A Few Figs From Thistles is a song cycle selected poems from an eponymous book of poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), first published in 1920. In 1923, St Vincent Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
This song cycle uses four Millay poems: First Fig, Second Fig, Thursday and The Philosopher. Throughout the pieces, shifting harmonies with coloured dissonance undergird melodies which capture the essence of the poems. Matthew 7:16 is the origin of the term, “A few figs from thistles”, reading “Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?”
Various scholars have written about the meaning of these poems, with a collective understand that ‘figs’ refer to beauty and/or experience gained, and ‘thistles’ to ugliness and hard times. Critics discuss how the poems reference sexuality and identity, love, loss and relationships.
The original version of this song cycle was for soprano. It was transposed down for mezzo-soprano, for this recording. Both versions are available from the composer should you wish to perform it.
First Fig uses vocal slides, sprechstimme, trills and scale patterns to elucidate the text:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–
It gives a lovely light!
I use the first line of poetry three times. The first use of the words ‘both ends’ are from the upper note to the lower note of an octave, depicting either end of the candle.
The second ‘candle’ is melismatic, with the word decorated with moving notes in the voice. Burning has a slide down to low A, again using large intervals.
The next use of the word ‘burns is a trill which accelerates.
The final ‘both ends’ reaches up high before descending the interval of an 11th.
With the word “candle”, the soloist repeats the ‘c’ sound repeatedly, with more slides, melisma and trills leading to a final ‘both ends’ climax, the highest note yet, with vibrato. The section ends with sprechstimme, dark and foreboding, with the words ‘it will not last the night’ quietly iterated.
The text reads for Second Fig reads:
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
Second Fig is based on an octatonic scale (D-D#-F-F#-G#-A-B-C) with blocked triadic harmonies depicting the ‘solid rock’. I repeat “solid rock” three times, establishing the solid basis for the next phrase, which moves in a triplet minor 3rd pattern on the word ‘the’ and leads to “ugly houses stand” with dissonant chords used in the piano.
The final phrase is lyrical, with a gentle accompaniment pattern in 3 / 4. Solid chords in the piano are used for “Built upon the sand”, with the piano then depicting ‘sand’ trickling through the fingers in descending 32nd notes.
For the next piece, Thursday, the text reads:
And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday –
So much is true.
And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday – yes- but what
Is that to me?
Thursday is a ballad set to a waltz, with the poem accompanied by mordents and trills in the piano. The first section conveys wit and humour, with the middle section stating more seriously, “And why you come complaining, is more than I can see”, before the opening light-hearted motives coming back with the riposte.
The Philosopher concludes this song cycle. The poem reads:
And what are you that, missing you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?
And what are you that, missing you,
As many days as crawl
I should be listening to the wind
And looking at the wall?
I know a man that’s a braver man
And twenty men as kind,
And what are you, that you should be
The one man in my mind?
Yet women’s ways are witless ways,
As any sage will tell,–
And what am I, that I should love
So wisely and so well?
The poem is set freely, with augmented harmonies supporting the questioning melodic line in the first three stanzas. The piano has a running pattern in 32nds notes which depicts the wind. There are dissonant harmonies in the piano under the vocal leaps singing, “Looking at the wall”, with more wind in 32nds notes in the left hand. The third stanza is set in a steady 4/4, as the narrator describes knowing a man who is brave and kind, but when she gets to the line of “And what are you, that you should be, the one man in my mind?” her frustration of not being able to get this man out of her mind is depicted with large leaps in the voice and strong chords in the piano. The final two lines are in a grand waltz, finishing not only this piece by the whole cycle with a flourish.
Longing is set on a poem by Jonathan Herring entitled, Love Over The Seas.
Love over the seas
-fast on the air and the waves
just above their crashing power-
How I wish I could reach you
and hold you and touch you
and carry you over the hills,
to the meadows and heather
and the grass and the flowers.
Do you feel me
when I touch you in my dreams
or hear me
when I whisper softly hopefully to you?
O I wish that you did and could.
I send my love as strongly as I can
in the hope that it will rise above
the sea and become as a cloud
and fall as gentle rain drops on you in the morning.
Longing is a love song, on a poem written by the composer’s husband to her before they married. Jonathan was living in England, the composer was in the States, and he wrote her letters daily, often including a poem. The opening piano bars were written in 2017 in a sketchbook, and discovered in 2022 when going through files. It seemed an opportune moment to combine this poem describing distant love with a soaring melody, developing the piano motive harmonically while painting a picture of undulating water and longing. At the time the poem was written, the future was uncertain, hence the ending of the introduction, and later the piece, with a question, depicted with repeated notes concluding the phrase. Jonathan didn’t know how things would work out, only that the woman he loved was thousands of miles away and he longed to be with her. We have now been married over thirty years.
Was bin ich? opens Nell Walden’s poem, Frage. This phrase permeates my piece, each time with a different word emphasised, as the voice returns to this age-old question time and time again.
In questioning human identity and existence, Walden uses images from the natural world, of moonlight, stars twinkling, the sun glowing. I composed the melody first, setting Walden’s poem to music, and then wrote the piano part to word-paint the images. Whole-tone patterns, and augmented and diminished chords are interspersed with a tone row which is used to create an other-worldly sound scape.
Vocal slides and sprechstimme are utilised within a wide vocal range, demanding colour and dramatic control from the performer. Patterns from the tone row are transposed in creating a silvery moonlit backdrop for the vocal line in the final section. The piece ends as it begins, with the timeless question, ‘Was bin ich?’, accompanied by bell-like chordal structures in the piano.
Was bin ich?
Ein kosmischer Strahl
Aus fernen Welten.
Sterngefunkel,
Sonnenglanz,
Mondschein
Schufen mich
Auf dieser Erde,
Wo fremd ich wandle,
Wo fern ich bin
Dem blauen Licht der Sterne,
Dem warmen Glanz der Sonne,
Dem silbrig Mondschein
Weiß und keusch
Voll Sehnsucht nach
Dem Jenseits
Überirdisch schön und licht….
With thanks to the Landskrona Museum for their permission to use the text of Nell Walden’s “Frage” in this digital release and program notes.
Harriet Beecher Stowe Songs: Eliza
Eliza is for soprano and found objects. The objects used are a length of chain, an outdoor brush, a shovel (or spade), a baby’s rattle and a paperback book.
The text used is from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written in 1854. It is from Chapter 5, entitled “Eliza”. In this excerpt, Beecher Stowe recalls a visit to a church she visited in Kentucky, and the slave girl she observed on that visit. The piece opens with the words:
“While travelling in Kentucky, many years ago, I attended church in a small country town. While there, my attention was called to a beautiful quadroon girl, who sat in one of the slips of the church, and appeared to have charge of some young children.”
The piece uses spoken, sung and sprechstimme voice. It paints a picture, using objects of the time, depicting the shackles of slavery and how this was the norm in the community Stowe visited. The piece opens with chains being dragged on the floor, which then accompany a well-known spiritual, Shall we gather by the river? Other percussive elements include a baby’s rattle, as the enslaved woman was in charge of young children; a spade, shovel and brush, representing the working life of slaves; a sounds of a book being thumbed and hit, as these words are a written, recorded recollection of a real-life scene. The piece ends with a cry of anguish. That is the author’s cry, of frustration, pain and hatred of the life of slavery and the misery caused.
The piece can be performed on a concert stage as part of a recital; or staged as a theatre piece with the soloist dressed as a church-goer in mid-19th century period costume, and the scene design depicting an old country church. Alternatively, the piece can be performed in location at an old church.
I wrote Eliza in 2017 in answer to a call from the Boston New Music Initiative for scores for solo soprano. It was premiered by Danielle Aldach on December 17th that year, and the performance is available on YouTube.
Harriet Beecher Stowe Songs: Never Give Up
The text for Never Give Up is from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Old Town Folks (1869). I wrote it in response to a call for compositions from a New York-based initiative, Fifteen Minutes of Fame. The remit was to write a one-minute piece for Keri Lee Pearson using singing bowls. Keri premiered my piece in 2024 and it is available on YouTube.
“When you get into a tight place
and everything goes against you
until it seems that you cannot hold on
for a minute longer,
never give up then,
for that is just the place and time
when the tide will turn.”
The piece opens with a sustained note on the singing bowl. A wood block is used to indicate the words ‘tight place’ and portray the stress of someone trying to hold on. In the vocal line, diminished fifths and a vocal slide from high G create tension and depict the anguish someone might feel.
The second phrase, about not giving up, is repeated, with singing bowls adding a dimension of comfort and spiritual rest. The vocal line moves up, down and turns on a whole-tone pattern on the words ‘tide will turn’. The piece ends quietly with a sustained pitch in the voice and on the singing bowl.
I know a baby is on a poem by Christina Rossetti (1839 – 1894).
I know a baby, such a baby,
Round blue eyes and cheeks of pink,
Such an elbow furrowed with dimples,
Such a wrist where creases sink.
‘Cuddle and love me, cuddle and love me,’
Crows the mouth of coral pink:
Oh, the bald head, and, oh, the sweet lips,
And, oh, the sleepy eyes that wink!
A musical picture is painted of a loving mother adoring her little baby. The piece opens with the soprano in full voice, with ‘such a baby’ repeated as a vocal whisper. ‘Round’ is conveyed through closed, then open, lips, with crescendo. Vocal slides and portamento are used throughout. The piece can be freely interpreted, giving license to the soprano to explore the liminal space between word and music. Sprechgesang, microtones, repeated consonants and tongue clicks under a sustained pitch are also used in this short, sweet lullaby. It was written for Michelle To, in response to a call from Fifteen Minutes of Fame, and premiered in 2025 by Coco Lau.
Haiku
These five haiku are by Japanese women poets. These are found in the book, Far Beyond The Field, edited by Makoto Ueda, published in 2003 by Columbia University Press, NYC. With thanks to CUP for granting permission to use these texts in this recording.
These short pieces can be performed freely, giving time and space without a strict metrical feel. The dynamics and shadings follow the vocal line, again with flexibility for delivering the text in a nuanced and coloured way.
Crying is based on a haiku by Kawai Chigetsu (1634-1718). Using the ‘hirajōshi’ scale from Japanese folk music, the piece elucidates the text using scale patterns, trills, portamento and sprechstimme.
Spring rain is set on a haiku by Chiyojo (1703-1775). Using the Japanese folk music ‘insen’ scale, rain is portrayed through moving patterns and trills. Portamento, varied dynamics and more trills continue the word painting, ending with an extended vocalisation of the insen scale.
Also by Chiyojo, The Butterfly uses the ‘yo’ scale. The butterfly is depicted through 16th-note patterns and trills. Sprechstimme and portamento are used to convey ‘behind’ and ‘before’, with the butterfly beautifully fluttering away.
Do you bloom? is set on a haiku by Den Sutejo (1633-1698). The ‘insen’ scale is used, with trills, vocal slides and repeated consonances decorating the text.
a bird far away is based on a haiku by Enomoto Seifu (1732-1815). Using the ‘iwato’ scale, the piece paints a picture of a distant bird flying. Moving patterns, trills, portamento and varied dynamics are used, requiring exquisite control and nuance from the soprano.
Sleeve notes ©2026 Kirsten Johnson
