News
#4 – The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam
by Tristan Latchford
Date added: 12/06/2024
'Already on the Day of Creation beyond the heavens my soul
Searched for the tablet and pen and for Heaven and Hell;
At last the Teacher said to me with His enlightened judgement,
“Tablet and Pen, and Heaven and Hell are within thyself.”
The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam, Quatrain 15
I have these last two weeks, been enjoying the company of the remarkable epic poem ‘The Ruba’iyat’, in its translation by Edward Heron Allen. This translation follows the original Persian text very closely (almost to a fault), but does retain the poetic value of the text as well.
This poem is more famously known in its translation by Edward Fitzgerald (more on that in a future news section), but I have been keen to explore this translation first, so that I can better understand the elements of Fitzgerald’s translation that are his own addition.
Already the poem has sparked several ideas for pieces, including an idea that I’m hoping to germinate into a piece for the upcoming highSCORE festival, which is held yearly in the hills near the beautiful Italian town of Bobbio, and run by the virtuosic Ukulele player and remarkable composer Giovanni Albini.
This year, I have been asked to write a quartet for the festival, which will be played and recorded by the mdi ensemble. Quartets always present me with an exciting challenge, and this is no different, I have chosen to write for Bass Flute, Bass Clarinet, Viola, and Crotales, and am looking forward to seeing how this piece develops. How can I read the form and the history of the poem into the construction of the piece? Each quatrain constitutes its own message or moral, as well as being a flowing part of the overarching poetic narrative. It would be challenging if the quatrain sat in its own space, but it becomes yet more challenging to relate that quatrain to its surroundings, and pass that on to an audience, without the use of the human voice.
My next port of call then, is to find a quatrain that I can expand and analyse in that manner. To delve deeply into it and draw out a form that fits it and can be made audible to listeners. I look forward to seeing where the challenge takes me.
