He Knew All The Words

Stretching, as published in Ardor Literary Magazine

I am honored to have my poem “Stretching” appear in the inaugural issue of Ardor Literary Magazine. You can see the poem directly here or by clicking the image above.

“Stretching” is from my series of poems Aria with Thirty Variations, loosely based on the structure and mood of Bach’s great keyboard work of 1742 (more commonly called the Goldberg Variations). Last year, a terrific new recording of the variations by pianist Kimiko Ishizaka was released as part of a larger project called Open Goldberg Variations. Open Goldberg is a project funded by Kickstarter, comprising Ishizaka’s recording, a free iPad app, and a new edition of Bach’s score. All of it is released into the Public Domain, using a Creative Commons Zero license, and the producers encouraged other artists to use the score and recording for their own artistic purposes.

My Goldberg series is intended to be performed live — poetry recited along with a piano performance of Bach’s score. I’ve taken Ishizaka’s recording of Variation 15, edited it to fit my poem (she took both repeats, where my poem was based on not repeating the variations’ two sections) and laid my own vocal recording on top of hers. Click the play button below to listen:

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Stretching (Variation 15) / David Zaza, voice / Kimiko Ishizaka, piano