Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis

Into Oblivion

A symphonic song cycle for bass-baritone & orchestra (2019)
2(picc).2(corA).2(bcl).2(cbsn) / 4.2.3.1 / timp + 2perc / hp / pno(cel) / strings
39 minutes

Part I
1. Now It Is Autumn
2. A Smell of Ashes
3. Daggers, Bodkins, Bullets
4. Quietus

Part II
5. Already Our Bodies Fallen
6. Death-Flood Rising
7. At One with Darkness
8. She Is Gone

Part III
9. A Horizontal Thread
10. Renewed with Peace

Commissioned by Philippe Sly, in collaboration with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Premiered October 18–19, 2019 by Philippe Sly and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Raiskin conducting
Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Score and parts available for rental (PDF or hard copy). Send an inquiry through the Contact page.

Perusal score

click here to view perusal score online

"WSO pairs Rachmaninoff, Stafylakis for ovation-worthy evening:
The highly introspective, three-part orchestral song cycle based on D. H. Lawrence’s harrowing poem of 1929, "The Ship of Death" in which the dying writer wrestled with his own mortality became its own ideal vessel for Stafylakis' take-no-prisoners compositional style, daring to pull back the curtain on the darkest shadows of life.

But the epic work four years in gestation also highlights the versatility of his compelling artistry, alternatively fuelled by his own head-banging "metal" ethos as witnessed during his last WSO première, Weighted at the 2019 Winnipeg New Music Festival featuring American progressive metal trio Animals as Leaders, and his ability to spin spiderwebs of gossamer light instrumental textures.

Raiskin — another musical chameleon — kept the New York City-based composer’s latest creation well in hand, superbly leading the players while displaying his full commitment to the often-densely written, high octane orchestration.

After a gripping introduction that immediately plunged the crowd of 1,053 into Stafylakis’ visceral sound world, Sly immediately set the tone for the 40-minute piece with fierce intensity and noble gravitas requisite for carrying the weighty work dealing with life and death to its ultimate shores.
His robust vocals soared on his thoughtful phrasing and confident projection, while bringing operatic intensity to several sections in particular, such as his repeatedly intoning "oblivion" like a dirge-like chant; a wise choice that added overall cohesion to the work as well heightening its dramatic punch.

At times, the singer seemed to compete with Stafylakis' often volcanic orchestration of blockbuster chords and knotty polyrhythms, however effective interludes including word painting laced throughout and serving as commentary for its 10 sections provided both relief and release, while creating better balance between disparate forces. It also became a struggle at times to hear some of Sly’s text in his lowest register, with his voice subsumed into the orchestra's sonic depths.

The climax that comes with the word "oblivion" sung a cappella in the wake of lugubrious, muted brass — including Sly throwing his head backwards that risked melodrama but thankfully escaped that peril — resonated with a sense of fatalism. His final decree to listeners to "build your ship of death… For the voyage of oblivion awaits you," delivered with spine-tingling intensity chilled to the bone, leading to a well-deserved standing ovation and cheers from the audience, with the beaming composer taking the stage for his bow with Sly."

—Holly Harris on Into Oblivion, Winnipeg Free Press
full review

One autumn day in 2014, my phone rang unexpectedly and I was met with a familiar deep, resonant voice. Philippe Sly and I had first collaborated on the orchestral premiere of my song cycle, The Keats Cycle, while we were both still based in Montreal, and he was now interested in embarking on a new vocal project. Phil remains one of the most inspiring musicians I’ve had the pleasure of working with, so there was no hesitation in my response. We quickly started developing the idea for a large-scale work.

Some years earlier, while researching possible texts to set for a different project, I’d come across D.H. Lawrence’s The Ship of Death. It had immediately drawn me in, sung to me, in a way that I knew I had to set it to music one day. When the new project with Phil came up, I was drawn back to that text, which seemed finally complete with his voice uttering it in my head.

It has taken some time for the circumstances to align just right, but finally we’re pleased to present the results of our collaboration: Into Oblivion, a symphonic song cycle for bass-baritone and orchestra.

Though D.H. Lawrence’s literary oeuvre had largely been dominated by a preoccupation with human relationships, his failing health in the last years of his too-short life prompted him towards some darker topics. The Ship of Death, composed in autumn 1929 while Lawrence was dying from tuberculosis, is a particularly solitary and darkly introspective work in which the poet grapples with his own mortality. Faced with the inexorable approach of death – the obsessively repeated ‘oblivion’ – Lawrence considers how one might best prepare for it, to go into that oblivion with grace and a sense of relief, along the way drawing on ancient conceptions of death from both western and eastern traditions.

Into Oblivion follows the dramatic trajectory of Lawrence’s poem. Each of the ten numbered sections of the poem forms its own movement, and the ten movements are then grouped into three large ‘parts’. Through the first two parts, we follow the poet in his descent as he explores the darker aspects of this most difficult topic, and in the final part we rise with him as he discovers hope within himself, a sense of lightness and peace in his final journey.

—HS | www.hstafylakis.com

The Ship of Death
D.H. Lawrence

1
Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.


2
Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?

And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.


3
And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?


4
O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!

How can we this, our own quietus, make?


5
Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.

Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
already the flood is upon us.

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.


6
Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.


7
We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.

A little ship, with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accoutrements
fitting and ready for the departing soul.

Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood's black waste
upon the waters of the end
upon the sea of death, where still we sail
darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.

There is no port, there is nowhere to go
only the deepening black darkening still
blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
darkness at one with darkness, up and down
and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!


8
And everything is gone, the body is gone
completely under, gone, entirely gone.
The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
between them the little ship
is gone
she is gone.

It is the end, it is oblivion.


9
And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn,
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion.

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
of a flood-dawn.

Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.


10
The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
filling the heart with peace.

Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion.

Oh build your ship of death, oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.


Copyright © 1933 D. H. Lawrence. Reproduced by permission of Pollinger Limited and the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli.

World & Canadian premiere:
• October 18 & 19, 2019 | Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Daniel Raiskin, conductor; Philippe Sly, bass-baritone