From the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam

A few years ago I chanced upon some quotes my friend Sara Goudarzi had on her website that really moved me. Perhaps I had recognized them unconsciously, because they were quatrains by the great Persian poet Omar Khayyám, and I had been spending the year deeply immersed in the music of Central Asia. The quatrains themselves were translated—quite loosely, as it turns out—by the 19th Century English poet Edward Fitzgerald, who published the famous Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Like many good translations, Fitzgerald’s work is poetry in itself, and, if it perhaps does not catch the letter, I think it catches the spirit of Khayyám.

I knew then that I wanted to someday set the poetry for songs when I next had the right opportunity, which finally happened four years later with the commission to write a piece for Curtis on Tour. I asked Ms. Goudarzi, to select Khayyám’s quatrains into a collection that I could set for a song cycle. Goudarzi, who is an accomplished writer, and reciter of Persian poetry, herself, wrote the following about Khayyám:

“Omar Khayyám was an 11th/12th century Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer. During his lifetime, he was mostly known for his math and astronomy work. Posthumously, he’s mainly recognized for his Ruba’iyat or quatrains. A Ruba’i is a two line stanzas of Persian poetry. Each line is divided into two, making up a four-lined poem, the first, second and fourth line of which rhyme. More than 1,000 quatrains have been attributed to Khayyám but according to one of the most authoritative editions, edited by Persian prose writer Sadegh Hedayat,only 143 are authentic. In these poems, Khayyám subscribes to nihilism, materialism and living in the moment.”

I was drawn to the idea of writing a piece that could use sounds and a musical language drawn from traditional Persian classical music, but that could be woven into contemporary writing for Western instruments and both classical and popular song. The fifteen selected quatrains form a continuous set that describes the passage of a life and the changing nature of our outlook over time; with moments of sadness and joy along the way.