Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Lacuna is a setting of Sappho's "Fragment 96" translated into English by the composer. The title refers to the condition of the surviving text, on a papyrus in pieces, with many missing segments and much blurring of the text. The Papyrus (Berol. 9722) also includes several other poetic fragments by Sappho and a digital copy can be inspected online. In this musical setting I wanted to capture the incomplete nature of the poem as we have received it, rather than attempt to reconstruct missing words or lines. Sappho's poem muses on longing and memory, and also describes the beauty of a woman in terms of moonlight and flowers. Particularly arresting is her reference to the "Rosy-fingered Moon." In 2018-2019 I had set Homer's "Rosy-fingered Dawn" for Mezzo-Soprano in the Postlude of my chamber opera "Commute."

Lacuna is like a companion piece to the former: in the present work the music alternates between a Tsifteteli (belly-dance) feel where the text is mostly preserved, and much more mysterious abstract material where there are words and lines missing.

Work Details

Year: , this version: 2021

Instrumentation: Soprano, oboe, piano, cello.

Duration: 7 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

First performance: by CSO Chamber Players at Australian Series: Heart-Space (Gandel Atrium, National Museum of Australia ) on 16 May 2024