The Scottish poet, David Cameron, with whom I have collaborated often, made the observation that the six female characters mentioned in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land seemed, in his view, to be rather narrowly defined. Cameron chose to write six poems in which he expanded on these characters, giving them deeper, more fully-formed images. The six Cameron poems that resulted are grouped under the heading, The Heart of Light. Cameron shared these poems with me, and I set them to music, for solo soprano voice, unaccompanied.
I met the Ukrainian piano virtuoso, Anna Sagalova not long after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when she came as a refugee to Canada. I discovered that Sagalova is a superb Mendelssohn specialist, and I asked her if she felt interested to have some contemporary Songs Without Words, which I offered to compose for her. She was very receptive to this idea. I then set about to compose six virtuoso piano pieces using these Cameron songs as the source material. The six piano pieces are:
- Stay With Me
- You Gave Me Hyacinths
- Look!
- Home at Teatime
- I Can’t Help It
- Marie! Marie!
The six pieces use different approaches to illuminating the melodies, pianistically. I am grateful to Anita Pari for giving the world premiere complete performance.
poetry from The Heart of Light by David Cameron
1. Stay With Me
It’s such a thrill
Like opening night at some daredevil
Revue.
What about you?
I wish you’d open up a little.
Don’t think you can’t be philosophical
At dinner.
They’re not just any people.
We’re not just any people.
He’ll bring a peach for me, a bottle
Of something for you.
The last time I saw her
She looked so well I felt ill,
Her dress a lovely powder blue.
Stand still.
It doesn’t matter, really, what men wear.
I know, I wish you knew,
Just what to do…
Would you like me better
If I were
A lift-girl? Don’t tell.
I’ll sing to you
‘That’s How I Knew
(You Were the One for Me)’. It’s true
Life closes in on one. On me, and you.
I feel like hell.
What shall we do?
What shall we ever do?
2. You Gave Me Hyacinths
I have come back to the garden, my mind full
Of the flowers you gave me: not only hyacinths.
You loved, you said, the litany of names.
I knew all once, but have forgotten.
Saxifrage and tormentil you know –
Your long legs have traversed the alpine slopes.
I am for you not only I, that’s clear.
I consented with my eyes, and then my arms,
To be the hyacinth girl:
It gave me pleasure, a chance to be the weak one.
Remember how it was, me pulling you home
And you talking and longing for the sea.
I think of that when I see the spume.
I think of the abundance of the flowers
You gave me, and of how the flowers were in your hands
First, and of how the rain had wet your hair
And spotted the bright linen of your suit.
There are no flowers left unpicked that needed to be picked.
Is that what you were saying?
I read not failure in your eyes but spring.
3. Look!
You know the cards a little, yes?
Then you’ll appreciate this:
The Empress.
She is the fruitful mother.
She brings fecundity.
You smile,
Hardly with your eyes.
The land that lies below the waist
Needs tending also. Please,
Don’t rise.
What, do you reckon,
Brought you to this little room?
Not the cards alone, but the cards
Nonetheless.
In them you’ll find the science of your passions.
Look! It’s snowing.
Careful as you descend the stairs.
No cause to curl a lip at passing strangers.
They, like us, are walking round in a ring,
Accelerating.
4. Home at Teatime
I work all day for little pay,
Help keep the family
With what’s left over, though I get
No thanks for that.
I could parade a barber’s bob,
Though I’d lose my job
If I got serious with Harry,
So why marry?
When I’ve a guest, I like to hear
The sweet, soft river,
But I put on St Louis Blues
When no man woos.
And if I went to church on Sunday?
One day I may.
I take my pleasure like a man
Because I can.
5. I Can't Help It
I was a match girl when he turned my head.
I made him wait, longer than I cared to;
Later I wished I’d never left him eager –
Lord Kitchener, bless him, put paid to that.
And now he’s coming back. ‘Best know which side
Your bread is buttered on,’ as Elsie says:
She’d butter him up both sides if she could;
She can. Honestly, if he walks in now
I’ve half a mind to turn my head away…
‘Look, Lil, at that clean posh gent at the bar.’
I look. He wouldn’t treat me any better.
6. Marie, Marie!
The Empress, my aunt,
Said, ‘What are you doing in that tree, Marie?’
Her lovely chestnut hair damp with her tears.
I swore not to tell a soul.
But you, what have you to tell me?
You didn’t come here to hear
About a long-ago girl
Who wore a silk dress and black veil for the Pope,
Who mistook Wagner for her papa’s tailor
And made him wait in the salon.
You are too kind, really.
I was a Bavarian broomstick (the Emperor’s joke).
I rode, I fenced, I walked, I shot.
I was a good horsewoman, and a fair shot.
You are so discrete. I thank you for it.
How many times the ghastly business
Has been rehashed, the crowd approved
The passion of the death chamber,
Cast me as one who smoothed love’s way
For a little pay.
Poor thing, you’ve hardly eaten. Do.
I won’t be appalled as Papa was with me –
‘How dare you be hungry
At the Opera!’
I may never see again
The gentlemen riders of Vienna,
But I’ve already seen so much.
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?
I have an answer for Master Villon:
All that’s left is the snow.
You smile. Who cares for Court ways now?
I remember the day
The Crown Prince, my cousin, took me out on a sled
And I was frightened.