Sappho fragments
By: John McDowall, Gerhard Stäbler
Contributors: Stäbler, Gerhard
Publisher: [John McDowall]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [Bradford]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 141
Notes: Artists' book.

"Combinations of papers of different natural tones, weights and textures. Variously positioned horizontal, vertical and diagonal 3cm cuts and 6mm holes in some of the leaves. Shallow arcs cut out of a few fore-edges. ... Letterpress cover"--Information provided by John McDowall, in an email attachment, 15/7/13.

Stab binding under card cover.

"A collaboration with the composer Gerhard Stäbler, who employed his procedure of musical composition to produce a work of paper rather than sound, engaging the inherent physical qualities of the material. The book is both score and performance. In response to Gerhard's matrix, based on Anne Carson's introduction to her translations of Sappho Fragments, eleven different papers were selected and a series of cuts and holes incised in various positions and pages."--John McDowall, provided in an email attachment, 15/7/13.

"A few years ago I formulated the ongoing project Traces and Translations, with the intention to introduce the medium of artists' books to practitioners of disciplines other than the visual arts, these include composers and musicians. And to initiate one to one collaborations to develop a series of book works. Sappho Fragments is the result of this process of discussion, exchange and elaboration with the composer Gerhard Stäbler. For this work Gerhard has employed his procedure of musical composition to produce a work of paper rather than sound, engaging with the inherent physical qualities of the material. In response to Gerhard's matrix I selected eleven different papers (the book comprises of 141 sheets) and devised a method of incising the cuts and a simple binding for this score and performance."--John McDowall, provided in an email attachment, 15/7/13.

"Sappho's Fragments have accompanied my work for many, many years, and especially their translation by the Canadian poet Anne Carson. These have inspired many of my compositions, such as Sappho Trilogy for soprano, choir, orchestra and electronic sounds, even if I do not use her words but the ancient Greek original. Carson's book If not, Winter gave me a tremendous range of ideas, in particular its layout of the fragments with the blank of the missing text signified by printed brackets. This led me to worlds of imagining; of what the centuries could have erased from Sappho's poems, or even what someone else could write there. Though it also astonishes what time has left - the wide range of Sappho's perception of human life. For this book work I did not want to refer to any one poem or fragment by Sappho, instead I collected all the numbers to be found in Anne Carson's Introduction. These numbers defined all the elements of Sappho Fragments: the number of sheets, the sections of the book, the weight, texture and tone of the papers, and especially the interventions in the pages of the book - the 'cuts' with lines and holes, their positions and directions and the 'markers' on the fore edge of some pages."--Gerhard Stäbler, information provided by John McDowall, in an email attachment 15/7/13.

Limited edition of 12 copies.