Songs to Lilith

Songs to Lilíth is written for eight-part mixed choir. It was commissioned for the Gothenburg Music Festival in May, 1995, where the first movement received its first performance. The Gothenburg Chamber Choir sang under the direction of Gunnar Eriksson. It has since been performed by Eric Ericsson and his Chamber Choir on several occasions.

The piece is based on three poems by Algernon Swinburne and Omar Khayyam (see below) and is in three movements, which, however, follow each other without any break. They are intended to be performed as a whole, but the first movement may be performed separately.

Total duration: approx. 15'. First movement: 7'.

Lyrics:

I. Come back to me, stay by me, lull me with touch of forgotten caresses,
One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures;
The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses,
And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.

For thy bosom is warm to my face, and profound as a manifold flower,
Thy silence is music, thy voice as an odour that dies in a flame;
Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountiful hour
That makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame.

Thine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving,
Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of the moon like a dream;
And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly towards thee, and moving
As the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream. (...Swinburne)

II. Oh Thou, that didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my fall to sin? (...Omar Khayyam)

III. Time arose and smote thee silent at his warning,
Change and darkness fell on men who fell from thee;
Dark thou satest, veiled with light, behind the morning,
Till the soul of man should lift up eyes and see.
Till the blind mute soul get speech again and eyesight,
Man may worship not the light of life within. (...Swinburne)