Ashley Marie Robillard | Ode: A Dramatic Cantata, III. Helas! | Jeremy Gill

Ashley Marie Robillard and the Dolce Suono Trio perform Ode: A Dramatic Cantata by Jeremy Gill.
A link to our complete performance of Ode may be found here: • Jeremy Gill "Ode" - As...
PROGRAM NOTE:
"Ode is an exploration of Greek lyric poetic forms: the dithyramb, honoring Dionysus; the paean, Apollo; the hymn, in this case, the sun, the “Father of snow-eyed Dawn.” These, together with the ode, constituted the principal lyric poetic forms of Ancient Greece. Of these, only the ode is concerned with mortal man, and is used expressly as such as the title of this piece, because Ode is also a meditation on mortality, our struggles against it, attempts to overcome it, mourning at confronting it, and finally accepting it.
I have chosen to set Pindar and Mesomedes as representatives of their time, and Keats and Wordsworth as admirers of Ancient Greece (their respective Odes are celebrations of that past). Oscar Wilde and Paul Rochberg are two voices of regret-Wilde for wasting time on vain pursuits, Rochberg for a life prematurely stolen from him.
There are many echoes of other musics throughout Ode: the Seikilos Epitaph (the earliest known complete piece of music, from the first century AD) is heard in its entirety, but so are bits of Monteverdi (Orfeo), Puccini (Tosca), Mahler (Rückert Lieder), and others. Each of these latter is fragmented, as are nearly all of the texts, as if each were being heard centuries from now, in part, without context, their meanings largely obscured and only sensed, not known." -Jeremy Gill