Welcome to HAUNTED HAAS

Requiem for K.V. was composed in September 2007 and was very much inspired by my now fifteen-year-long relationship with the author of the text, as well as Daisy Press’s uncanny ability to make sonic landscapes out of a single voice. The recording here was made by soprano Christiana Little at Yale University’s Center for Studies in Music Technology.

Text

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.

– Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) from A Man Without a Country

mirror, mirror, on the wall

there’s more to the story

after all

isn’t there?

– Kennedy Taylor Dixon

Twilight Lifts the Veil is a song cycle I have been asked repeatedly to compose for singers who have been looking for new music to perform during the Hallowe’en season. I have chosen three early 20th Century female poets whose words have often left me with an evanescent feeling, as if their words went through me and left a mark while floating ephemerally away. As a singer raised in the sean-nós vocal tradition, I have always felt that the naked voice is the most visceral way to reach the divine in any capacity, and I hope that this collection can draw that forward not only in the notes written and sung, but also in the spaces and silence between.

I. Dusk in Autumn (1907)
Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933)

The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches like an eye.
And thro’ the nursery window-paneThe witches have a fire again,
Just like the ones we make,—
And now I know they’re having tea,
I wish they’d give a cup to me,
With witches’ currant cake.

II. Night Fell (1918)
Florence Ripley Mastin (1886 - 1968)

Night fell one year ago, like this.
He had been writing steadily.
Among these dusky walls of books,
How bright he looked, intense as flame!
Suddenly he paused,
The firelight in his hair,
And said, “The time has come to go.”
I took his hand;
We watched the logs burn out;
The apple boughs fingered the window;
Down the cool, spring night
A slim, white moon leaned to the hill.
To-night the trees are budded white,
And the same pale moon slips through the dusk.
O little buds, tap-tapping on the pane,
O white moon,
I wonder if he sleeps in woods
Where there are leaves?
Or if he lies in some black trench,
His hands, his kind hands, kindling flame that kills?
Or if, or if …
He is here now, to bid me last good-night?

III. All Hallows Night (1926)
Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 - 1935)

Two things I did on Hallows Night:—
Made my house April-clear;
Left open wide my door
To the ghosts of the year.
Then one came in. Across the room
It stood up long and fair—
The ghost that was myself—
And gave me stare for stare.

“Another Living Soul is stop motion animation for string quartet. Considered one of the most complex and idiosyncratic art forms, stop motion demands imagination, craft, isolation, an unwavering vision, fortitude, and copious amounts of time. The act of beginning the process invites both angst at the daunting task that has just begun and a kind of zen acceptance of the labyrinthine road ahead.

“The earliest stop motion—those beings and worlds created by Harryhausen, Starevich, Clokey, et al—still impresses and inspires. Oozing creativity, their work has a rough-hewn beauty and a timeless enchantment.

“Throughout its evolution, the end result has always been incrementally imbuing vitality and life to something devoid of any such spark on its own. The close quarters, intimacy, and camaraderie of the people who work in this art form are mirrored by the scrutiny and care they afford their tiny subjects and the attention to minutiae required to render a work that is lifelike. The impossible becomes possible—souls emerge from where once there were none.”

Nicole Lizée

“Darkness Is Not Well Lit is a sonic imagining of film noir for string quartet as seen—and heard—from the vantage point of an electric fan.

“Orson Welles’ and John Huston’s film noir calls to mind specific settings, shot in black and white, and playing tricks of light only possible in that medium: the sweltering heat, smoke, fog, sculpted shadows, low-key lighting, a telephone and manual typewriter sitting on an imposing oak desk, a single swinging sputtering light bulb, venetian blinds, and whirring fans.

"‘There is no doubt in my mind that the most beautiful music is sad, and the most beautiful photography is in a low-key, with rich blacks.’ – film noir cinematographer, John Alton.

"‘Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.’ – Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep”

Nicole Lizée