Borges Music – Reynolds: Compass
- At September 29, 2018
- By Great Quail
- In Borges
- 0
Compass
Composed in 1973, Roger Reynold’s Compass is a setting of a Borges poem from El otro, el mismo (“The Self and the Other”). This work has not been commercially recorded; the following information has been taken directly from Reynold’s Web site.
Compass (1972-73)
30 min.
For tenor, bass, Vc, Db, quadraphonic electroacoustic sound, 35 mm slide projections
Text on the poem by Jorge Luis Borges
Commissioned by the Judith S. Stark Foundation
Musicians
First performance: 7 March 1974, Theatre Vanguard, Los Angeles
Howard Crook, Tenor
Philip Larson, Bass
Peter Farrell, Cello
Bertram Turetzky, Double Bass
Compass
Every single thing becomes a word
in a language that Someone or Something, night and day,
writes down in a never-ending scribble,
which is the history of the world, embracing
Rome, Carthage, you, me, everyone,
my life, which I do not understand, this anguish
of being enigma, accident, and puzzle,
and all the discordant languages of Babel.
Behind each name lies that which has no name.
Today I felt its nameless shadow tremble
in the blue clarity of the compass needle,
whose rule extends as far as the far seas,
something like a clock glimpsed in a dream
or a bird that stirs suddenly in its sleep.
—Jorge Luis Borges, trans. by Alastair Reid
Additional Information
Roger Reynolds Homepage — Roger Reynolds maintains comprehensive web site. The photograph at the top of this page was borrowed from Reynold’s site, and was taken in 1966.
Roger Reynolds Borges-Related Works
Roger Reynolds Main Page
Return to the Garden of Forking Path’s Roger Reynolds profile.
Voicespace III, “Eclipse” (1979)
For voice and tape, with texts by Borges, Joyce, García Márquez, Issa, Melville, and Stevens.
Voicespace IV, “The Palace” (1980)
For voice and pre-recorded materials; a “setting” of the poem “The Palace” from El oro de los tigres.
Author: Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 2 October 2019
Borges Music Page: Borges Music
Main Borges Page: The Garden of Forking Paths
Contact: quail(at)shipwrecklibrary(dot)com