Josephine Stephenson

Sestina

The Sestina is a fixed verse poetic form dating from the 12th century. It has a fascinating, very strict structure, consisting principally of six stanzas of six lines each, and requiring that the six line-ending words of the first stanza be re-used as end-words in each of the following stanzas in specific places, determined by an algorithm. In this musical Sestina, which is partly based on a Hungarian folk tune found in Kodaly’s 7 pieces Op. 11, my six ‘end-motifs’ are a mixture of musical cryptograms and slices of the folk tune. The piece unfolds over three main sections, book-ended by an introduction and a short coda. There are mainly two contrasting types of music, one dreamy and legato with melody over a moving accompaniment, the other chordal and pointillistic. The Hungarian tune is found throughout at both micro and macro levels, and over the course of the piece the six end-motifs undergo a variety of transformations, from changing rhythm to altering the order of their individual notes. (Josephine Stephenson)