Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)
Studies - Péter Egri: (Per)chance: Joyce and Cage
In a similar fashion, whereas the enthusiastic, enchanted and enraptured apostrophizing of "sister Isobel, Saintette Isabelle" —with Cage ISOBEL —, and "Madame Isa Veuve La Bel-" is supposed to be sung poco accelerando in bars 28-31, the last syllable of the name ("-le") is requested to be conveyed by the singer with a whispering slide from A to B ritartando molto in the last two bars (32-33). Singing slow is also singing low. The overall mood of Joyce's passage is that of a silent night-piece charged with quiet desire. Cage's music is also soft in tone. Its average volume is piano with gently breathing crescendos and decrescendos, tracing the emotional course of yearning pulse. A crescendo never rises beyond the level of mezzoforte (as in bar 6 to depict Isobel's l iprimarose hair," in bar 22 to suggest, with short, wishful imperatives, the swelling of desire in "win me, woo me, wed me, ah weary me!" or in bar 30 to highlight "Isa" and "Veuve"). A decrescendo may soften the tone into pianissimo (as in bars 2-3) where "night" is qualified "silentsailing," or in bar 26 where "night" appears after "now evencalm lay sleeping" and two quarter rests). 2. What one might consider the musical approximation of Joyce's occasional rhymes is the rising return of the note B at the end of a motif constituting a musical cell. This happens —among other cases — in bar 2 setting the word "night," in bar 8 setting "wild," in bar 13 rendering "child," as well as in bars 20-22 setting "'twill be," "win me," "woo me" and "wed me" 3. Since in the latter set two short words are aurally linked, the recurring initial w- in the first word is given auditory emphasis, the reiterated imperatives add grammatical importance, the semantic energy of the repeated request provides additional weight, and each of these words are set to music by the note A, therefore the w-s in "'twill," "win," and "wed" sound as potential musical parallels of a linguistic alliteration. In another instance, textual alliteration ("mauves of moss") is musically rendered by two identical notes (B-s) and an accent mark on the first B (bars 9-10). 4. One of the most remarkable features of Joyce's beautifying and beatifying nocturne is the repeated return of certain groups of words characterized by sonorous numerosity. It is typical of Cage's lyrical empathy and musical sensibility that he has captured all these parallel 72
