What Is the Word for two sopranos cello and narrator

A setting of Samuel Beckett's last poem, this was commissioned for the Kapoor Chamber Concert Series and was premiered there in 2012 (see attached audio file). The two sopranos were Helen-Jane Howells and Sophie Daneman, the cellist Vanessa Lucas-Smith and the narrator Robert Bathurst.

The poem brilliantly depicts the ageing poet struggling for clarity amidst the on-coming fog: 'glimpse', 'seem to glimpse', 'need to seem to glimpse'. And in his search for ‘the Word’ - 'afaint afar away over there' - everywhere there is 'folly'.

It is tender and touching, but there is frustration and confusion.

I have taken the tenderness and the confusion and augmented the frustration - anger seeps in, 'folly' becomes madness proper.

The cello is an extraordinarily versatile instrument and is perfect for conveying the full spectrum of emotions, from plangent contemplation and tenderness to frustrated questioning to exasperation and rage.

The two sopranos act as witnesses, observers, sympathisers, antagonizers. They are Macbeth’s witches, they are the departing muses, they are wisps of the poet’s spirit.

If you watch the YouTube version on my website (see link), you will see the words on a black screen. The narrator’s words - the poem itself - are in non-italic; the words of the sopranos are in italics and bracketed: they are words from the poem, but not the poem. They are chopped up, out of place - comments on, observations of the narrator.

The narration on this recording, excellent though it is, is a touch too precisely rhythmic.

'The narrator should speak naturally, flowingly, with an eye to the rhythm, but not metronomically' is the instruction in the score.

Permission for publication of this work has been obtained from:

- Faber and Faber: for World publication rights excluding the USA and Canada

- Grove/Atlantic: for USA and Canada publication rights

- Curtis Brown (the Beckett Estate): for World performance rights