Le Lac Noir (2019)

full orchestra – 5 min

PROGRAM NOTES

       Le Lac Noir, or The Black Lake, was inspired by the poem Swan Lake (see below for poem). The poem is a pastiche of Margaret Atwood’s collection Morning in the Burned House. The poem is about a ballerina’s struggle and explores concepts such as expectation, perfection, disappointment, and suffering through the use of contrasting imagery, metaphors and similes, allusion, and manipulation of syntax. Similar elements are used in the piece to convey the same concepts. The first movement, L’attente, draws from the first stanza, the second movement, Le Coucher de Soleil Mourant, draws from the fourth stanza, and the third movement, Briser le Cygne Porcelaine, draws from the last stanza. This piece was originally composed for flute, alto saxophone, piano, and percussion in 2017, and was recomposed for orchestra in 2019.

Swan Lake

What more did they expect

from a swan?

Long legs that extend

reality, the movement when the shuddering cloud,

like a breath, or misery, begins,

and an immortal to watch above strings of gold and forget.

That is all.

To lift and float above the black water

as if it wasn’t filled with eels and desperation

and stolen chances.

Grace is our craft: a vice

of melody and screams,

creation of beauty to spread over the grotesque damage

to the white feathers.

It seems as though the world is collapsing

in on us.

We push, we tumble, we stretch

farther than the indefinite ocean, we

sculpt evil and grace, beauty and

violence, we are consumed

by the black lake

in the nebulous production

of dulling moonlight and ruthless manipulation,

we promise body, mind, and form;

you reach, yet you can’t.

Not anymore.

You were almost flawless, they say

like starving lions in the dying sunset

as the sky fades to dark red and

the smoke hisses and crumbles in the silver rain.

You always say almost

is never enough,

as if enough would even be sufficient in this world

to satisfy the predators

who wish to feast

on swan, to feel the strong flesh (decaying),

to whisper like the cold winter wind

that seeps into every crack and causes

you to shiver,

and as much as you try, you can’t stop the cracks

breaking the porcelain

as quickly as

the end.