Premiered at the Sao Paolo Contemporary Composers Festival by Chloe Boelter, soprano and Leandro Roverso, piano

Death comes for us all, but how should we face it? Do we run? Or might some welcome it with a smile? When Susan sent this provocative text to me, I thought immediately of the Germanic literary trope of welcoming death as an old friend, or like entering a warm slumber. It reminded me of one classic Lied in particular, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. I thought about how that song in hindsight is…honestly rather kinky. One gets the sense that the song isn’t really talking about a maiden literally dying. When Death tells the maiden how beautiful she is, that he wants not to punish her but only that she “rest softly in [his] arms”, there is a macabre sense of romance to it. What would it mean to invert that idea, to switch the power dynamic between Death and the maiden? What if instead of the hopeless maiden being seduced by death, the maiden is the seductress herself? What would it be like to be so ready for oblivion as to make Death blush? After all, when it comes to “little deaths”, too, there is an oblivion in giving oneself up wholly to pleasure from another person.

I wanted to depict this state of mind, to be yearning and ready for death—whichever death that may be—and the morbid fascination in looking death straight in the eye. The theme from Death and the Maiden is heard in snippets throughout the piece, but only once the speaker has finally seen the face of Death up close is the Schubert finally quoted in its full glory as the dirge reaches its fever pitch.

Text:

Hello, speck.

I see you, speck.

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

You’re standing so far from me,

too far away to see.

But you are there, always,

in the corner.

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

Hello, shadow.

I see you, shadow.

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

You are facing me, now,

you look at me.

But you will not let me face you,

you always turn away.

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

Hello, friend.

I see you, friend.

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

You sit next to me, now,

on the train.

You are in the car next to mine,

there - isn’t that you?

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

Hello, death.

I see you, death.

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

You make it hard to see, now,

my eyes see only you.

You cloud my vision, dark,

it is only black.

Why won’t you let me look right at you?

I want to see you now.

I want to see.

-Susan Bywaters