Sonnet V, I
* Performed live from the For the Sake of a Single Poem concert at the Dakota, Minneapolis, MN, March 16, 2009
- Dieter Bierbrauer- vocals
- Nathan Nesje- guitar
- Christian Anderson- guitar
- Jeff Engholm- bass, backup vocals
- George Maurer- piano
- Laura Sewell- cello
- Scott Chabot- drums
Words by Rainer Maria Rilke from Sonnets to Orpheus- Partial translation by Anita Barrows and JoAnna Macy
Erect no gravestone to his memory
just let the rose blossom every year for him
for this is Orpheus- metamorphosis
into one thing, then another
We need not search for other names
when there is poetry, there is Orpheus singing
once and for all time
lightly comes and goes
isn't it enough that he can stay with us
just a few days longer than a rose?
Oh, if you could understand
he has no choice but to disappear
He is afraid to go
though he should long to stay.
His song is gone where we cannot follow
He moves where you will never find his trace
The lyre's strings do not hold back his hands.
It's in moving farther on
that he obeys.
There is a certain challenge that comes with trying to set poetry to music (rather, trying to bend poetry to fit music, especially to a pop song format). First of all, most poetry was never intended to be set to music, and so isn't usually written lyrically or with melody in mind. To try to then set it to music is both damning and liberating, all at once; damning, because there is greater opportunity for disaster at each stanza, and then liberating; when one feels they have broken through, and have achieved the elusive level of "art song".
Secondly, poetry is dense!!
The metaphors found in Rike's poetry are incredible, and ever-changing. Sonnet V, I is one of over 50 Sonnets to Orpheus that Rilke wrote within the course of less than a few weeks towards the end of his life. This after a period of about 10 years of hardly ANY creativity.
This particular poem spoke to me, and it is one of about 12 Rilke poems I've set for the song-cycle For the Sake of a Single Poem. Two other songs on this album, What Will You Do, God, When I Die? and Autumn Day are also on that song-cycle. Listen, then, to these songs set in a different way than the rest of this CD, and hear how a different imagery comes out. May you discover the reasons why I hold such a deep love and respect for Rilke.
And now, my take on the legend of Orpheus:
Orpheus, the legendary poet with the lyre (he was no liar, that fellow), sang so sweetly that he drew wild animals close, caused trees to walk, and enticed rivers to leave their beds to follow him. Mythology has it that Eurydice, his bride, one day stepped on a snake and died from the bite (Orpheus was not along to suck out the poison, as he was gigging at the time at Dionysus' new club, The Apollo).
She was immediately sent to The Underworld (a new club Hades had opened up for damned souls and occasional appearances by Styx). She was forced to write 500 times on a blackboard "I will look where I am stepping...I will look where I am stepping.,," Orpheus, hoping to get her back and, (being on a 15 minute break that Chronos had allowed him between sets), dared to enter into The Underworld, (where he still owed a pretty big drink tab from the last time he had gigged there.)
When he played his lyre and sang, his song not only melted the rocks and stones (which, judging from where they were, probably were already close to melting anyway) and even brought Hades to tears. Hades let Orpheus take Eurydice back with him on one condition: that he not turn back to look at her until they had passed the gates of The Underworld (but not before he also made Orpheus play "rock, paper, scissors" for the lyre and pay off his extensive drink tab). Together, they made the long ascent through darkness toward the light, Eurydice following close behind. But when they neared the light, Orpheus stole a forbidden glance at her, and she died again as he watched, this time lost forever (it's at this point in the story that I always find myself banging my head against the computer screen and muttering "you stupid idiot..."). So much for the "resourceful musician always gets the hot chick" theory.
He forever-after mourned her death through song, and even turned away other women who wanted this eligible musical bachelor (smart move? you decide). The Maenads, for whom Dionysus had booked a booth at The Apollo one night, were driven nuts by Orpheus’s indifference to them (and over his refusal to play Freebird), tore him from limb to limb and threw his head into the River Hebrus (but not before they, too, had made a "rock, paper, scissors" bid for the lyre and made him pay for their extensive drink tab also), where it (his head, not the lyre) floated, still singing, down to the sea, washing up on the shore of the island of Lesbos outside the Greek poet Sappho’s spankin new club Eresos (which, I would hazard, would be material for an entirely different tale).
It is said that when Orpheus finally met his death, the birds wept, trees shed their leaves and the nearby streams were swollen with their own tears, (and, seeing the need for a significantly less dangerous instrument on which to perform, led to the creation of the banjo, which, ironically, has also been linked to the dismemberment of many musicians throughout the ages.)
Rilke wrote the twenty-six poems in the first half of the Sonnets to Orpheus in an very short period of time, from February 2-5, 1922, at the Chateau de Muzot in Switzerland. The second part of the Sonnets, twenty-nine of them, came a few days later.
In all seriousness, the prevailing impulse of the Sonnets is one of gratitude for the gift of life, and of transformation. Orpheus embodies that to which Rilke summons us: cherish the things of the world, but hold lightly to them.
I liked the imagery of this particular Sonnet so much, that I chose to treat Orpheus as a wandering folk musician, and give a lighter, almost folky flavor to this composition.
The studio version, which will probably be on the next Collective Unconscious CD, will feature pedal steel, harmonica, and maybe even a banjo, too, leaving us wondering if any additional musicians will be sacrificed in the re-making of this song.
