Late of the City of Rome (1989)
with financial support of the Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst
first performance: March 10-1991, Buitenplaats Waterland, Velsen-Zuid
Marjanne Kweksilber – mezzo-soprano
Tibia Fluitkwartet consisting of Matthijs Broers – flute/piccolo
Birgitta Leidelmeyer – flute/alto flute
Marja Mosk – flute/alto flute/bass flute
Jos Zwaanenburg – flute/alto flute/bass flute
There are three parts.
Part 1 is based on words by the English poet John Keats (1795-1821) said in a conversation with his friend John Severn and written in a letter to his friend Charles Brown during the last year of his life in Rome. He suffered from tuberculosis and hoped in vain to recover in Rome.
Part 2 is based on an official Roman document concerning Keats’ death.
Part 3 is based on the lines Keats wrote himself for his own tombstone. He is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
words:
DEEL 1
I think a malignant being must have power over us, over whom the Almighty has little or no influence.
Oh, Brown, I have coals of fire in my breast.
It surprised me that the human heart is capable of containing and bearing so much misery,
Was I born for this end?
Tell Taylor I shall soon be in a second edition – in sheets – and cold press.
How long is this posthumous life of mine to last?
Don’t breathe on me; it comes like ice.
(words by John Keats recorded by his friend John Severn and written in a letter to his friend Charles Brown during the last year of his life)
DEEL 2
Principal Probate Court, Administrations, 1825:
Administrations of goods and chattels, credits of John Keats, formerly of Hampstead in the county of Middlesex, but late of the city of Rome, bachelor, deceased, granted to Frances mary Keats.
(from an official Roman document concerning Keats’ death)
DEEL 3
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
(lines by Keats, engraved on his own tombstone)
