music        news/events        bio        contact        recordings Black Flag 1982 soprano 3 clarinets 1º doubling clarinet in Eb, 3º doubling bass clarinet  duration 12' SCORE Great Grief Came Over Me  Cherries The Big Bite – April 1963  Comes the Dance TEXTS Great Grief Came Over Me  Great grief came over me while on the fell above us I was picking berries.  Great grief came over me my sun quickly rose over it great sorrow came over me  The sea out there off our settlement was beautifully quiet  And the great dear paddlers were leaving out there  Great grief came over me while I was picking berries on the fell  traditional (Inuit)  Cherries When love on stilts picks its way along gravel paths and reaches the treetops I too in cherries would like to experience cherries as cherries  No longer with arms too short, with ladders on which forever one rung, just one rung, is missing to live on stewed fruit,  on windfalls  Sweet and sweeter darkening a red such as blackbirds dream who here is kissing whom when love reaches the treetops on stilts  Gunter Grass (b.1927) trans. Michael Hamburger  The Big Bite – April 1963  The rite of spring is in the odor of the air, the nerve of winter which enters one's nose comes a long, far way like a scythe from the peak of mountains. To the aged it can feel like a miasma up from the midnight corridors of a summer hotel, empty and out of season. Winter breath has the light of snow when the sun is on it, or the bone chill of a vault, but spring air comes up from the earth. At worst it can be the smell of new roots in bad slimy ground, at best the wine of late autumn frost is released from the old ice, intoxication to the nostril, as if a filbert of fine sherbert had melted a sweet way into the tongue back of the throat down from the teeth. Spring is the season which marks the end of dread, so it is the season of profound dread for those who do not lose their fear.  Norman Mailer (b.1923) Comes the Dance Wake up woman Rise up woman  In the middle of the street a dog howls  May the death arrive May the dance arrive  Comes the dance You must dance Comes the death You can't help it  Ah! What a chill Ah! What a wind  traditional (Peruvian)