Program for Passionflower Duo

Friday, June 10, 2022 at 8 pm

download a copy of this program here.
download translations of sung texts here.

In Bloom: a Pride Program
Passionflower Duo

Gabrielle Lochard, soprano
Jonathan Liu, piano

Program

Reynaldo Hahn (1874–1947)
À Chloris

selections from Études latines
        3. Salinum
        5. Lydé
        10. Phyllis

Howard Swanson (1907–1978)
Joy

Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
selections from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
        1. Nature, the Gentlest Mother
        8. When They Come Back

Undine Smith Moore (1904–1989)
I Am in Doubt
Love Let the Wind Cry … How I Adore Thee

Intermission

Samuel Barber (1910–1981)
Sure On This Shining Night
The Daisies

Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
Fleurs

Samuel Barber
Nuvoletta

Roger Quilter (1877–1953)
June
Love’s Philosophy
Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes

B, E. Boykin (b. 1989)
selections from Moments in Sonder
        2. A Conceit
        5. In a Time

Traditional / Folk, arr. Mari Esabel Valverde (b. 1987)
Duermete, Niño Lindo

Texts

À Chloris
Théophile de Viau (1590–1626), translation: Richard Stokes

If it be true, Chloris, that you love me,
(And I’m told you love me dearly),
I do not believe that even kings
Can match the happiness I know.
Even death would be powerless
To alter my fortune
With the promise of heavenly bliss!
All that they say of ambrosia
Does not stir my imagination
Like the favour of your eyes

selections from Études latines
Leconte de Lisle (1818–1894), translation: Richard Stokes

3. Salinum
Care, lighter than the winds of Epirus,
Shall pursue on the sea the brazen hulls;
Sweet is the present hour: let us smile away
Tomorrow’s bitterness.

Purple dye has reddened twice your fine wool;
Your Sicilian flock is huge; and I have better:
The Muses of Greece and their sacred lessons
And the heritage of ancestors.

 5. Lydé
Come! The day is god-like. Let us drink liberally
Of Caecuban wine from the cellar.
Proud Lyde, allow domestic pleasure
To diminish a little your modesty.

Time passes, the horizon reddens the sun,
Make haste. The amphora, filled
When Bibulus was consul, rests in its tomb:
Disturb its ancient slumber.

I shall sing of the briny deep, the Nereids’
Green tresses; you, Lyde,
On your lyre that nestles in your arms,
Shall sing of Diana the Huntress.

Then we shall invoke Venus and her swan-drawn
Chariot with golden reins,
The Cyclades, Paphos, and your shores, O Gnidus!
And hymn the starry sky.

10. Phyllis
For nine years and more in the sealed amphora
My Alban Hills wine has been slowly maturing;
We must garland with acanthus and flowering myrtle,
O Phyllis, your unfastened locks.

Anise burns on the altar, and all hasten along,
Crowned with godly verbena;
And my humble abode sparkles with joy
At the reflection of silver goblets.

O Phyllis, it is the day of Venus, and I love you!
Listen! Telephus burns and sighs for another;
He forgets you, and I love you, and our finest days
Shall return in our final night.

It is you who shall blossom in the fair days left me:
I shall change no more, the ripe season is here.
Sing! Poetry is sweet when uttered by you,
O fair conclusion of my loves!

Joy
Langston Hughes (1902–1967)

I went to look for Joy,
Slim, dancing Joy,
Gay, laughing Joy,
Bright-eyed Joy –
And I found her
Driving the butcher’s cart
In the arms of the butcher boy!
Such company, such company,
As keeps this young nymph, Joy!

selections from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

1. Nature, the Gentlest Mother
Nature, the gentlest mother
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest,—
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon,—
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky,

With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.

8. When They Come Back
When they come back if Blossoms do
I always feel a doubt
If Blossoms can be born again
When once the Art is out

When they begin, if Robins may,
I always had a fear
I did not tell, it was their last Experiment
Last Year,

When it is May, if May return,
Had nobody a pang
Lest in a Face so beautiful
He might not look again?

If I am there,
One does not know
What Party one may be
Tomorrow, but if I am there
I take back all I say

I Am in Doubt
Florence Hynes Willeté (1901–1982)

I’ll love you until stars fall.
Can it be so sure, so lasting as my heart demands
of one whose slightest touch upon my hands
is like the wind inside an aspen tree?
I am in doubt of this frail thing
I hold so sworn to constancy
And this is why, why,
Too often I have watched a burnt blue sky
Where slipping stars spilled scarlet
and grew cold.

Love Let the Wind Cry … How I Adore Thee
Sappho (c. 630–c. 570 BC), translation: H. T. Wharton

Love let the wind cry
On the dark mountain,
Bending the ash trees
And the tall hemlocks
With the great voice of
Thunderous legions,
How I adore thee.

Let the hoarse torrent
In the blue canyon,
Murmuring mightily
Out of the gray mist
Of primal chaos
Cease not proclaiming
How I adore thee.

Let the long rhythm
Of crunching rollers,
Breaking and bursting
On the white seaboard
Titan and tireless,
Tell, while the world stands,
How I adore thee.

Love, let the clear call
Of the tree cricket,
Frailest of creatures,
Green as the young grass,
Mark with his trilling
Resonant bell-note,
How I adore thee.

But, more than all sounds,
Surer, serener,
Fuller of passion
And exultation,
Let the hushed whisper
In thine own heart say,
How I adore thee.

Sure On This Shining Night
James Agee (1909–1955)

Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.

The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.

Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder
Wandering far alone
Of shadows on the stars.

The Daisies
James Stephens (1882–1950)

In the scented bud of the morning O,
When the windy grass went rippling far!
I saw my dear one walking slow
In the field where the daises are.

We did not laugh, and we did not speak,
As we wandered happ’ly, to and fro,
I kissed my dear on either cheek,
In the bud of the morning O!

A lark sang up, from the breezy land;
A lark sang down, from a cloud afar;
As she and I went, hand in hand,
In the field where the daisies are.

Fleurs
Louise de Vilmorin (1902–1969), translation: Richard Stokes

Promised flowers, flowers held in your arms,
Flowers from a step’s parentheses,
Who brought you these flowers in winter
Sprinkled with the sea’s sand?
Sand of your kisses, flowers of faded loves
Your lovely eyes are ashes and in the hearth
A moan-beribboned heart
Burns with its sacred images.

Nuvoletta
James Joyce (1882–1941)

Nuvoletta in her lightdress,
spunn of sisteen shimmers,
was looking down on them,
leaning over the bannistars
and listening all she childishly could. . . .

She was alone.
All her nubied companions
were asleeping with the squirrels. . . .
She tried all the winsome wonsome ways
the four winds had taught her.
She tossed her sfumastelliacinous hair
like la princesse de la Petite Bretagne
and she rounded her mignons arms
like Mrs. Cornwallis-West
and she smiled over herself
like the image of a pose of a daughter
of the Emerour of Irelande
and she sighed after herself
as were she born to bride with Tristus
Tristior Tristissimus.
But, sweet madonine, she might fair as well
have carried her daisy’s worth to Florida. . . .

Oh, how it was duusk!
From Vallee Maraia to Grasyaplainia,
dormimust echo!
A dew! Ah dew! It was so duusk
that the tears of night beagn to fall,
first by ones and twos,
then by threes and fours,
at last by fives and sixes of sevens,
for the tired ones were wecking,
as we weep now with them.
O! O! O! Par la pluie! . . .

Then Nuvoletta reflected for the last time
in her little long life
And she made up all her myriads
of drifting minds in one.
She cancelled all her engauzements.
She climbed over the bannistars;
she gave a childy cloudy cry:
Nuée! Nuée!
A lightdress fluttered
She was gone.

June
Nora Hopper (1871–1906)

Dark red roses in a honeyed wind swinging,
Silk-soft hollyhock, coloured like the moon;
Larks high overhead lost in light, and singing;
That’s the way of June.

Dark red roses in the warm wind falling,
Velvet leaf by velvet leaf, all the breathless noon;
Far off sea waves calling, calling, calling;
That’s the way of June.

Sweet as scarlet strawberry under wet leaves hidden,
Honey’d as the damask rose, lavish as the moon,
Shedding lovely light on things forgotten, hope forbidden,
That’s the way of June.

Love’s Philosophy
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

The fountains mingle with the River
And the Rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle.
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?

Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes
Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss within the cup,
And I’ll not ask for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And send’st it back to me:
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear
Not of itself, but thee.

selections from Moments in Sonder
Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

2. A Conceit
Give me your hand

Make room for me
to lead and follow
you
beyond this rage of poetry.

Let others have
the privacy of
touching words
and love of loss
of love.

For me
Give me your hand.

5. In a Time
In a time of secret wooing
today prepares tomorrow’s ruin
left knows not what right is doing
my heart is torn asunder.

In a time of furtive sighs
sweet hellos and sad goodbyes
half-truths told and entire lies
my conscience echoes thunder.

In a time when kingdoms come
joy is brief as summer’s fun
happiness its race has run
then pain stalks in to plunder.

Duermente, Niño Lindo
Traditional / Folk, Translation: Wayland Rogers

Sleep, my beautiful child
In the arms of love
While the pangs of my sorrow
Are soothed and put to rest.

You need not fear King Herod.
He will bring you no harm.
In the arms of your mother
Nothing may give offense.

About the artists

Gabrielle Lochard is a musician and multi-disciplinary performing artist. Committed to grassroots community art-making, Gabrielle and her collaborators work as performers, producers, and directors to collectively bring to life projects which meditate on the richness, nuance, and depth of the human experience. Through this holistic approach, she strives to create experiences where audiences and performers are knit together in supportive community. Primarily a classical musician, she is a dynamic soprano and collaborative pianist, active as a recitalist and music director in the Bay Area. Gabrielle also creates work as a modern dancer and actor. In 2021, she co-starred, co-produced, and co-directed a production of Yasmina Reza’s ART, with collaborators Stella Ziegler and Martina Maffezini. She is a passionate music teacher in the East Bay, specializing in a somatic and generous approach to voice and piano, and currently serves as the music director at the Skyline Community Church. Gabrielle holds degrees in Music and Music History from Harvard University and UC Berkeley.

Jonathan Liu is a collaborative pianist based in the Bay Area. He has performed in a variety of settings, from giving art song recitals with soloists to accompanying choral ensembles. He is also an experienced choral singer, having performed with the aforementioned UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, the Bay Area Classical Harmonies, and the Berkeley City Symphony, among others. Outside of music, he has a PhD in Physics and works as a research scientist at the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub.