Arrangement of Portuguese folk song from Aljezur, Alentejo

Sung in Portuguese

Deus te salve ó Rosa. Claro serafim
pastora formosa que fazes aqui?

Estou guardando o meu gado que eu aqui deixi.

Deixai vosso gado que eu o guardarei
quero ser vosso criado linda flor meu bem.

Não quero criados de meias de seda.

Sapato e meia tudo romperei
para ser vosso criado linda flor meu bem.

Vá-se já embora não me dê mais penas.

Menina tão ingrata menina tão rigorosa
ficai-vos com deus pastora formosa.

O amor é louco já me vai vencendo.

Venha cá menina não é com má intenção
é para falar um pouco como seu irmão.

Se eras meu irmão eu cá não sabia.
Perdoai-me tudo quanto eu te dizia.

Cantiga da Roda is a free arrangement of a traditional melody recorded in the field by ethnomusicologist Michel Giacometti, circa 1969, in Dornelas do Zêzere, Pampilhosa da Serra, Portugal. It was sung while working  a watering “wheel” used to pull the water from the river, or well, to irrigate the fields. It was moved by the pressure of the feet and to help pass the time in this slow and monotonous work,  the worker sang to the drone created by the moving wheel. 

Sung in Portuguese

Cantiga da roda

Ái borda d'água, borda d'água
Ái borda d'água, Santarém
Borda d'água, Santarém
Ái vale mais uma borda d'água
Ái que quanto Lisboa tem
Borda d'água, Santarém

Ái ó mar largo, ó mar largo
Ái ó mar largo sem ter fundo
Ó mar largo sem ter fundo
Ái vale mais andar no mar largo
Ái que'andar nas bocas do mundo
Ó mar largo sem ter fundo

group Schola Cantorum of Oxford
directed by Jeremy Summerly 

Eres… is based on an extract from a poem, by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, entitled Testamento de Otoño. The work is scored for a cappella chorus and was composed in Amsterdam during the last two weeks of April 1994 – the daffodils were slowly dying away and the tulips were blooming. 

Sung in Spanish
Eres… (you are…)

Eres para mí la más bella,                      You are to me the most beautiful,
la más tatuada por el viento,                  the most tattooed by the wind
como un arbolito del sur,                         like a little southern tree,
como un avellano en agosto,                  like a hazel tree in August,
eres para mí suculenta                             you are to me succulent
como una panadería,                                as a bakery,
es de tierra tu corazón                              your heart is made of earth
pero tus manos son celestes.                  but your hands are celestial.

Eres roja y eres picante,                           You are red and you are spicy,
eres blanca y eres salada                         you are white and you are salty
como escabeche de cebolla,                    like a laurel sauce with onions,
eres un piano que ríe                                you are a piano that laughs
con todas las notas del alma                 with all the notes of the soul,
y sobre mí cae la música                         and over me falls the music
de tus pestañas y tu pelo,                        of your eyelids and your hair,
me baño en tu sombra de oro…             I bathe in your golden shadow…

by Pablo Neruda, from the poem Testamento de Otoño

Sung in English
Matutinal was written in celebration of dawn, the birth of a new day. In Greek mythology, Eos, to whom the poetess Zoë Karélli refers, is the goddess of dawn.

Poem by Zoë Karélli, translated from the Greek by Kimon Friar, "Modern Greek Poetry", Simon and Schuster, 1973, New York.

Hour of dawn, most beautiful, translucent,
glittered and glittering, cooled and cooling!
The light, a smooth-sounding music,
glides within and upon leaves
that glow from the kisses of nocturnal embraces.

Star-gleaming Eos comes,
golden-edged, flashing rosy light.
She walks on precious sandals, on alabaster feet,
leaving their golden traces on the azure
violet-covered mountains.

In the valleys
she awakens the rustling trees, and is a little late in reaching
the green pastures of tranquil fields.
She approaches, dancing with hovering feet,
and zephyrs, without strength, whisper
delicate echoes, sweet sounding conversations.
And thus the glorious dawn proceeds,
gold-glittering,
that she may cry out with all her echoes,
her lightning-flashing rays of light,
that her archon is coming, the most beautiful ephebe,
her flaming sweet lover,
her great and wealthy magician,
that the omniscient Sun of life is approaching!

In your heart
do you not feel how their vast bodies leap!
She drops in ravines the opal mist
of her luminous veils.