What the Sirens Sang
for choir SSA
and piano (2007)
duration: 4’
text by Ross Baglin
GRT • 131
score available soon from
Australian Music
Centre
program note
This piece is
based on the famous “siren song” of the Odyssey, however
Homer’s sailors are represented by a submariner, hiding but
trapped in his alien environment. The Sirens seek to seduce him from his
protective shell by projecting the loveliness of water in
its civilised forms ashore : sun, flowers, pebbled streams,
etc.
It is not uncommon for submariners, distracted by lack of
oxygen and fear, to try to open hatches while
submerged. It is not clear whether this, or the
sirens’ song, is the reason that our submariner is washed
ashore, his drowned face “revealed” to the loving sirens in
the last section.
(Ross Baglin)
text
Beloved we will
touch your face
And find your lips, for only we
Can carve a stone with fingertips
Or brush with waves your stealing ships,
Thread from sun a rainbow's flight,
Be hypnotised in tidal lights.
Engrave the sky with feathered hooks
Read willows into steepled brooks -
Sculpt restless fountains into shows
From sullen arms invoke the rose,
Palm jagged fractions pebble-smooth,
Hold images in streams that move.
Last night, I saw your face revealed
In shuffling waves of paint and wood,
Then hovering, unheard music moved
The dance of the anemone
And shadowed submarines that thread
The silver links of seas.