Alan Taylor - In the desert, bells toll no more

Soprano, piano, and guitar
or
Mezzo-spoprano and oboe

This setting of my translations from Garcia Lorca's Poemas de Cante Jondo was written for fellow students at Trinity College of Music. The translations are poetic rather than literal.

Garcia Lorca celebrated the culture of the south of Spain in his writing - a culture which is now under threat due to increasing desertification. The third of these uses imagery similar to the first, but in my translation I have put it into the past tense.

Text of the poems

The Bell

In the tower
of yellow stone,
the bell is turning.

Above the yellow
swirling of wind,
the bell tower opens.

In the tower
of yellow stone,
the bell falls silent.

The swirling wind and the dust
make silver patterns on the ground.

The six strings

The guitar
filled my dreams with weeping.
The sobbing
of lost souls
escaped from its round mouth.
It span
a web of star
to catch the sighs
which floated
in its wooden depths.

Clamour

In the towers
of yellow stone
the bells were turning.

Above the yellow
swirling of wind,
the bell towers opened.

Along the pathway went
death, crowned
in withered blossom.
She sang and she sang and she sang

In the towers of yellow stone.
the bells toll no longer

The swirling wind and the dust
make silver patterns on the ground.