Crepuscule (2022) - Benjamin Gabbay (November 2022 premiere)

"Crepuscule" for mezzo-soprano and piano is a setting of E. E. Cummings' poem of the same name. Originally written for mezzo and chamber ensemble, this piano-voice version was premiered in Walter Hall at the University of Toronto on November 22, 2022 by Maria Milenic (mezzo-soprano) and Benjamin Gabbay (piano). Full text and program notes below:

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"Crepuscule," a fanciful word for "twilight," seems an apt name for this text by Cummings, which strikes me as a vivid description of the state between sleeping and waking—when the tangible and the intangible intermingle, and dreams, with all their abstractions, terrors, and ecstasies, bleed into our physical world. In setting Cummings' text, I sought to create a musical depiction of that state. Originally written for mezzo and chamber ensemble (flute, clarinet, piano, violin, and cello), this reduction for mezzo and piano explores a gamut of sounds and colours that paint the journey from the conscious to the subconscious and back again.

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I will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burn-
ing flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my
body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
Will I complete the mystery
of my flesh
I will rise
After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

~ E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)