Sonnets from the Portuguese

for SATB choir

Duration: appr. 10 min.

Program Notes:

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 44 love poems to her husband comprise the collection Sonnets from the Portuguese. Of course these poems were completely original, but the fancy title was suggested by Elizabeth’s husband, Robert, as a way to mask the intense personal feelings in her poems. The most famous of the Sonnets is poem 43, “How do I love thee? Let me count the way.”

I came across the collection while searching for love poetry to set for choir. Of all the works I had been reading through, the Sonnets immediately caught my attention and drew my ear to the possibility of sounds that the words evoked. While my work carries the same title As Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s 44-poem collection, this version only contains three settings of poems. I chose 10-12 because to me they spoke to me not as individual thoughts but as a three-part singularity.

There were many other poems that would have worked just as well, but that will have to be a project for another day. For now, enjoy my modest setting of Sonnets from the Portuguese.

 –Ryan Jesperson 9/26/2009, Kansas City, MO.

X “Yet, Love”
Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee...mark!... I love thee—in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.

XI “And Therefore if to Love”
And therefore if to love can be desert,
I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
To bear the burden of a heavy heart, —
This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
To pipe now ‘gainst the valley nightingale
A melancholy music, —why advert
To these things? O Belovèd, it is plain
I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!
And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
From that same love this vindicating grace,
To live on still in love, and yet in vain, —
To bless thee, yet renounce thee to thy face.

XII “Indeed, this very Love”
Indeed this very love which is my boast,
And which, when rising up from breast to brow,
Doth crown me with a ruby large enow
To draw men’s eyes and prove the inner cost, —
This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,
I should not love withal, unless that thou
Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,
And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak
Of love even, as a good thing of my own:
Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
And placed it by thee on a golden throne, —
And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)
Is by thee only, who I love alone.

 

The third movement, "Indeed This Very Love" was premeired by Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale in March of 2010. Sonnets from the Portuguese won the 2010 Kansas City Chorale Composition Competition.

Copyright© 2011 Ryan Jesperson

The future: Bobby Watson and the UMKC Big Band will premiere Rhapsody for Dean Moriarty in Kansas City, MO.

The future: Ashly Evans will premiere Birdsongs in Houston, TX.

The future: Jeux pour Jumeaux will be premiered in San Francisco, CA.

fall, 2013: Ryan Ford will perform BA(da)SS in Hartford, CT.

summer/fall, 2013: The Agosto Duo will premiere a new work for oboe and english horn.

summer, 2013: David Tayloe will premiere A Page Out of Zen.

summer, 2013: Hebdomas Squatinae will be performed by the SoundScape Trio in South America.

June, 2013: Hebdomas Squatinae (new version for fl, asax,pno) will be premiered by the Verismo Trio in Wyoming at the WMTA convention.

May 26th, 2013: Joseph Abad and Marko Stuparovic will perform Icarus in West Hartford, CT.

April 22nd, 2013: Jordan Jacobson will perform fragments and memories with the HICO Orchestra in CT.

April 20th, 2013: Jordan Jacobson will perform fragments and memories with the HICO Orchestra in CT.

April 19-20, 2013: The UMKC Opera Dept. will perform portions of Songs from Behind the Curtain.

April 7th, 2013: Joseph Abad and Marko Stuparovic will premiere Icarus in West Hartford, CT.

March 24th, 2013: Getz Going: A Suite for Eddie Sauter will be performed by Sheri Brown and the West End String Quartet in Hartford, CT.

February 21st, 2013: Not Death, but Love will be performed by the Ouroboros Quartet at a Misha-maya-gat event in Manchester, CT.

October 18th, 2012: Sheri Brown and others will perform Getz Going: A Suite for Eddie Sauter in Manchester, CT.

October 14th, 2012: Sheri Brown and others will perform Getz Going: A Suite for Eddie Sauter in Hartford, CT.

August 23rd, 2012: Sheri Brown and others will premiere Getz Going: A Suite for Eddie Sauter on a Hartford Phase Shift concert.

June 23rd, 2012: Ryan Ford will perform BA(da)SS at the New Hampshire Bass Fest

June 7th, 2012 7pm: A concert of the works of Ryan Jesperson will be presented at the Hartt School in West Hartford CT.

Performers: Joseph Abad, Chris Belluscio, Sheri Brown, Ryan Ford, Jordan Jacobson, Anastasia Seifetdinova, Sarah Washburn, The Hartt Vocal Quartet, and The INEO Sax Quartet!

Works: BA(da)SS, Boombox Serenade, fragments and memories, Not Death, but Love, Obscure Songs, Romanza for Alto Sax and Violin

May 31st, 2012: The Invisible, Magic, Soccer Phone will be premiered in Middlefield, CT.

May 27th, 2012: Jordan Jacobson and Anastasia Seifetdinova will perform fragments and memories on a CCI concert in CT.

EVENT HISTORY