Philip Ciantar
Fil-Bar tal-Kantuniera
Duration: 6'
Solos:
soprano
Fil-Bar tal-Kantuniera
Translation, reprints and more
Philip Ciantar
Sopran (Fil-Bar tal-Kantuniera ) Available digitallyType: Solostimme(n)
Sample pages
Audio preview
Work introduction
This art song for soprano and piano expresses the disillusion of life. Man is sometimes betrayed by life's colourful promises that when reached transpire as artificial if not also bitter. The music seeks for the right balance between conventionality and new sonorities whilst at the same time follows carefully the development of the text in terms of both structure and reflectiveness.
Oliver Friggieri (1947-2021) was a Maltese poet, novelist, literary critic, and philosopher. He was a professor of Maltese literature and literary criticism at the University of Malta. Many of his works have been translated into various languages including German, Greek, Rumanian, Finnish and Italian. The following is a translation into English of 'Fil-Bar tal-Kantuniera' (From: A Poet's Creed: Selected Poems' pp. 145-6)
In the bar round the corner
a drink is sold
in little bottles. It enables the drinker
to see things better.
I want a grog of nostalgia
tasting of times gone by,
and with it a drop of love
smelling of desires.
And some drops of sentiment,
just a little bit of melancholy,
two spoonfuls of illusion,
and a lot of sympathy.
In the bar round the corner
dancing dissolves affliction,
the piano overwhelms all whispering,
and wine becomes blood.
Eyes do not see anymore,
the mind perceives nothing,
clocks come to a halt,
and the globe goes on turning,
twisting itself till it falls
into the precipice of nowhere and never,
broken into pieces,
an abyss of nothing and nobody.
A recipe formulated
by the mind in a moment of clarity,
a recipe whose craziness
includes all wisdom.
In the bar round the corner
the cocktail of destiny
is sold at a cheap price to us,
blissful cadavers.
Drink deep till you get drunk
with the heavy liquor of time,
gulp down the potion of all centuries,
tonight I'll pay the bill.
The song was first performed by Rosabelle Bianchi (soprano) and Alexei Galea Cavallazzi (piano) at Sala Isouard (Valletta) in December 2009. It was then recorded on CD 'Riflessi–Art Songs from Malta' (MCCD 2015) (Miriam Cauchi, Soprano; Maria Frendo, Piano. Listen to audio sample below as extracted from this CD with permission. CD available at https://www.miriamcauchi.com/english/recordings.htm).