I discovered Edmond Haraucourt’s scabrous theological poem in the anthology L’Esprit fumiste, by Daniel Grojnowski and Bernard Sarrazin. In it, Haraucourt compares our passage through life to a turd dropping from God’s anus. He published it in 1883, and it caused him a bit of trouble. I’ve translated it, and set it for four-part choir. Let me know if you want to sing it.

Here’s the original, and my translation:

Philosophie: Sonnet honteux

L’anus profond de Dieu s’ouvre sur le Néant,
Et, noir, s’épanouit sous la garde d’un ange.
Assis au bord des cieux qui chantent sa louange,
Dieu fait l’homme, excrément de son ventre géant.

Pleins d’espoir, nous roulons vers le sphincter béant
Notre bol primitif de lumière et de fange;
Et, las de triturer l’indigeste mélange,
Le Créateur pensif nous pousse en maugréant.

Un être naît: salut! Et l’homme fend l’espace
Dans la rapidité d’une chute qui passe:
Corps déjà disparu sitôt qu’il apparaît.

C’est la Vie: on s’y jette, éperdu, puis on tombe:
Et l’Orgue intestinal souffle un adieu distrait
Sur ce vase de nuit qu’on appelle la tombe.

Philosophy: A Shameful Sonnet

God’s anus opens to the void of space:
Though dark, it shines beneath an angel’s gaze.
God squats beside the skies that hymn his praise,
And from his gut excretes the human race.

A hopeful bolus, slime and spirit both,
We roll toward the sphincter, keen to pass.
Grown weary of our undigested mass,
Our pensive Maker drops us with an oath.

A being’s born: hello! we cleave the air,
And disappear as soon as we were there,
As swiftly as a cataract we fell.

That’s life: we’re here, then plummet to our doom;
And then the rectal Organ breathes farewell
Upon the chamber pot we call the tomb.

“Spang” is an abridgement of a score I wrote for a dance by Virginia Mathews, back in 1978.  It was purely diatonic, all derived from the seven note set that begins it.  And here’s the first part of it.

Graphic scores were on my mind back in 1973; I came up with this way to make one that moved.

The “Air de Trois Notes” may not be Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s most memorable melody, but it’s a charming essay in restraint.  I harmonized it both in G and in C, setting off those three pitches with a maximum of contexts.  And here’s the first part of it.

Die-hard serialists will recognize the tone-row from Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments, op. 24. Others can simply watch those twelve tones rotate.

This is the only piece I ever wrote, or ever will write, in Beggs, Oklahoma.

This started out as a song, but soon settled into a piano piece.  I used it in some of the shows I did with Bill Irwin, particularly in The Clown Lecture.