Enchantment Suite (1922) by Robert Nathaniel Dett
Recorded Live on March 23, 2021
Walter Hall, University of Toronto, Canada
Miguel Esteban, Piano
Program:
00:00 I. Incantation
04:44 II. Song of the Shrine
09:20 III. Dance of Desire
13:01 IV. Beyond the Dream
Enchantment is a piano suite written by Canadian-American
composer, Robert Nathaniel Dett in 1922. Dedicated to Percy Grainger in appreciation, the suite consists of four
movements and is paired with an original program written by Dett that follows a protagonist through his
journey of discovery and the unattainable. Dett unifies the various movements through the transformation of
thematic motives. The original program is as follows:
THE PROGRAM -
“What seek you? Say! And what do you expect?”
“I know not what; the Unknown I would have!
What’s known to me is endless; I would go
Beyond the end. The last word still is wanting.”
I. INCANTATION:
A soul obsessed by a desire for the unattainable, journeying on an endless quest, wanders into a
pagan temple, and there yields to an overpowering impulse of the moment to utter an Incantation
before the shrine of an unknown goddess.
II. SONG OF THE SHRINE:
From somewhere far within the shrine a mysterious voices - a
“voice of molten melody
Singing love that may not be.”
III. DANCE OF DESIRE
: A drum beats, and a gong sounds; strange shapes assemble for a carnival of passion, into whose
company and revelry the soul finds itself drawn irresistibly. In the urge of the music the
Incantation mingles with the now mocking Song of the Shrine.
After a mad swirl, there is a final crash, at the sound of which the apparitions vanish.
IV. BEYOND THE DREAM:
And, as in a vision, the soul sees itself transfigured, appearing unto itself as an ever-shifting
shoal of pale, opalescent fire, from which there rises in a visible exaltation, like smoke from
smouldering incense, the still unsatisfied longing for the unattainable.
