, clarinet
Christopher Oldfather, piano
Stephanie Griffin, viola

An Answer to Another Persuading a Lady to Marriage 
By Katherine Philips (1631 – 1664)

Forbear, bold youth, all’s Heaven here, 
And what you do aver,
To others, courtship may appear,
’Tis sacriledge to her. 

She is a publick deity,
And were’t not very odd
She should depose her self to be 
A pretty household god? 

First make the sun in private shine, 
And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine 
In complement to you. 

But if of that you do despair, 
Think how you did amiss,
To strive to fix her beams which are 
More bright and large than this. 

Live from the Music of the Americas concert series
Americas Society, NYC
February 28, 2023

"Beautiful You Are" was commissioned by Americas Society with a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

An Answer To Another Persuading A Lady To Marriage, poem by Katherine Philips

The world premiere of composer Stephanie Griffin's song cycle "Beautiful You Are" for soprano, clarinet, viola and piano (2022) 

Sharon Harms, soprano
Benjamin Fingland, clarinet

Coy Mistress 
By Annie Finch (b. 1956) 

Sir, I am not a bird of prey:
a Lady does not seize the day.
I trust that brief Time will unfold
our youth, before he makes us old.
How could we two write lines of rhyme 
were we not fond of numbered Time 
and grateful to the vast and sweet
trials his days will make us meet?
The Grave's not just the body's curse; 
no skeleton can pen a verse!
So while this numbered World we see, 
let's sweeten Time with poetry,
and Time, in turn, may sweeten Love 
and give us time our love to prove. 
You've praised my eyes, forehead, breast: 
you've all our lives to praise the rest. 

Annie Finch, “Coy Mistress” from EVE (Story Line Press, 1997) 
Copyright © 1997 by Annie Finch.
Used with permission from Blue Wind Press 

Live from the Music of the Americas concert series
Americas Society, NYC
February 28, 2023

"Beautiful You Are" was commissioned by Americas Society with a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Coy Mistress, poem by Annie Finch

The world premiere of composer Stephanie Griffin's song cycle "Beautiful You Are" for soprano, clarinet, viola and piano (2022) 

Sharon Harms, soprano
Benjamin Fingland, clarinet
Christopher Oldfather, piano

The Leopard 
By Lorenzo Thomas (1944 – 2005) 

The eyeballs on her behind are like fire 
Leaping and annoying
The space they just passed
Just like fire would do 

The ground have no mouth to complain 
And the girl is not braver herself 

She is beautiful in her spotted 
Leopard ensemble. Heartless so 

To keep her fashionable in New York 
Leopards are dying 

Crude comments flutter around her
At lunchtime. She sure look good
She remembers nine banishing speeches 

More powerful than this is the seam 
Of the leotard under her clothing 

Her tail in the leotard is never still
The seam!
She feels it too familiar on her leg
As some crumb says something suggestive 

The leopard embracing around her 
Is too chic to leap and strike 
Her thoughts fall back to last semester’s karate 
Underneath, the leotard crouches up on her thigh 
It is waiting for its terrible moment! 

Lorenzo Thomas, “The Leopard” from Chances are Few. 
Copyright © 1979 by Lorenzo Thomas.
Used with permission from Blue Wind Press 

Live from the Music of the Americas concert series
Americas Society, NYC
February 28, 2023

"Beautiful You Are" was commissioned by Americas Society with a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The Leopard, poem by Lorenzo Thomas

The world premiere of composer Stephanie Griffin's song cycle "Beautiful You Are" for soprano, clarinet, viola and piano (2022) 

Sharon Harms, soprano
Christopher Oldfather, piano
Stephanie Griffin, viola

Texts:
Quam pulchra es 
Excerpted and abridged from The Song of Solomon
Myles Coverdale Bible (1535)

 
Latin Text

Quam pulchra es et quam decora carissima in deliciis (tuis) 
Statura tua assimilata est palmæ, et ubera tua botris
Caput tuum ut carmelus.
Collum tuum sicut turris eburnea.
Veni dilecte mi; egrediamur in agrum(/hortum)
Et videamus si flores fructus parturiunt,
si floruerunt mala punica. Ibi dabo tibi ubera mea.
Alleluia.

English Translation by Myles Coverdale (1488 – 1569)

O How fair and lovely art thou, my darling, in (your) pleasures?
Thy stature is like a date tree, and thy breasts like the grapes.
The head that standeth upon thee is like Carmel
Thy neck is as it were a tower of ivory
O come on my love, let us go forth in to the field(/garden)
and go see if the grapes be grown
and if the pomegranates be shot out. There will I give thee my breasts.
Alleluia
 
Beautiful You Are
By Kenneth Patchen (1911 – 1972)

Cathedral evening, tinkle of candles
On the frosted air
Beautiful you are
Beautiful your eyes, lips, hair

Ah still they come

Evenings like chalices
Where little roofs and trees drink
Until a rude hand 
Shatters them, one by one

O beautiful you are

My own
Land of holiness, unblemished grace
Springtime 
In this winter place
O in the candles there
More beautiful 
Than any legend’s face

Your eyes, your hair

By Kenneth Patchen, from COLLECTED POEMS OF KENNETH PATCHEN, 
copyright ©1952 by New Directions 
Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. 

Live from the Music of the Americas concert series
Americas Society, NYC
February 28, 2023

"Beautiful You Are" was commissioned by Americas Society with a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Quam Pulchra Es and Beautiful You Are: poetry from the Song of Solomon and by Kenneth Patchen

The world premiere of composer Stephanie Griffin's song cycle "Beautiful You Are" for soprano, clarinet, viola and piano (2022) 

Sharon Harms, soprano
Benjamin Fingland, clarinet
Christopher Oldfather, piano
Stephanie Griffin, viola

To His Coy Mistress 
By Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678) 

Had we but world enough and time, 
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way 
To walk, and pass our long love’s day. 
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would 
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise 
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; 
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart. 
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate. 
But at my back I always hear 
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; 
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found; 
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound 
My echoing song; then worms shall try 
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust, 
And into ashes all my lust; 
The grave’s a fine and private place, 
But none, I think, do there embrace. 
Now therefore, while the youthful hue 
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires, 
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey, 
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power. 
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife 
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun 
Stand still, yet we will make him run. 


Live from the Music of the Americas concert series
Americas Society, NYC
February 28, 2023

"Beautiful You Are" was commissioned by Americas Society with a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

To His Coy Mistress, poem by Andrew Marvell

Acclaimed by the New York Times for her “fiery, full-throttle performance” and described as “enthralling” by the Los Angeles Times, composer/violist Stephanie Griffin has performed internationally as a soloist, chamber and avant-jazz musician. As a soloist, she has worked closely with numerous composers, among them Salvatore Sciarrino; Tristan Murail; Tony Prabowo; Kee Yong Chong; Matthew Greenbaum; and Arthur Kampela.  Ms. Griffin is a founding member of the Momenta Quartet, a regular guest with Continuum, and member of the Argento Chamber Ensemble; Carl Maguire’s Floriculture; Gordon Beeferman’s Other Life Forms; Adam Rudolph’s Go Organic Orchestra; the Riverside Symphony and the Princeton Symphony, where she serves as principal violist. She teaches viola at Brooklyn College and Hunter College, and is the former curator of contemporary music at Galapagos Art Space. As a composer, she is the recipient of the Jerome Foundation 2017 Emerging Composer Fellowship and the 2016 composition fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Ms. Griffin was a 2014 Fellow at Music Omi, and has recorded for Firehouse 12, Aeon, Albany, Arte Nova, Koch, Centaur, Siam, Innova and Tzadik Records. She studied viola with William Gordon, Paul DeClerck, Wayne Brooks and Samuel Rhodes and holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School.

New tracks tagged #Kenneth Patchen