SKU: A0.869598

Sappho ... Five Poems by H.D. (2019) is dedicated to Öznur Hasibe TülüoÄŸlu.   I heard her sing at her senior recital at the New England Conservatory of Music this spring and I immediately thought I should write a song cycle for her.  

I love the poetry of H.D. (aka Hilda Doolittle).  My first attempt at setting her poems to music was in 2015.  The poems in that song cycle focused on several figures from Greek mythology: Adonis, Circe, Lethe, Daphne, Evadne, etc.

The words in this cycle are Ms. Doolittle's poetic musings on fragments left behind by the ancient Greek poet Sappho.

1.    Fragment 41a ... thou flittest to Andromeda.
2.    Fragment 41c
3.    Fragment 40 Love ... bitter sweet
4.    Fragment 113 Neither honey nor bee for me.
5.    Fragment 68 ... even in the house of Hades.

Music by Thomas Oboe Lee

Poems by H.D.

© Hilda Doolittle, from Collected Poems, 1912-1944, copyright © 1982 by the Estate of Hilda Doolittle. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.