She or not, for baritone (1998)
Although it may not be readily apparent, She or not is a love song. If that doesn’t seem obvious at first, it is because the song is nearly four hundred years old.
In those days, a lover sang a complaint to his loved one who had been away (where to?), or perhaps had left him (why?), to beg the absent lover to take him back. Almost four centuries later, he would like to address his complaint again, but this time he has some difficulties remembering his poem, and is also far less articulate. Fragments of the old text come back to his mind, sometimes even whole phrases. But his plea is rendered far less efficient by the mass of words which have been spoken, sung or otherwise uttered in the meantime (nearly four centuries!) by countless lovers in similar situations, and these seem to make his return somewhat suspicious: can he still be sincere, can his heart still be pure? He is all too aware of this, and it only increases his frustration…
The text is based on Shakespeare Sonnet no.109:
Sonnet 109
O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify!
As easy might I from myself depart,
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,–
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.
Shakespeare (1609)