Piedra Negra Sobre una Piedra Blanca (2021)  

for Voice and Piano

Piedra Negra Sobre una Piedra Blanca is a song I wrote to the words of a poem of the same name by Cesár Vallejo. Performed by Adreina Kasper (Voice) and Tessa Shune (Piano).

The Spanish lyrics are raw and powerful:

Me moriré en París con aguacero,
un día del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en París -y no me corro-
tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.

Jueves será, porque hoy, jueves, que proso
estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto
a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto,
con todo mi camino, a verme solo.

César Vallejo ha muerto, le pegaban
todos sin que él les haga nada;
le daban duro con un palo y duro

también con una soga; son testigos
los días jueves y los huesos húmeros,
la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos…

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Translation into English:

I will die in Paris with a rainstorm,

on a day I already remember,

I will die in Paris - and I don't shy away -

perhaps on a Thursday, as today is, in autumn.

It will be Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prose

these lines, I've put on my humeri in a bad mood,

and, today like never before, I've turned back,

with all of my road, to see myself alone.

César Vallejo has died; they kept hitting him,

everyone, even though he does nothing to them,

they gave it to him hard with a club and hard

also with a rope; witnesses are

the Thursday days and the humerus bones,

the solitude, the rain, the roads...

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