Brandeis Concert Series

Dylan Needleman: Les Ponts

Yu-Tung Cheng: Fallen Angel Atraxa

Peter Zhaoyang Han: Children’s Play III (儿戏，叁) Open Score Canon & Aleatoric Musical Game

Jingmian Gong: Proust Impression

Ruide Gao: Wonderful Journey

Ying-Ting Lin: Uh-oh!

“Les Ponts” (The Bridges) by Arthur Rimbaud is a prose poem from the unfinished collection Les Illuminations (Illuminations), written from 1873 to 1875, and published in 1886, years after Rimbaud stopped publishing works. Les Ponts sets the titular poem to a backdrop of two chords. The poem itself describes many features of the titular bridges and surrounded cityscape, which are represented abstractly through the music. Like how the poem briefly shows a bizarre scene, Les Ponts is short and dense. Dissonant, and, like the poem, resolved, but uncertain.

Dylan Needleman is a composer, producer, and programmer originally from Northern New Jersey. He is currently working towards a Master of Fine Arts in Music Composition and Theory from Brandeis University, and has a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Vassar College with minors in Music Composition and Applied Mathematics. As a composer and producer, he creates music from many different genres, combining a large variety of influences, including Hardcore Punk, Minimalism, and Harsh Noise. He has had pieces performed by the Hinge Quartet, the LAMNTH duo, the TALEA Ensemble, and many others.

“Les Ponts” by Arthur Rimbaud

Translation by Dylan Needleman

Des ciels gris de cristal.

Gray crystal skies.

Un bizarre dessin de ponts, ceux-ci droits, ceux-là bombés,

A strange pattern of bridges, some straight, some arched,

d’autres descendant ou obliquant en angles sur les premiers,

others descending or sloping at angles to the ground,

et ces figures se renouvelant dans les autres circuits éclairés du canal,

and these shapes repeating in the other illuminated circuits of the canal,

mais tous tellement longs et légers que les rives,

but all so long and delicate that the banks,

chargées de dômes s’abaissent et s’amoindrissent.

loaded with domes, sink and shrink.

Quelques-uns de ces ponts sont encore chargés de masures.

Some of these bridges are still covered with hovels.

D’autres soutiennent des mâts, des signaux, de frêles parapets.

Others support masts, signs, frail parapets.

Des accords mineurs se croisent, et filent, des cordes montent des berges.

Minor chords clash and fly, ropes rise from the shore.

On distingue une veste rouge,

A red jacket can be seen,

peut-être d’autres costumes et des instruments de musique.

maybe other costumes and musical instruments.

Sont-ce des airs populaires, des bouts de concerts seigneuriaux,

Are they popular tunes, bits of lordly concerts,

des restants d’hymnes publics?

remnants of public anthems?

L’eau est grise et bleue, large comme un bras de mer.

The water is gray and blue, wide as an inlet.

—

Un rayon blanc, tombant du haut du ciel, anéantit cette com

In the card game Magic: the Gathering, the Phyrexians are a race that fuse machinery and flesh, forming biomechanical organisms. Their mythology spans multiple worlds and storylines.

This piece centers on Atraxa, an angel from Mirrodin who was injured and captured during the Phyrexian invasion of her world. The praetor Elesh Norn transformed her into a Phyrexian angel through vivisection and reconstruction, claiming her as a daughter.

Phyrexians possess their own language. The text of this work is written in a mixture of Phyrexian and English. 

© Wizards of the Coast

Translation: “All Will Be One” — Elesh Norn