BODY AND SOUL, AFTER THE PLAGUE

composed by Mark Volker

BODY AND SOUL: AFTER THE PLAGUE
click here to see the full program from the virtual premiere
Translated from Middle English texts

Musicians include: Joseph Lee (Conductor), Rebekah Alexander (Soprano), John Logan Wood (Tenor), Ryan Cockman (Violin), Joshua Dent (Cello), Celine Thackston (Flute), Emily Bowland (Clarinet), Mark Volker (Electric Guitar), Megan Gale (Piano), Jesse Strauss (Percussion), and Sebastian Buhts (Percussion)

Video art by Christine Rogers.
Recorded, Mixed, and Engineered by Kevin Edlin.
Video Directed and Edited by Lauren Balthrop.

Recorded at the Parthenon, a famous Nashville landmark with a distinctive 5-second reverb.

I - Intro

(Narrator)
As I lay on a winter’s night, before the dawn, in a time of feud and plague
I saw (there) a remarkable sight, a body, wan, its consciousness weak and vague
It had been a proud man who’d richly lived, sated his head and his heart
but now he’d lost the animating light, his spirit out, preparing itself to depart
But as it moved to leave, it turned around, beholding the body from which it came

It spoke with a sorrowful wailing sound, bemoaning its fate and assigning blame.
It said...

II - Woe to Your Flesh

(Soul)
Woe to your flesh, your blood
It’s only worth despair.
You were once quite eager, so brazen, when alive,
To declare false judgements, to change two for five.
Woe to your flesh, your blood
Look how you lie here now.
You were wild and wanton, so filled with foolish pride.
Now you’ll find your judgement, your witness will deride you.
Pretension and bluster surrounded you in life
So now your immortal soul is bleeding from your mortal knife.
Woe to your flesh,
your foulest blood.
As you were once so hungry, devouring all you see.
So the worms now eat you and you’ve brought the pain of hell on me.

III - Pavilions to the Sky

(Body)
When I was young and small
I never thought I’d live as I did;
As all the wealthy men and women have before.
I never thought I’d drink such wine;
never smell the golden saffron.
With everything I earned I seized the greatest pleasures.
I built pavilions to the sky.
I lived in shining splendor free upon the sea.
Now death has come to tear my breath away from me.

Soul, you condemn me. If you have such pain,
you only have yourself to blame.
Listen closely, hear my call,
the proudest are the first to fall,
but I won’t take the blame for all.
All my catastrophes, all my desires,
you could have saved us from this all.
If God made you in his own image
then why did you just let me go astray
You could have led us both another way
It’s your neglect that brought us to this day
I learned to follow you, I set to serve your pleasure. We built pavilions to the sky.
You led me to my fortunes, now we both are lost.

IV - Debate 1

(Soul)
I never led you to misfortune.
The more that you lived,
the more you failed.

(Body)
Could it be that this is my soul,
that condemns me for my transgressions? Improperly it seems to me.
My heart breaks that death struck me so.
I am not the first, nor shall I be the last.
There is none so clever that he is left behind.
I’ve fully drunk the cup, there’s nothing I’ve declined. The proudest be the first to keep his tongue.
I know very well that I shall rot;
As even Alexander and Caesar
such that no one can find a trace of them,
nor of the mothers who bore them.
You’re blaming me
when it’s you who have failed
when fateful choices came to us
Your saintly judgement failed

(Both)
Be silent!

(Soul)
Tis I who did enlighten you.

(Body)
Tis I who listened to you.

(Soul)
You throw at me these vile curses,
yet lie there swollen as a leather bottle.

(Both)
For all the flaws you have brought the world
did you expect peace?

V - Dawn

(Body)
Craving pleasure, I only sought to live.

(Soul)
But pleasures fade.

(Body)
I believed my joys would never end

(Soul)
I believed you knew your joys would never end.

VI - Debate 2

(Narrator)
The bonds that you’re in, they’ll cast me to hell. Your fancy furs, palfreys and steeds,
all your wealthy goods,
you’ll not bear them with you wretch, where you lie.

(Soul)
You’ve lived too long wrought so much pain,
so erratic and false, always playing games.
You relished your lust, your carnal stings,
now you’ll know the true pain true passion brings.

(Body)
Godforsaken soul, please go away!
How long will your dissenting cries go on? Maggots rule this place, their verdicts stand
my dying carcass burns with their contagion.
I am prepared, I’m not afraid,
my final breath will be the same.
More celebrated ones than I lie here.
I know that I shall pay for my excessive pride. Still, more painful things will rain upon you, soul.

(Soul)
You ran wild games with savage skill
while you threatened poor men just to feel a thrill.
You’ll no longer live to dance and play
all you buddies and mates have run away.

(Body)
Turn away you wretched soul,
my conduct won’t concern you anymore.

(Soul)
Mary, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
save a penitent soul from a villainous host.

(Body)
The venom slung at me flows down into my soul.
You’re bathing in your own corruption.
I’ll say it now with pithy prose:
You bear the blame for all the shame that plagues you now.

(Soul)
Where are your golden chambers now?
All your castles have fallen and your vineyards plowed.

(Body)
Would you leave me behind to count my bones
to dedicate them to the soil that becomes my home.

(Soul)
You took from the poor and drained the world.
You didn’t care whose labor served you.
You welcomed wealthy men into your home
while lower men were left to their afflictions.

(Body)
You’ve lived too long wrought so much pain
so erratic and false, always playing games.
You relished your lust, your carnal stings
now you’ll know the true pain true passion brings.

(Soul)
Why did you spurn your sacred duty
to deny the fierce passions guiding you.

(Body)
We share all the guilt and the sins you name
it’s a stain upon you too.

VII - Requiem

(Both)
We’ve seen plague before, we’ve known its expectations, stood before the graves of many men.
Did we regard as idle speculation
all that still remained to be resolved?
Requiem aeternam
dona eis Domine:
et lux in perpetua luceat eis.
Te decet hymnus Deus in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum Jerusalem:
exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet.
Requiem.

VIII - Debate 3

(Soul)
You were warned here before, what would happen to both of us.
You displayed everything that the world asked of you.
I suffered you and did as I was made to.
You the master, and I the knave.
I cast all my love on you, gave you rest.
You made a servant of me, imprisoned in your breast.

(Body)
Do you believe you’re vindicated, that you’re blameless.
You say that I made you my servant, that’s outrageous.
All my defenses came from what you disclosed
You withheld the pow’er of right and wrong leaving me alone, exposed

(Soul)
You put a paper shield around me in your weakness.
As I confronted all your messes, you betrayed me.
I did all I could to bring harmony when you had lost your way.
But you did all you could to just bring me pain.

(Body)
You left me to wander the paths proper to only fools.
You rather could have given me wisdom’s tools.
You had all the knowledge.
All that I know I did I learned from you.

(Soul)
You were taught to learn from me, but it was you who moved.
You only did the things I taught not to do.

(Body)
I never stood or travelled anywhere, when not beneath your eye

(Both)
Now I hear the hellhounds baying for us!

IX - The Bells of Eternity
(no text)

X - Resolution

(Soul)
When we lived in the mortal kingdom, I concealed your slides to mortal vice. Now we suffer for our mortal follies, parting sorrows, sadness waits for us.
All our quarrels and our condemnations, pointed fingers, won’t restore these bones.

(Both)
We will part and end our sacred pairing, end our union, we’ll go on alone.
In winter snow and frost, summer sun, and autumn showers.

(Soul)
And here you’ll lie until you drift away.

(Body)
And you will travel into darkness.
It had to be this way.
Were there ever a man or woman safe from dying, clear of evil’s breath,

(Soul)
Such a one would never risk their comfort.

(Both)
Our brightest fires are sparked by the flint of death.

(Body)
When the floor is at my back, and the roof is at my nose,
and I think of all the joys of life that we have known.

(Soul)
As we’re separated now, those memories afflict me so,
as I’m alone.

(Body)
We will leave behind all that we have made,
all of your forms, words, songs.

(Soul)
We’ll have nothing more than the space beneath our heads when we are gone.

(Both)
While we lived as one, nothing could bring us together.
We believed our united world would never end.

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