Sappho Sings (2018)

Early in 2018, my regular collaborator, Alasdair Middleton, showed me some translations and free versions of Sappho that he was working on. I had read other translations of Sappho in the past, but there was something different about these: I found them immediately inspiring, and asked if I could set them to music. It fascinated me that a few phrases, sometimes only a few words, could evoke such dramatic images and such powerful feelings. They cried out to be sung.

Sappho lived over 2,500 years ago. Of the thousands of lines of lyric poetry she is believed to have written, only a few hundred remain, and with the exception of one complete poem, all we have are fragments. Did Sappho sing her own lyrics, accompanying herself on the lyre, like an ancient Greek singer-songwriter? We can’t be sure. It seems her wedding songs, at least, would have been sung by a chorus, but other lyrics suggest a solo voice.

Alasdair translated fourteen fragments of Sappho’s lyrics, and I eventually settled on six of them. They were vivid and intense enough to call for more than one voice and more than one instrument. As I started to explore these words musically, and imagine ways they could be sung by a choir accompanied by an orchestra, I found an exhilarating freedom in the sparseness: just three words, “You burn me,” might become a whole song.

Four of the fragments have become songs of love, in different forms; they are framed by an evocation of the goddess of love, and a vision of the moon.

Sappho Sings was commissioned by the Fairhaven Singers, who gave the world premiere, conducted by Ralph Woodward, in March 2019.