Carl Ratner, Baritone
Jonathan Chapman Cook, Piano
Recorded live on April 14th, 2007 in Dalton Recital Hall at Western Michigan University.

Texts by Yosano Akiko (1878-1942)
Translations by Kenneth Rexroth:

I

At the beginning
Of the night the whispering
Snow fell, and now stars
Fill this world below on the
Disheveled hair about my face.

II

Left on the beach
Full of water,
A worn out boat
Reflects the white sky
Of early autumn.

Note from the composer

These two short but very challenging songs were composed in the summer of 2006.  I do not speak Japanese myself, but did research on the poems apart from Rexroth's translations, so that I would know the exact meaning of each word.  My approach to writing these songs was very similar to that of my other songs for solo voice and piano: to devise a sound-world from the inside of my own experiences in reading the poems.  In the first song, the single word "disheveled" implies fatigue and difficulty, and this mood mingled with the imagery of the text defines the character of the song.  The second is very slow and austere.  In composing this song, the imagery was so vivid to me that I felt that too many notes or anything too loud would cause the water to ripple, and the pure reflection of sky would be disturbed.

~Jonathan Chapman Cook