Las Antiguas Arañas
A haunting meditation on memory, grief, and nature’s enduring fragility.
3 min • Composed 2026 • Purchase: voice & pianoComposer’s notes
“Las Antiguas Arañas” (“The Ancient Spiders”) is an art song based on Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poem “La soledad sonora, XI,” a reflection on memory, time, and the persistence of nature in the presence of human grief and suffering. The poem’s opening image of ancient spiders trembling over withered flowers implies a fragility that endures even as life decays.
This art song, for baritone and piano, sets the poem’s first three, image-rich stanzas, shaping their dreamlike and trembling qualities through fluid melodic writing. A companion choral work will set the final stanza, completing the set and allowing the poem’s closing reflection to unfold collectively — similar to “With Drooping Wings” from Purcell’s opera, Dido and Aeneas.
This piece was written for the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) 2025-26 Composer Mentorship Program. It will be premiered at “Let It Be New”, presented by the Cincinnati Song Initiative, on July 28th.
Lyrics
Text from Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poem, “La soledad sonora, XI”
Las antiguas arañas melodiosas, temblaban
maravillosamente sobre las mustias flores …
sus cristales, heridos por la luna, soñaban
guirnaldas temblorosas de pálidos colores …
Estaban los balcones abiertos al sur … Era
una noche inmortal, serena y transparente …
de los campos lejanos, la nueva primavera
mandaba, con la brisa, su aliento, dulcemente …
¡Qué silencio! Las penas ahogaban su ruído
de espectros en las rosas vagas de las alfombras …
el amor no existía … tornaba del olvido
una ronda infinita de trastornadas sombras …
Todo lo era el jardín … Morían las ciudades …
Las estrellas azules, con la vana indolencia
de haber visto los duelos de todas las edades,
coronaban de plata mi nostalgia y mi ausencia …
The ancient melodious spiders, trembled
marvelously over the withered flowers …
their crystals, wounded by the moon, dreamed
trembling garlands of pale colors …
The balconies were open to the south … It was
an immortal night, serene and transparent …
from the distant fields, the new spring
sent, with the breeze, its breath, sweetly …
What silence! The sorrows drowned their noise
of specters in the vague roses of the carpets …
love did not exist … returned from oblivion
an infinite round of disturbed shadows …
Everything was the garden … The cities were dying …
The blue stars, with the vain indolence
of having seen the griefs of all the ages,
crowned with silver my nostalgia and my absence …
Perusal score
