| Composer: | Clark |
Suppliers: |
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| Editor: | | Quartet: | Descant/Treble/Tenor/Bass |
| Publisher: | Hawthorns Music | Publication: | RA 84 |
Jane Minns of the Berkshire Recorder Consort| introduced me to Alcaïcs during a workshop with Paul Clark, its composer. This was written for the London S.R.P. Playing Day, 17th July, 1993. For a full hour, Paul delighted us going into the finer points of his work. To give in words, the flavour, wit and elegance of this piece, I could do no better than to reproduce Paul's own words taken from the rear cover of his sheet music.
Alcaïcs, by Paul ClarkI first met Alcaïcs in a Samuel Butler reader, in chapter 44 of The way of All Flesh. They are a form of poetic stanza used much by Alcaeus, a lyric poet of the 7th-6th centuries BC, born at Mytilene in Lesbos, a contemporary of Sappho.
The form of the stanza was
as for instance in
| On reading through the tales of Odysse-us, |
| I couldn't understand the enormous fuss |
| That's mode of this heroic roamer, |
| Nor the honour heaped on Homer |
My Alcaïcs is based on this rhythm, falsely, because Greek scansion was quantitative, depending on the sounded length of the syllables, not their accentuation. But I wrote the music anyway!
Paul Clark: June 1996.
