The Raven Translations

Title: The Raven Translations
Year completed: 2019
Duration: 10 mins
Instrumentation: Soprano, Bass Clarinet, Violin, Piano
Credits: Commissioned by New Works of Art Calgary Society and the Quenten Doolittle Commission fund.
Premiere: Ensemble Resonance, Calgary AB April 5 2019 at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church. Michelle Todd (voice), Stan Climie (clarinet), Steve Lubiarz (violin), Colleen Athparia (piano)

Media: https://theyyscene.com/2019/04/05/new-works-calgary-celebrates-35-years-by-honouring-co-founder-quenten-doolittle/

Program Note:

The myriad sounds made by ravens have long fascinated me. In this piece, I imagine snippets of translations of their vocalizations.These original texts were based on my own encounters with ravens which are a ubiquitous part of my home’s soundscape and sky, and I know them as clever, playful, social, curious creatures. I placed these in and around Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven - which as a child in the 1990s I first encountered in a Simpson’s Halloween special - one that follows a darker image projected onto these birds: demonesque, prophetic, mysterious, threatening.

Anthropomorphizing (attributing human characteristics to non-human entities) can be an insightful process of reflecting what we humans actually think about that non-human entity.Translation has a similar effect - the nuances in how language transforms as it is translated can reflect attitudes, beliefs, bias, etc. of the receiving culture.

As I was writing this piece I watched many ravens flying and playing outside my home, and heard their calls even through walls. At the same time, I was being constantly and delightfully distracted by my 8-month old daughter, and our interactions were full of her own discovery of sound and language as well as the literature of Dr. Seuss and other books full of rhymes, alliteration, and the nonsensical. These and the parallel poetic structures in Poe’s Raven led to the strong focus on spoken and sung text in The Raven Translations.


Texts


Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven 1845 (included below is the text

used in the music - not all verses are included)


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.”


Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Nameless here for evermore.


Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

Darkness there and nothing more.


Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more.


Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

’Tis the wind and nothing more!”


Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.


Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”


What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Quoth


Carmen Braden, for The Raven Translations 2018


All the world is a lark, is a laugh.


There are ten thousand reasons why we are black. Our feathers, our talons, our beaks,

our claws. Except when we are very young, then the inside of our mouths are pink.

Grab my claws in your claws, my talons in your talons as we make love in the air.

I saw where you went. I saw your thoughts. They are nowhere near as black as mine.


Am I King? Am I Queen?


Or am I the court jester yester yessir sester sister dester duster dancer tester tatcher

snatcher bester bluster boaster pester poster poacher quester quaster fester faster

fetcher lester luster laughter rester roaster roacher kester coaster crasher vester volster

wester wantser monster mester moster moocher jester joaster joker joaster jester.

When I raise the hackles, maize the jackals, praise the mackerels, raise the hackles on

my throat and sing, bloat and bling, float and fling, throat and sing, am I King?

I sing for no one, for snow one, for blow gun, for row jun, for mow dun, for no one.

Especially not you, down there little thing, grittle jing, spittle sing, little thing. Come

dance in the drafts, derafts, gerafts, giraffes. Zoom zance the giraffe, yoom yance the

giraffe, pom pants, pom tom tance, numb nance, flow flance, in the mum mance, in

the crumb crance in the drafts, dance in the drafts.


Am I King? Am I zing? Am I Queen? Shall I preen?


All circles and whirls, dives and flongs.


Grim slim flim trim dim rim swim brim homonym synonym antonym acronym

pseudonym.


Ghastly lastly flastly blastly vastly flabbergastly.

Gaunt and daunt and haunt and flaunt and taunt and taunt and taunt.

Ominous ruinous numinous terminus luminous mountainous gangrenous!

Fuliginous epigenous terrigenous indigenous vortiginous cartigenous aluminous

voluminous leguminous multitudinous bird of yore.