Borges Music – William Grosvenor Neil
- At September 01, 2024
- By Great Quail
- In Borges
0
William Grosvenor Neil (b. 1954)
William Grosvenor Neil is an American composer born in Pontiac, Michigan. With degrees from Cleveland Institute of Music and a doctorate from the University of Michigan School of Music, Neil served as the first Composer in Residence of the Chicago Lyric Opera and has won several international awards and honors. His music follows a tonal and largely lyrical tradition, and has been praised for its “extremely characteristic harmonic world.” Among Neil’s inspirations are poets and writers, in particular D.H. Lawrence and Jorge Luis Borges.
Borges-Related Works
Límites (1977)
For chamber orchestra and mezzo-soprano, this is a setting of Borges’ poem from El otro, el mismo. See below for details.
Límites
(1977)
Length: 16:22
For mezzo-soprano & chamber orchestra
In the 1960 collection El hacedor, originally translated in English as Dreamtigers, Borges included a short poem titled “Límites” that he attributed to a fictional writer named Julio Platero Haedo. Borges’ first statement of what would become a recurring theme in his later work, “Límites” explores the inexorable reduction of possibilities across the span of one’s lifetime:
There is a line by Verlaine that I will not remember again.
There is a street nearby that is forbidden to my feet.
There is a mirror that has seen me for the last time.
There is a door I have closed until the end of the world.
Among the books in my library (I’m looking at them now)
Are some I will never open.
This summer I will be fifty years old.
Death is using me up, relentlessly.
In a 1967 interview with Richard Burgin, Borges remarks that subject felt so completely novel, it gave him the thrill of discovery—“I’m almost as lucky as if I were the first man to write a poem about the joy of spring, or the sadness of the fall or autumn.” Borges returned to “Límites” in 1969, expanding it into a full poem for El otro, el mismo. Considerably longer than the original, the ten-stanza “Límites” takes a more philosophical approach to aging, as may be seen in the revised conclusion:
At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.
It’s this longer version that William Grosvenor Neil sets to music in Límites. Informed by Borges’ “acceptance of impending blindness,” Límites explores the complex emotions found in Borges’ poem—anger, wonder, despair, and resignation. Sharing qualities with works like Schönberg’s Erwartung and Feldman’s Neither, Neil’s Límites is a short “monodrama” scored for a mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra. Although not formally divided into movements, Límites has a three-part structure featuring internal silences that bracket the poem’s stanzas into a thematic triptych. The music is fraught with tension, its attempts to rise from an A to a B-flat thwarted until the very end. This gives Límites a surging, relentless quality, like a rising tide driven before an approaching storm.
Límites begins quietly, a wavering clarinet drifting over a muted and distant percussion. The orchestra bursts to life, then retreats in a scurry of pizzicato. The mezzo-soprano enters softly, her ritualistic intonation growing increasingly more forceful, billowing waves of sound lifting her voice above flurries of pizzicato, spumes of brass, and clusters of dense instrumentation. Borges’ question, “¿Quién nos dirá de quién, en esta casa, sin saberlo, nos hemos despedido?” ends this first movement, its last few words swirling away on an eddy of strings and woodwinds before the orchestra stutters to silence.
After this deep breath, Límites launches into the agitated fourth stanza. The fifth stanza is delivered as poetic recitation above a dark murmur of cellos and oboes, granting a moment of comparative tranquility. Of course, this cannot last. Returning to song, the flustered mezzo works herself into peals of coloratura, rendering the sixth stanza nearly unintelligible. As the intensity recedes, the seventh stanza emerges from the musical undertow, each syllable touched by a fragile clarity. A tour de force of vocal gymnastics, the second movement of Límites demands incredible flexibility and nuance from its singer.
Límites resumes with a menacing gathering of forces on the piano, like a child venting his anger on the lowest keys. The tension builds as the instruments rouse themselves from slumber, the mezzo now consumed by passionate intensity, struggling not to be overwhelmed by the orchestra. Once again the instruments crescendo and gradually fall away, and the music finally achieves the resolution it’s been seeking. The storm is over, and a strange new shore is revealed. The final stanza is sung plaintively. Weighed down by melancholy and exhaustion, the last line suggests resignation rather than acceptance—“Espacio, tiempo y Borges ya me dejan.”
Notes
By William Grosvenor Neil
Borges’ poem greatly impressed me with its dreamlike images and its rich reflections on the limitations that we face in our lives. The poem mirrors Borges’ own acceptance of his impending blindness. I sought to capture musically the vivid revelations found in each of the stanzas of the poem. The music centers around the note A 440 which tries dramatically to rise to B-flat but is unsuccessful until the very end of the work, underscoring the lines “space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.” (“Espacio y tiempo y Borges ya me dejan.”)
Text
Límites
By Jorge Luis Borges
De estas calles que ahondan el poniente,
una habrá (no sé cuál) que he recorrido
ya por última vez, indiferente
y sin adivinarlo, sometido
a quien prefija omnipotentes normas
y una secreta y rígida medida
a las sombras, los sueños y las formas
que destejen y tejen esta vida.
Si para todo hay término y hay tasa
y última vez y nunca más y olvido
¿Quién nos dirá de quién, en esta casa,
sin saberlo, nos hemos despedido?
Tras el cristal ya gris la noche cesa
y del alto de libros que una trunca
sombra dilata por la vaga mesa,
alguno habrá que no leeremos nunca.
Hay en el Sur más de un portón gastado
con sus jarrones de mampostería
y tunas, que a mi paso está vedado
como si fuera una litografía.
Para siempre cerraste alguna puerta
y hay un espejo que te aguarda en vano;
la encrucijada te parece abierta
y la vigila, cuadrifronte, Jano.
Hay, entre todas tus memorias, una
que se ha perdido irreparablemente;
no te verán bajar a aquella fuente
ni el blanco sol ni la amarilla luna.
No volverá tu voz a lo que el persa
dijo en su lengua de aves y de rosas,
cuando al ocaso, ante la luz dispersa,
quieras decir inolvidables cosas.
¿Y el incesante Ródano y el lago,
todo ese ayer sobre el cual hoy me inclino?
Tan perdido estará como Cartago
que con fuego y con sal borró el latino.
Creo en el alba oír un atareado
rumor de multitudes que se alejan;
son lo que me ha querido y olvidado;
espacio, tiempo y Borges ya me dejan.
Limits
Translated by Alastair Reid
Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.
There is in the South more than one worn gate,
With its cement urns and planted cactus,
Which is already forbidden to my entry,
Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.
There is a door you have closed forever
And some mirror is expecting you in vain;
To you the crossroads seem wide open,
Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.
There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.
You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.
And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,
All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?
They will be as lost as Carthage,
Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.
At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.
Recordings
William Grosvenor Neil: Límites (1977)
Musicians: Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra
Mezzo-soprano: Jean Strazdes
Online: Garden of Forking Paths [Dropbox MP3s]
Límites premiered at the Cleveland Institute of Music in June of 1977. It was played by the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, with Jean Strazdes as mezzo-soprano. This recording of Límites was kindly made available to The Garden of Forking Paths by the composer, William Grosvenor Neil, and The Composer’s Studio.
Additional Information
William Grosvenor Neil Homepage
The composer’s homepage features a bio, interviews, and notes on his works.
The Composer’s Studio
William Grosvenor Neil’s musical company.
Author: Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 9 September 2024
Borges Music Page: Borges Music
Main Borges Page: The Garden of Forking Paths
Contact: quail(at)shipwrecklibrary(dot)com