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Peggy Polias | Lacuna (2021)
World premiere, CSO commission
12 MAY 20242024 Australian Series | Heart-Space
Kym mackinnon B5 ZA Mpfo52 Q unsplash

Photo by Kym MacKinnon on Unsplash

…I wanted to capture the incomplete nature of the poem as we have received it…

Peggy Polias

Peggy Polias

Lacuna (2021)

World premiere,
CSO Commission

Lacuna is a setting of Sappho’s ‘Fragment 96’ translated into English by the composer. The title refers to the condition of the surviving text, on a papyrus in pieces, with many missing segments and much blurring of the text. The Papyrus Berol. 9722 also includes several other poetic fragments by Sappho and a digital copy can be inspected online.

In this musical setting I wanted to capture the incomplete nature of the poem as we have received it, rather than attempt to reconstruct missing words or lines. Sappho’s poem muses on longing and memory, and also describes the striking beauty of a woman in terms of moonlight and flowers.

Particularly arresting is her reference to the ‘Rosy-fingered Moon’. In 2018–19 I had set Homer’s ‘Rosy-fingered Dawn’ for Mezzo-Soprano in the Postlude of my chamber opera Commute. Lacuna is like a companion piece to that one: in the present work the music alternates between a Tsifteteli (belly-dance) feel where the text is mostly preserved, and much more mysterious abstract material where there are words and lines missing.


Sappho
Fragment 96

Translated by Peggy Polias

... Sardis...

...her thoughts leading here

As... ou-o-men... ch...
A goddess you resembled to Arignota,
And she truly rejoiced in your song.

Now She Stands out among Lydian Women
Like, when the Sun sets,
The rosy-fingered Moon

outshines all the Stars.
Her Light Lands upon the Salty Sea
And alike on many-flowered fields;

The beautiful dew is poured out,
Roses thrive, and tender parsley
And blooming sweet clover.

Often as she wanders
she remembers gentle Atthis, longing,
in her raw soul... k... r... grief-stricken

Note:

Lacuna was commissioned for the CSO’s 2021 Australian Series. The performance was cancelled due to COVID-19; the work receives its long-awaited premiere tonight.