Edo Frenkel: Quietus est [part 2] Olga Heikkilä, soprano Maria Puusaari, violin Helsingin Musiikkitalo November 2023 After Death (Charles Algernon Swinburne) THE FOUR boards of the coffin lid Heard all the dead man did. The first curse was in his mouth, Made of grave’s mould and deadly drouth. The next curse was in his head, Made of God’s work discomfited. The next curse was in his hands, Made out of two grave-bands. The next curse was in his feet, Made out of a grave-sheet. “I had fair coins red and white, And my name was as great light; I had fair clothes green and red, And strong gold bound round my head. But no meat comes in my mouth, Now I fare as the worm doth; And no gold binds in my hair, Now I fare as the blind fare. My live thews were of great strength, Now am I waxen a span’s length; My live sides were full of lust, Now are they dried with dust.” The first board spake and said: “Is it best eating flesh or bread?” The second answered it: “Is wine or honey the more sweet?” The third board spake and said: “Is red gold worth a girl’s gold head?” The fourth made answer thus: “All these things are as one with us.” The dead man asked of them: “Is the green land stained brown with flame? Have they hewn my son for beasts to eat, And my wife’s body for beasts’ meat? Have they boiled my maid in a brass pan, And built a gallows to hang my man?” The boards said to him: “This is a lewd thing that ye deem. Your wife has gotten a golden bed, All the sheets are sewn with red. Your son has gotten a coat of silk, The sleeves are soft as curded milk. Your maid has gotten a kirtle new, All the skirt has braids of blue. Your man has gotten both ring and glove, Wrought well for eyes to love.” The dead man answered thus: “What good gift shall God give us?” The boards answered him anon: “Flesh to feed hell’s worm upon.”

Eastman Composers' Sinfonietta Robin Steitz, soprano Edo Frenkel, conductor Kilbourn Hall, Rochester November 2018 Daddy BY SYLVIA PLATH You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time—— Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. My Polack friend Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew. The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true. With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack I may be a bit of a Jew. I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—— Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you. You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, I’m finally through. The black telephone’s off at the root, The voices just can’t worm through. If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two—— The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. There’s a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through. Sylvia Plath, “Daddy” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1960, 1965, 1971, 1981 by the Estate of Sylvia Plath. Editorial matter copyright © 1981 by Ted Hughes. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Source: Collected Poems (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1992)

Alexa Ciciretti, cello Edo Frenkel, piano Fondation des États-Unis Paris, France February 2024 Cover art: Alberto Giacometti, The City Square (1949), Ink and colored ink on paper.

Kate Howden, mezzo-soprano Chihiro Ono, violin I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340) BY EMILY DICKINSON I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading - till it seemed That Sense was breaking through - And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum - Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb - And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space - began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, Wrecked, solitary, here - And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down - And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing - then - Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. recorded February 2022 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden by Jan Capiński.

Kate Howden, mezzo-soprano Chihiro Ono, violin Holy Sonnet X. Death, be not proud BY JOHN DONNE Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. recorded February 2022 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden by Jan Capiński