Rainer Maria Rilke
Written in 2015
Elegy
Flute and tenor voice
5 minutes
Difficulty level: Professional
The text for these pieces is taken from the First Duino Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke, a long mediation of being dead. The translation is by J.B. Leishman. The piece was originally developed for a composition workshop at the Mallorca Summer Academy in 2014. The text set reads as follows:
It is strange to inhabit the earth no longer
to use no longer customs scarcely acquired
not to interpret roses, and other things
that promise so much, in terms of a human future
to be no longer all that one used to be, and to lay aside
even ones proper name like a broken toy.
Strange to see all that was once retain so loosely fluttering
hither and thither in space.
And its hard, begin dead, and full of retrieving
before one begins to perceive a little eternity.
to use no longer customs scarcely acquired
not to interpret roses, and other things
that promise so much, in terms of a human future
to be no longer all that one used to be, and to lay aside
even ones proper name like a broken toy.
Strange to see all that was once retain so loosely fluttering
hither and thither in space.
And its hard, begin dead, and full of retrieving
before one begins to perceive a little eternity.