Borges Music – Reynolds: Compass

Compass
(1972–73)
Length: 30 min.

For tenor, bass, violoncello, double bass, quadraphonic electroacoustic sound, 35 mm slide projections.
Text on the poem by Jorge Luis Borges.

Composed in 1973 on commission from the Judith S. Stark Foundation, Roger Reynold’s Compass is a setting of a Borges poem from El otro, el mismo (“The Self and the Other”). It was first performed on 7 March 1974 at the Theatre Vanguard in Los Angeles with Howard Crook singing tenor, Philip Larson on bass, Peter Farrell on cello, and Bertram Turetzky on double bass. Compass has not been commercially recorded.

Text

Compass
By Jorge Luis Borges

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.

—Translation by Alastair Reid

Additional Information

Roger Reynolds Homepage
Roger Reynolds maintains comprehensive web site.

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
Image Credit: The photograph of Roger Reynolds was borrowed from his homepage, and was taken in 1966.
Last Modified: 30 August 2024
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