Notebook Bedside
Richard Carrick
About this work:
Program Notes
“I kept a notebook in the hospital room during the last three days of my father’s life. A year and a half later I returned to this notebook. Apart from many
sentences with incomplete thoughts, there were a number of single words scattered throughout the pages. Some of these single words are used in this
piece.
There is a Japanese tradition of poets writing a final poem while on their deathbed; a tradition so important that some poets prepare their final poem
months in advance.
Tojun, Toko, and Bufu haiku’s are used in their entirety. “Well, I wonder,” and “Asleep” by The Smiths, Paul Celan, Miland Kundera, and the jazz standard “Just friends” are briefly referenced or quoted musically.
This piece is lovingly dedicated to the memory of my father Richard John Carrick
(1940-2001).” _RC
Tojun (d.1695)
Even dew distilled
from a thousand herbs
can’t cure this illness.
Bufu (d.1792)
Oh, I don’t care
where autumn clouds
are drifting to.
Toko (d.1795)
Death poems
are mere delusion-
death is death.
Performance rights for the Japanese Death Poems (trans. Yoel Hoffmann)
secured by Tuttle Publishers.
Year composed: 2004
Duration: 00:14:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Voice with Chamber/Jazz Ensemble, 2-5 Players
Instrumentation: 1 Percussion (General), 1 Piano, 1 Soprano
Instrumentation notes: Scored for soprano, piano, and percussion(one player) including:
Crotales - 2 octaves; 7 woodblocks - high to low; 2 bongo’s; highhat; and
4 microtonal metal instruments of the percussionists choosing. They must be
microtonal in pitch, and descend from the first instrument which is small (pipe,
plate, etc), to the 4th which is very large (gong, ...). The middle two instruments
can be almglocken, gongs, bowls, etc.