Login

Enter your username and password

Forgotten your username or password?

Your Shopping Cart

There are no items in your shopping cart.

Work

The City, the River, the Elm, the Stone : vocal sextet

by Haydn Reeder (1993)

No products are available for this work

The Australian Music Centre's catalogue does not include any recordings or sheet music of this work. This entry is for information purposes only.

Materials for this work may be lodged in our collection in the future. Until then, any enquiries should be made directly to the composer/sound artist or their agent.

Work Overview

The text is from four parts of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, namely, (more or less in order) part of the end of the Anna Livia Plurabelle chapter, the beginning of the book, a rune at the beginning of a passage dealing with King Mark, Tristram and Iseult, and the end of the book, which is interleaved with the completion of the Plurabelle section.

Because Joyce intended to convey the way we perceive or remember a dream, the language is distorted. The language is being pushed into the domain of music, which has perhaps persuaded many composers to set parts of this book.

The title refers to four analogues of characters: the city represents 'old Finn, lying in death beside the river Liffey (the river which runs through Dublin) and watching the history of Ireland and the world - past and future - flow through his mind...'; the river is Anna Livia Plurabelle; the elm and the stone are what two washerwomen turn into as they wash clothes on the banks of the Liffey.

The section involving King Mark - one of the aliases which Finn/Everyman assumes, deals with one of Joyce's favourite subjects, cuckoldry. The decision visited upon King Mark is emphasized by imitating the sqwarking of seagulls.

Work Details

Year: 1993

Instrumentation: Vocal ensemble: SSATBB: 2 Sopranos, Alto, Tenor, 2 Basses

Duration: 7 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

Commission note: Commissioned by The Song Company with funds provided by Australia Council.

First performance: by The Song Company, Elliott Gyger — 1993. Eugene Goossens Hall, ABC Centre, Ultimo, Sydney

The composer notes:
My short opera Sirens Hotel is based on a chapter of Joyce's Ulysses.

Performances of this work

1993: Eugene Goossens Hall, ABC Centre, Ultimo, Sydney. Featuring The Song Company, Elliott Gyger.

User reviews

Be the first to share your thoughts, opinions and insights about this work.

To post a comment please login.