Far OFf
Commission for Dylan Rausch.
Text:
I would like to tell this memory…
But it is gone now… nothing remains—
For it lies far off, in the long-ago days of my youth.
Skin, as if made of jasmine
That August (was it August?) evening…
I hardly remember the eyes anymore; I think they were blue.
Ah, yes, blue—a brilliant, [sapphire, like the ocean] blue.
Year: 2026
Duration: c. 3 minutes
Instrumentation: tenor, piano
Premiere information: 27 April 2026, Schare Recital Hall at Mason Gross School of the Arts
Dylan Rausch - tenor
Hyerim Song - piano
Notes: C.P. Cavafy’s “Μακριά” is almost certainly about a man. Most of Cavafy’s poetry centers around his memory of being a queer youth in Alexandria, finding bliss in encounters that were necessarily both short and hidden. While his prose is very beautiful, the impression one gets is that of an old man, now grasping at whatever he can recollect of relationships that fundamentally could never have lasted. Μακριά is really effective in how it evokes the heartbreak of a fading memory, but I think it also affirms the importance of remembering queer joy, whenever and wherever it may have been. In spite of everything, even if it couldn’t last, even if Cavafy can’t really remember it anymore, the romance in Μακριά happened, and it was good.