Three Choral Songs (to poems of Yehuda Amichai)

Commissioned by, and dedicated to, the Connecticut Hebrew Chorale, Carol Kozak Ward, director. Special thanks to Talia and Jonathan Berger for their help in selecting and setting the texts.

Three Choral Songs begin, for me, with Amichai's sensual, material observation of the world as experienced, proceeding through the more outward though bitter observation that dead soldiers were once live tenants (whose names can be heard in my score), and finally ends with what might be a musicians' addition to Isaiah's ancient prophecy of peace.

My Head, My Head

When my head got banged on the door, I screamed,
"My head, my head." And I screamed, "Door, door."
And I did not scream, "Mother," and not, "God."
Nor did I speak of the vision of the End of Days
of a world where there will be no heads and doors anymore.  

When you stroked my head I whispered,
"My head, my head," and I whispered, "Your hand, your hand."
And I did not whisper, "Mother," and not, "God."
And I did not see wonderful visions
of hands stroking heads in the opening heavens.

Whatever I scream and speak and whisper is
to comfort myself: My head, my head.
Door, door. Your hand, your hand.

 

from Four Songs on War and Peace

In a small garden not far from my home
is a marble plaque. The names of dead
soldiers are written on it - in order,
in clear letters, like the names of
tenants at the entrance gate of a
large empty house.

 

An appendix to the vision of peace

Don't stop after beating the swords
into ploughshares, don't stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.

Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into ploughshares first.

Text Copyright Yehuda Amichai, used by permission of the author.