Shades of Love
three songs on the poetry of Constanin Cavafy (2003)
Written at the end of my 10-month sabbatical in Moscow in the summer of 2003, I chose five
poems that were subsequently embedded into three songs. These poems stressed three voices:
future, present and past, and were unified by highlighting three recurring themes: light/night,
senses (vision, body, lips, etc.), and memory. The basic pitch set is derived
from his last name, Kabaphes (B-flat, A, F, E-flat), and the inward motion inherent in the
voice leading (perfect fifth, major third) reflects in many ways the thrust of his poetry
and his life: itself inward looking, solitary, personal and still.
I have reflected upon Cavafy's poetry for some 25 years—only now to find resonance with such sentiments—having been introduced to this work by my teacher, mentor and friend, Jeremy Dale Roberts, to whom the cycle is dedicated.
Originally composed for baritone, a mezzo-soprano version of Shades of Love was set in 2012 for Alexandra Gravas.
Performances
-Yale University, New Haven, April 27, 2012 (Gravas, Polychronidis)
-Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, April 24, 2012 (Gravas, Polychronidis)
-Columbia University, New York, April 22, 2012 (Gravas, Polychronidis)
-Indiana University, Bloomington, April 20, 2012 (Gravas, Polychronidis)
-University of Iowa, Iowa City, April 18, 2012 (Gravas, Polychronidis)
-University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 16, 2012 (Gravas, Polychronidis)
-University of Iowa, March 6, 2010 (Muriello)
-Drake University, March 3, 2010 (Muriello)
-Moscow Conservatory, March 27, 2007
-Wigmore Hall, September 9, 2003
