Wake

Texts by James Joyce and William Wordsworth, compiled by Osmo Tapio Räihälä

“‘Wake’ for women’s choir was completed in late 2025. The texts are drawn from two literary classics: James Joyce and William Wordsworth. For the first two sections, I chose texts from Joyce’s final novel, Finnegans Wake. To the uninitiated reader, it presents as six hundred and fifty pages of rather relentless Dadaism employing over sixty different languages, with most words likely being portmanteaus coined by Joyce himself. Yet for me, the book’s most significant aspect lies in its rhythm, its ‘melody,’ and its sheer musicality.
In the first section, the text remains recognizable as English, and the notation is conventional. The second part, by contrast, consists of various portmanteau words, and the vocal and spoken style—comprising exclamations—evolves into a performance in its own right. The notation consists of graphic instructions; it is playful, indeed positively exuberant.
The text of the third section is a Romantic poem by Wordsworth. I wanted to create a counterweight to Joyce’s anarchy, which is why the final section employs more intelligible language. The music, too, is more clearly traditional here, featuring melodic, singable lines. The work’s title plays on the various meanings of the word ‘Wake.’ In Joyce’s work, it can signify a vigil for the dead, the wake left by a boat, or an awakening, whereas in Wordsworth’s poem, it refers to a village festival.” (Osmo Tapio Räihälä)