Music Chamber
Concerts
DateMar 14 2011, 1:00 PM
TitleParzival for flute & baritone with poetry by Lindsay Clarke
LocationSt Peter's Church, 90 Kensington Park Road W11 2PN
ArtistJulie Groves, Gregers Brinch
Julie Groves (flute) Gregers Brinch (Baritone) perform a new work 'Parzival' by Danish composer Gregers Brinch based on the tale of Parsifal. Words by Whitbread prize winning author Lindsay Clarke
Julie Groves performs as a soloist, orchestral musician and as part of the accomplished London Myriad Ensemble. She was notably the Great Britain and Ireland Winner of the LIONS International Music Competition, representing the UK in the Europe Finals. Julie has ongoing creative projects with Between Soundings (flute/poet), composers, actors and dancers in creating new works and experimenting with improvisational material. Julie is Composers Editor for the British Flute Society online and also writes reviews for Flute - the Journal of the BFS. She also coaches chamber music and advanced woodwind across the country and at Benslow Music Trust.
Gregers Brinch studied music theory & harmony, composition, singing and piano) with Cecil Cope (Forest Row) and Louis Demetrius Alvanis (London). He received further Music training at the Music seminar at the Eurythmy school in Hamburg. He has taught music and was the eurythmy piano accompanist at Emerson College.
TWELVE SONGS FOR PARZIVAL
With a Narrative Commentary to provide a context for the songs in performance
© Lindsay Clarke
TWELVE SONGS FOR PARZIVAL
This cycle of twelve songs is based on the story of Parzival’s quest for the Holy Grail as it was told in an epic poem by the Bavarian poet and knight Wolfram von Eschenbach around the turn of the 12th and 13th Centuries. Wolfram’s poem PARZIVAL opens with an account of how a great knight called Gahmuret the Angevin is taken by his love of adventure to the African kingdom of Zazamanc where he fathers a child on the black queen Belakane. Shortly after the birth of their son Feirefitz, Gahmuret abandons Belakane to journey to Wales where, as champion of a great jousting tournament, he wins the hand of Queen Herzeloyde. She too gives him a son, who is called Parzival. But once again Gahmuret grows restless and leaves to fight in a war where he is killed.
Driven mad by grief, Herzeloyde vows that he son will never know anything of knightly combat and warfare. She takes the infant child away to live a secluded life in the forest where Parzival grows up utterly naïve and innocent of the ways of the world. One day, however, he is entranced by the sight of three of King Arthur’s knights riding through the forest and believes that he has found his destiny. In the first song he shares his vision with his mother.
1. IN THE FOREST
Mother, when I heard the singing of the birds
my heart ached at the beauty of their song -
a yearning far beyond the reach of words
that called me to a land where I belong.
Mother, you spoke to me of God and his strong light.
I did not understand your words until
I saw the bright sun shine off armoured knights
astonishing my senses and my soul.
O Mother, now my eyes have seen that sight,
it shines inside me. I must follow it.
I cannot live in exile from its light.
My one desire now is to be a knight.
Now determined to join the knights of King Arthur’s court, Parzival pays no heed to his mother’s desperate pleading, so she dresses him in the rough clothing she has made for him – a hood for a helmet, a jerkin for a hauberk - hoping that the world’s scorn will drive him back to her. She advises him always to take the advice of old men because they know how to survive and never to ask more than kisses from any ladies he might meet.
Taking her advice to heart, Parzival rides off on their old nag, armed only with his hunter’s javelin. As he rides through the wood he comes across a grieving woman with the body of a dead knight in her arms. Her name is Sigune and she is aware of Parzival’s identity as the true prince of the realm.
2. WITH SIGUNE
I met a grieving lady in the wood
who looked at me with sorrow in her face.
The knight who lay at peace in her embrace
Was not asleep but dead.
‘O Lady, we should bury him,’ I cried.
But she would not, and when I asked the cause
Of her lord’s death, she said, ‘It was
for your sweet sake he died.’
She claimed this land should rightly be my own.
I stood astounded, baffled by her words,
then rode away in silence through the woods
While she grieved sadly on.
Astonished by what the lady has told him, Parzival rides on and comes to Arthur’s court, where he finds that all the king’s knights are afraid to fight the Red Knight who has challenged them to mortal combat on their lord’s behalf. The knights pour scorn on the clumsy way Parzival is dressed, on the peasant’s weapon that he carries, and on his ignorant assumption that Arthur will make him a knight. Filled with innocent self-belief, the youth withstands their derision and demands that Arthur name him his champion. Impressed by his evident sincerity and courage, the king complies, and Parzival rides out to confront the Red Knight, whose brilliant red armour he deeply covets.
3. AT ARTHUR’S COURT
The Red Knight roared his challenge out in vain.
Not one among the king’s knights dared to answer him.
Wanting that bright red armour for my own,
I demanded that the king make me his champion.
The knights all jeered. I gripped my javelin.
I saw the Red Knight gleaming in his pride.
He wheeled his mount and told me to be gone.
I told him he must fight or be decried.
He couched his lance. I hurled my javelin.
It struck. He fell. I watched in horror as he died.
Appalled by what he has done, Parzival rides away from Arthur’s court dressed now in the Red Knight’s armour over the rough clothes his mother had made for him. As he rides, he encounters an old man out hawking who offers him shelter for the night. When he discovers Parzival’s identity, the man reveals himself as Herzeloyde’s faithful old marshall Gurnemanz, and kneels before him as his true prince. He vows to train Parzival in all the arts of knightly combat and succeeds in doing so, but when he grows weary of the youth’s constant eager questioning, he gives him some advice which will later have fateful consequences.
4. WITH GURNEMANZ
This armour that I wear is red as blood
above the rough smock that my mother made,
but I remain a green man underneath.
My mind is wilder than a woodland glade,
and still my shamed heart shudders to recall
the jeering of the knights in Arthur’s hall.
And yet this old man bends his knee to me,
and calls me Prince, and vows that he
will teach me all he knows of chivalry.
He says a true knight never shows his ignorance,
and therefore I will ask no questions,
but I will trust and value his experience,
Once he has mastered all the arts of war, Parzival rides off to the aid of the young queen Blanchefleur, whose citadel at Belrepaire is under siege and about to fall. Victorious in combat against the leader of the besieging host, Parzival relieves the city, where he and Blanchefleur fall deeply in love with one another. But his mother’s advice that he should ask no more than kisses from a lady means that their marriage gets off to a timid start until Blanchefleur understands what is happening and leads him deeper into love.
5. WITH CONDWIRAMURS
Three nights we lay together
Side by side in innocence.
And though my eager body
Hungered at your touch, I took
the kisses that my mother said I might,
yet dared not ask for more.
And then your sweet words freed me
when you said, ‘I am your wife,
dear heart, and all of me is yours.’
And we two melted into one.
And so I name you now Condwiramurs,
for you have led me deeply into love.
Parzival has now won both a good and beautiful wife and the reputation of being one of the world’s most glorious knights. All seems well with his world but after a blissful time together, he and Blanchefleur decide that his mother must be brought out of the forest to live with them at Belrepaire and share their joy. Parzival rides away in search of her but quickly finds himself travelling through the desolate terrain of a waste land. Soon losing all sense of direction, he loosens his grip on his horse’s reins, trusting it to guide him through the grey dream of those wastes.
Eventually he is brought to the shore of a mere, where he sees a figure fishing from a boat and asks if there is a place where he might shelter for the night. He is given directions to a house which rises from the mist around him and proves to be the enchanted Castle of the Grail.
Parzival is warmly welcomed there and during the course of a banquet is given the rich gift of a sword by Anfortas, the Grail King, who is evidently suffering from a grievous wound. Powerful mysteries then unfold before Parzival’s astonished and uncomprehending eyes.
6. AT THE CASTLE OF THE GRAIL
I saw an old man fishing on the mere.
I saw a castle rising through the air.
Inside its hall, I saw a fool who dressed
me rudely as a woman for the feast.
I heard the old man groan, yet at his word
a young page offered me a sword.
I saw a lance from which blood streamed.
And still more strangely then, as if I dreamed,
I saw a maiden lift a grail in offering.
And though I heard the old king suffering
I failed to ask the reason for his sighs
Or what the meaning of these mysteries.
Remembering the advice of his mentor Gurnemanz, Parzival had chosen not to reveal his ignorance by asking questions, but cries of lamentation follow his failure to speak. The Grail withdraws from his sight and he retires to bed, weary and bewildered. When he wakes the next day he finds the castle deserted. As he leaves, a voice condemns him as a heartless fool, crying that the land remains waste because he has not put the question.
Shamed by the rebuke and still more deeply bewildered, Parzival rides away. Once more he encounters the lady Sigune, who is still holding the corpse of her lover. She listens in incredulity while he confesses that he has failed the quest of the Grail. She warns him that the sword which he has been given will break in the hour of need, and then she too accuses him of heartlessness, both for not asking the cause of the Grail King’s suffering and for abandoning his mother to die of a broken heart alone in the forest.
Appalled by this terrible revelation, Parzival rides away in a turmoil of guilt and despair so grave that it leaves him half-crazed in the weeks that follow. Snow falls across the land. One day he watches a falcon strike at a passing skein of geese. Three drops of blood fall onto the snow entrancing Parzival with a vision of his wife’s beauty. It is a love trance from which he is woken only by the shout of a knight’s voice challenging him to combat.
7. BLOOD ON SNOW
Three drops of blood
shine on the snow.
My mind turns to you,
The queen of my heart.
This blood is so red
in the glittering snow.
The world has stood still.
I see only your face.
But a shout calls me back.
I must fight, must joust -
for my aching heart
will let nothing keep me
from returning to you,
the queen of my heart
Parzival defeats his challenger who turns out to be one of a party of hawkers led by King Arthur. Now famous before all the world as a gallant and noble knight, Parzival is taken to Arthur’s court for the Christmas celebrations, but he is still filled with guilt and confusion and longs only to return to his wife. But that becomes impossible once the sorceress Cundrie rides into the hall, cursing him before all the assembled company as a heartless fool.
8. CUNDRIE’S CURSE
‘You left the king to suffer from his wound.
You left your mother weeping as she died.
Your foolish heart lacks feeling, and the land
Lies waste because of you,’ she cried.
.
I pleaded innocence in vain.
Consumed by grief, condemned by Cundrie’s curse,
I turned on God and blamed him for this pain.
There is no meaning in the universe.
Ashamed to return to his wife, Parzival leaves Arthur’s court, denouncing the god that had brought him to this humiliating condition and refusing to serve him. Even though Cundrie has warned him that the Castle of the Grail withholds itself from those who have failed its ordeals, he wanders for years, searching to return to that place without success, and growing ever more bitter, ever more despairing.
9. PARZIVAL ALONE
Who is this God of love?
Where is he to be found?
My mind is cold and bare
as is this world I roam
without hope, without a home.
My heart is full of grief. I fear
that all I love is lost forever.
I too am lost. I let my horse’s reins hang loose
to take me where he will. I neither hope nor care.
Having put his trust in his horse to guide him, rather than his own stubborn will, Parzival is led at last to the cell of the hermit Trevrizent, who offers him shelter for the night. As they talk by the fire, the hermit persuades Parzival to explain the causes of his grief. It emerges that Trevrizent is Parzival’s uncle on his mother’s side and brother to the Grail King, Anfortas.
Trevrizent tells Parzival that the Grail is a Stone that was brought down to Earth by the Neutral Angels who refused to take sides between God and the Powers of Darkness when there was a war in Heaven. The stone, which holds together the powers of both darkness and light, was placed in the keeping of the Grail family, but Anfortas took his grave wound when he followed his own passionate desires rather than serving the Grail. That wound can be healed only when a seeker after the Grail puts the right question, and until then the land will lie waste.
When Parzival confesses to Trevrizent that he has already failed once in the quest, he is told that he will succeed only when he comes to the realization that he too has a dark and as yet unrecognized shadow-side which must be understood and assimilated. He too must learn to hold both darkness and light together if he is ever to be whole.
10. WITH TREVRIZENT
Who is this hermit in the wilderness?
What can he understand of suffering?
What does he know of love and loss,
Of widows’ sons and of a wounded king?
I sit beside his fire and tell my tale.
He listens as I count my woes again.
He warns me I am doomed to hurt until
I learn to make a new life from my pain.
My heart has shut down like a prison door.
I must take pains to open it, and then
my light and shadow may unite once more -
as in the grail - and make me whole again.
After a long time of prayer and meditation with Trevrizent, Parzival goes forth on his quest again. Eventually he returns to Arthur’s court, where Cundrie, who is now a much more sympathetic figure, counsels him that a final battle awaits him before he can achieve the Grail.
On his way to the Grail Castle, he finds his way blocked by a dark knight in Saracen gear who challenges him to fight. Neither knight is willing to yield and their combat proves long and desperate. Parzival is about to kill the Saracen when the sword, which he had been given by the Grail King, breaks. Disarmed, he prepares himself for death but the dark knight has been impressed by his courage and asks to know his name. When Parzival declares himself to be the son of Gahmuret the Angevin, his astonished opponent tells him that his own name is Feirefitz, and that he too is Gahmuret’s son, though by a different mother, Queen Belakane. Reconciled as brothers, the two knights advance joyfully together to the Castle of the Grail.
11. WITH FEIREFITZ
I did not know you as my shadow
when you stood beneath your banner
in the gorge beside the water
that would take me to the Grail.
I had had my fill of fighting,
yet would still have shown no mercy
if the sword the Grail King gave me
had not shattered at your helm.
But as I lay struck down beneath you
and I waited for the death blow,
it was then you praised my courage
and asked to know my name.
Then we found we had one father
and that you were my dark brother,
so we made our way together
to the Castle of the Grail.
Now that he is united with his dark brother, a very different welcome awaits Parzival at the Grail Castle. This time, deeply moved by the suffering of Anfortas, he does not fail to ask about the cause and nature of his pain, and at the words, ‘What ails thee, Uncle?’, the Grail appears, the wound is healed, and the waste land begins to grow green again.
Having at last become a whole person in whom innocence and experience are reconciled now that courage, compassion and understanding have been brought together, Parzival is acknowledged as true heir to the Grail and reunited with his beloved wife Condwiramurs.
12. IN THE PRESENCE OF THE GRAIL
Once more the Castle of the Grail appears.
and hope opens in my heart again.
The king still lies in pain,
But now I gently ask,
‘What ails thee?’
and his wound begins to heal.
The Maiden of the Grail
brings forth its light
and all the court rejoices.
Now the barren land
grows green again and flourishes,
for I have found the way
into my soul
and live at peace in love.