My vocal performance will consist of the fusion of two of Sappho’s songs: the Hymn to Aphrodite and Fragment 16. The Hymn to Aphrodite describes a speaker named Sappho’s struggles in love pursuing another woman, and her plea to the goddess of love Aphrodite for aid in her quest for this woman’s love. Fragment 16 ponders on the nature of beauty, and muses how some people find war and military strength beautiful, but Sappho finds a lover’s face the most beautiful thing – and someone who is loved can be driven to great acts, such as Helen who left her home for Troy. The speaker’s focus shifts to reminiscing a past love, Anatolia, who is no longer here, and ends with several fragmented lines, the last words “out of… the unexpected” (Sappho, if not, winter: Fragments of Sappho, trans. Anne Carson, (New York: Yale University Press 2002) 28.)
I have selected these pieces because they cover a wide range of artistic literary style, including appeal to divinity, metaphor, symbolism. I also enjoy how the focus of these poems focuses on the auspices and desires of women. A lot of ancient literature extent today was written by men, and thus the wants and desires of men are showcased almost exclusively. I think it’s then worthwhile to provide a counter anrrative to this by showcasing work created by a woman. Sappho’s work describes her desiring, thinking of, appealing to, and lauding other women. This is a narrative that deserves to be sung of more, and I want to perform it to the best of my ability.1 That is not to say that Sappho did not focus or sing about men, but for the moment I will focus my project on two examples of her work that almost exclusively discuss women I will be focusing on the Hymn to Aphrodite, and Fragment 16.
I aim to perform these songs in pitch meter. I rely heavily on different pitch guides online, as well as several ancient Greek pitch reconstructions, especially the work of Stephen Daitz. Eventually I will have to sound it out and experiment, finding my way with different meter combinations in the song. I will continue to work on this while practicing my lyre, and attempt to start incorporating the singing and playing together. There is some evidence that ancient Greek instruments were played after song verse, as a sound effect to the spoken word, so I plan on experimenting with these effects as well in my performance.
As a goal of this project is accessibility, I will also be putting these songs into English in a way I hope also works with the Greek and the barbitos, so that others might do the same. I rely very heavily on the translations of Carson, and Rayner for this. I will continue to practice my vocal performance, but in the meantime I will also begin building my second prototype.