GEORGE LEWIS

Written for the Neue Vocalsolisten: Johanna Vargas, high soprano; Truike van der Poel, mezzo-soprano; Martin Nagy, tenor; Guillermo Anzorena, baritone; Andreas Fischer, bass.

The 18th century philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo (c.1703 – c.1759) was brought to Germany as a small child from Axim in present-day Ghana. The noble family Amo served allowed him to be educated, and he completed his law school training at the University of Halle in 1729. After further studies in philosophy, Amo taught at the universities of Wittenberg, Halle and Jena, before returning to Africa around 1750.

The libretto is adapted with permission from translations in Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith, Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). The primary text is Antonius Guilielmus Amo, 1734, “Disputatio philosophica continens ideam distinctam eorum quae competunt vel menti vel corpori nostro vivo et organico” (Philosophical Disputation Containing a Distinct Idea of Those Things That Pertain Either to the Mind or to Our Living and Organic Body).

The sung texts are in Latin, English, German, Dutch, and Twi, Amo’s native language. Primary translations and examples of written and spoken Twi were provided by Dr. Obenewaa Oduro-Opunim, a native Twi speaker and Assistant Professor in the Department of German Studies, University of Arizona, with additional translations and examples by Kobina Hagan, Ghanaian theatre and film director, actor, writer, new media artist, and researcher on Akan languages, folklore and mythologies. We are grateful for their contributions. 

Scene I:  Fanfare
Amo! Amo!
Amo! Amo!
Amo! Amo!

Scene II:  Why?
Anton Wilhelm Amo!
Wie ben jij?
Waar gaan we naartoe?
ɛhen na yɛrekɔ?
ɛyɛ ɛdeɛbɛn “Wolfenbüttel”? 
ɛhen na yɛwɔ seisei yi?
Waar zijn we nu?

Waarom?
Adɛn?
Quare?
Adɛn?  Adɛn?

Scene III: What I can teach
Possum docere
Partes philosophiae elegantioris et curiosae
Elegant and curious philosophy
Physiognomiam
Chiromantiam
Astrologiam mere naturalem
Natural astrology
Artem dechifratoriam
May God turn it to good!

Scene IV: The Nature of Spirit
Omne ens actuosum
Every active entity
in quo datur conscientia sui
illud spiritus est
is a spirit
Spiritus est immaterialis

Scene V: Mind and Body
We sense material things
Homo res materiales sentit
Non quoad mentem
Not with our minds
But with our living organic body
These things are defended against Descartes!
Synonyma non sunt vivere et existere
To live and to exist are not synonyms
Pati et sentire in rebus uiuis synt Synonima
To suffer and to sense are synonymous
Spiritus enim existit, et operatur cum intelligentia.
A spirit exists and operates with understanding

Scene VI:  The Seven Faculties of the Mind
Septem sunt praecipuae mentis facultate
Intellectus       Voluntas
Libertas           Phantasia
Memoria         Habitus
Sentiendi facultas

Intellect pertains to the conscious mind
Intellectus menti vero competit quatenus
ei insunt conscientia
Intellect pertains to the body
to the faculty of sensing
Hanc totam de mente negamus,
corporique damus
We wholly deny this to the mind
and attribute it to the body
contra Cartesium!

Will!
Voluntas de mente praedicari potest,
quoad Conscientia
non quoad instinctum naturalem.
Libertas!
Liberty is the absence of impediment
in the mind’s operation by means of the body.
Ratione mentis libertas
est spontaneitas vel illa faculta
Liberty is spontaneity
Liberty is spontaneity

Phantasia
Imagination
Actus mentis intelligendi momentaneus,
the mind represents something to itself
which is however absent in reality
quod tamen revera absens est

Memoria est
Memoria est
Memoria es
Memoria est
Memoria est
continuata idearum Praesentia
continued presence, in the brai
the mind’s repetitive operation
ex mentis operatione repetitiva
repetitiva
repetitiva
repetitiva

Habit   Habit   Habit
Habit   Habit   Habit
Habit   Habit   Habit

Scene VII:  Epilogue
Ich weiß nicht wie Gott und Geister
jenseits der Materie
sich selbst verstehe
Denn es fehlt Gott und anderen Geisten
Empfindungen
Sinnesorgane
und ein lebendiger und organischer Körper

Daher
God and other spirits beyond matter
understand themselves
without ideas
without sensations
To sense is to suffer
To sense is to suffer

Our mind’s very tight bond
with the body
ob arctissimum cum corpore
uinculum et commercium
Me gyina nsɛm yiso ɛne mo nyinaa ɛredi nkra
[Mit dieser Hypothese verabschiede ich mich von euch allen]
Warum?  Quare?
Magister, warum?
Why, Magister?
Whatever is immutable in man
pertains to the mind
Whatever is mutable with time
pertains to the body

Quod deus bene vertat!
May God turn it to good!

END

Special thanks to Professors Menn (Department of Philosophy, McGill University) and Smith (History and Philosophy, University of Paris 7); Norman Hirschy and Peter Ohlin (senior editors, Music and Philosophy, Oxford University Press); Prof Kira Thurman (Department of Germanic Languages, University of Michigan); Prof Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh (Faculty of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana); and Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (SAVVY Contemporary Berlin). Finally, my very deep gratitude to the Neue Vocalsolisten for their gracious, insightful, and tenacious work on my composition.

This work was completed at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study) in June 2021. It is dedicated to the place where I first conceived it, the Anton Wilhelm Amo Center at SAVVY Contemporary Berlin.

Commissioned by La Biennale di Venezia