Diana Syrse Connected Identities
Part 2: The Invention of Sex
Monodrama for voice, chamber orchestra and electronics
2017-2021
Lyrics by Diana Syrse and Aleksi Barrière
Full Score
CopyrightbyG.Ricordi&Co./Forperusalonly
Connected Identities - Part II
THE INVENTION OF SEX
Monodrama for voice, chamber orchestra and electronics
I.Cambrian explosion
II.From a hundred flowers open
III.The hunt
IV.Perpetual spring
Commissioned by the New Juilliard Ensemble, Joel Sachs artistic director and conductor
Music by Diana Syrse
Lyrics by
Aleksi Barrière
Duration: 15'35'' apx.
Program Notes
The Invention of Sex
For voice, chamber orchestra and electronics
Music by Diana Syrse
Lyrics by Aleksi Barrière
The Invention of Sex is the second part of a larger work called Connected Identities. This second part was written between 2019 and 2020 commissioned by the New Juilliard Ensemble conducted by Joel Sachs. The piece has four movements: Cambrian Explosion, From a Hundred Flowers Open, The Hunt and Perpetual Spring. The first movement is an instrumental variation on the beginnings of sexual reproduction. The next three movements are three poems that depict the experience of love and sex from the perspective of a tree, a deer, and a woman. All characters are located in a forest telling their story in different seasons of the year.
The following lines are the matrix for the first movement from which the rest evolves: Until 1,5 billion years ago, life reproduced by cellular division only. A unicellular organism would divide into another similar cell, carrying out its DNA unchanged, and only slow and sparse mutations would allow evolution. But then some bacteria evolved forming ‘eukaryotic cells’. These cells could form tissues, combined into multicellular organisms. And some even acquired the ability to mix their genetic material with other organisms to create entirely new individuals. So they would go on a hunt for a mate, someone different, seek out the alterity w ithout which they were incomplete. Nothing would be “the same” again after that: life grew into a perpetual quest, constant exploration, change, adaptation. Such was the invention of sex, and the beginning of the era of the Eukaryotes. Messy, chaotic, wasteful creatures, also ingenious and outwardly splendid. Just the opposite of the elegant density and efficiency of bacteria, a life form to which it seemed that nothing needed to be added, in its solitary perfection. And oh, how we reproduced once we could! We were intoxicated with the possibility to ex-ist, i.e. “stand out of ourselves”, unfold, communicate, mingle, transform. Sex led to the so-called Cambrian Explosion, during which the Earth was filled with plants and animals, the wild diversity of life as we know it today, millions of different shapes and forms and sizes and colors. Fabulous flowers, the peacock’s train, scents and songs, all expressions of that primal extroversion. Hard-wired into all of us Eukaryotes, from an evolutionary standpoint, as the urge to reproduce, sex became much more than that in complex beings, and often dissociates from it entirely into pure pleasure. It fills all creatures as a force of creativity, of boldness, of sophisticated emotional development, and of bonding.
THE INVENTION OF SEX
I. Cambrian Explosion
II. From A Hundred Flowers Open (a tree spes
In the spring I dance and I gorge And I shake the rain off my leaves Breathe me in I am all over you Tears of pleasure I smell like I would if I burned
I am all veins and I shake and I creak My branches moan Slowly as is someone were listening
My name, my name is abundance Me give and me take Grasp and spit and clutch and hurl
Very man and very woman
From a hundred flowers open
We are one and we swallow The sun the sun the sun
Soon plump with sweet fruit And full already
Of the whispers of insects and birds like lustful ideas / in someone’s head
III. The Hunt (a deer speaks)
Red ripe forest and the earth like a river was here I run after my doe her scent in every shadow (Mushrooms and lichen make silent love)
This is a hunt for more than meat
As we all follow and She plays the ancient game Of the throbbing velvet-maybe and she is so fast
Madly I scratch the bark of trees
The world is my cage this week And my kingdom
My head is full of blood
The sun goes down in a cloud of flies
Right in the light she calls me lets me closer / Oh
The privilege of warmth
How I have battled and will battle For the bruises we share Never before did I have a home
More
To have and to feel is new Instant Importance Everything
I want to know her like the forest Days and days of treating her like a tree
IV. Perpetual Spring (a woman speaks)
Sostengo tus manos y your hands unfold me
El aire está frío, te seguí hasta el bosque dormido.
Your weight on me hace añicos la soledad inmensa.
Oigo tu voz como nunca antes.
Please closer
Miro el cielo de invierno y te siento
This is grow-oh-th
I remember now the art of being overwhelmed
Cierro los ojos y estamos verdes en el mar
Una ola también podría llevarnos de vuelta
This is the primitive life of the ocean
We exude and we exist
The hunt is on nos quedamos sin aliento.
Todos a la vez somos árboles, flores, insectos, venados, somos presas / we are quarry we prey
For us there are no seasons, temblamos en la perpetua primavera
Como los animales de los trópicos, gatos egoístas de la naturaleza
Giramos y giramos por el suelo. Fill me I will fill you
Us fruit to each other until we m-melt me in your mouth, you in mine-A-iN
A-O-O-O-U-Mmm
Aleksi Barrière Paris, 2019
Instrumentation:
Voice
Flute/Piccolo/Bottle made of glass
Oboe/Bottle made of glass
Clarinet Bb/Bottle made of glass
Bassoon/Contrabassoon/Bottle made of glass
Trumpet in C/Bottle made of glass/straight mute
Horn/Bottle made of glass
Bass Trombone/Bottle made of glass
Tuba/Bottle made of glass
Percussion I
Floor Tom
Tam-tam (shared with percussionist II)
High bongo
Maracas
Huehuetl
Small gong
Medium gong
Small cymbal
Vibraphone
Percussion II
Gran cassa
Tam-tam
Floor tom
Small wind chimes
Medium wind chimes
Large wind chimes
Tibetan Singing bowl in A
Tom high
Tom low
Conch shell horn
Marimba
Percussion III
Floor tom
Woodblock
Djembe
Low bongo
High bongo
Low tom
High tom
Med cymbal
Hi-hat
Suspended cymbal
Crotales (2 octaves)
Piano
2 violins
2 violas
2 cellos
2 contrabasses
THE INVENTION OF SEX
Technical requirements:
- Voice (amplified voice)
1 microport (wireless headset) to amplify the voice of the singer
- Electronics: audio tracks should be played from an audio device. The number of the tracks are marked on the score. Trigger each track as written. No click track is needed.
CopyrightbyG.Ricordi&Co./Forperusalonly
Electronics - Audio
I. Cambrian explosion
Music by Diana Syrse
Lyrics by Aleksi Barrière
Calmed q = 65
II. From a hundred flowers open
The invention of sex
Calmed q = 65
Music by Diana Syrse Lyrics by Aleksi Barrière
III. The hunt
The invention of sex
Music by Diana Syrse
Lyrics by Aleksi Barrière
IV. Perpetual spring
Music by Diana Syrse
Lyrics by Aleksi Barrière
B B