The Lady Who Offers Her Looking-Glass to Venus (from Epigrams, Epitaphs) – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by: Matthew Prior (1664-1721)

Instrumentation: SATB, 4-hand piano

Duration: c 1:45

Date Written:  1987

Composer’s note: Epigrams, Epitaphs was commissioned in 1986 by the Grand Rapids [MN] Area Community Chorus, which wanted a new work for a program that also included the Liebeslieder Waltzes. This was the impetus for the four-hand piano accompaniment as well as the inspiration for the fourth song, stylistically an homage to Brahms. Looking for texts, I found Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son” and fell in love with it. This poem sets the tone for the entire work; all of the texts deal in some way with death (of beauty, of the poet, of two dickey-birds), thus the occasional use of the piano as a great tolling bell. The first three poems are also brief enough to be epigrams, hence the title.

“The Lady who Offers her Looking-Glass to Venus” is filled with the quiet despair of lost beauty. The frequent grace-notes in the piano evoke the last wavering images in the glass; the repeated high notes represent time ticking away the remaining minutes, hours, days.

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text

The Lady who Offers her Looking-Glass to Venus
Venus, take my votive glass;
Since I am not what I was,
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see.
Matthew Prior (1664-1721)