#35 The Art Song, continued ...
Whether in writing art songs or performing them, it is likely that the text will be an important initial element of inspiration both to the composer as well as the singer, and when hunting for materials to sing, the words will likely be the first attraction to a work, initiating our effort into learning the piece as a whole.
When the composer intertwines the text and the music, that combination creates something new; the poet’s imagination plus the composer’s imagination.
Try this:
If you are looking for recital music to sing, look for texts that inspire you. Notice if the texture of the music combined with the poetry or lyrics evokes imagery or feelings. It’s likely that the pieces that draw you out will also draw your audience in!
Sing Pretty,
Sarah
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If you are attending the recital Sunday, July 24th at 2:00 at Iao Congregational Church of American and British 20th and 21st Century Composers, which is a fund raiser for Musical Voices Maui, you might find the following posting of the texts interesting.
This is an opportunity to read the poetry and lyrics as a short story on the themes of Spring, Love, Summer, Romance, Autumn, Balance, Winter, Death, and Life Renewing.
The poets names are on the left, the composers are on the right.
Greetings Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
When a boy is born, the world is born again and takes its first breath with him
When a girl is born, the world stops spinning round and keeps a moments hushed wonder
Every time a child is born, for the space of that brief instant the world is pure.
To an isle in the water Lee Hoiby
William Butler Yeats
Shy one; shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight pensively apart
She carries in the dishes and lays them in a row
To an isle in the water with her would I go
She carries in the candles and lights the curtained room
Shy in the doorway and shy in the gloom
And shy as a rabbit, helpful and shy
To an isle in the water would I fly
She tells her love Lee Hoiby
Robert Graves
She tells her love while half asleep
In the dark hours with half words whispered low
As earth turns in her winter sleep and puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow, despite the falling snow
Spring Ned Rorem
Gerard Manly Hopkins
Nothing is so beautiful as spring
When weeds in wheels shoot long and lovely and lush
Thrush’s eggs look like low heavens
And thrush through the echoing timber
Does so rinse and wring the ear
It strikes like lightening to hear him sing
The glassy pear tree leaves and blooms
They brush the descending blue
That blue is all in a rush with richness
The racing lambs too have fair their fling
What is all this juice and all this joy
A strain of the earth’s sweet being
In the beginning in Eden garden
Have, get before it cloy
Before it cloud, Christ
Lord and sour with sinning
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy
Most, O maid’s child, thy child
Thy choice and worthy the winning
Early in the Morning Ned Rorem
Robert Hillyer
Early in the morning, of a lovely
summer day
As they lowered the bright awning at the outdoor café
I was breakfasting on croissant and café au lait
Under greenery like scenery, Rue Francois Premier
They were hosing the hot pavement with a dash of flashing spray
And a smell of summer showers when the dust is drenched away
Under greenery like scenery, Rue Francois Premier
I was twenty and a lover and in paradise to stay,
Very early in the morning on a lovely summer day.
Nantucket Ned Rorem
William Carlos Williams
Flowers through the window
Lavender and yellow
Changed by white curtains
Smell of cleanliness
Sunshine of late afternoon
On the glass tray a glass pitcher,
The tumbler turned down,
By which a key is lying
And the immaculate white bed.
The Birthday Ned Rorem
Christina Rossetti
My heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a watered shoot
My heart is like an apple tree whose boughs are bent with thick set fruit
My heart is like a rainbow shell that paddles in a halcyon sea
My hear is gladder than all these because my love is come to me
Raise me a dais of silk and down, hang it with vair and purple dyes
Carve it in doves and pomegranates and peacocks with a hundred eyes
Work it in gold and silver grapes, in leaves and silver fleurs-de-lis
Because the birthday of my life is come, my love is come to me.
in spring comes Dominick Argento
e.e. cummings
in spring comes
(no one asks his name)
a mender of things with eager fingers
(with patient eyes)
renewing remaking what otherwise we should have thrown away
(and whose brook-bright flower soft bird quick voice loves children and sunlight and mountains)
in april (but if he should smile)
comes nobody you’ll know
when faces called flowers float out of the ground Dominick Argento
e.e. cummings
when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
it’s april (yes april, my darling) it’s spring
it’s april (yes april, my darling) it’s spring
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)
when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving
but keeping is dotting and nothing and nonsense
alive we’re alive dear it’s (kiss me now) spring
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains are dancing, the mountains)
when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
it’s spring (all our night becomes day) o it’s spring
it’s spring (all our night becomes day) o it’s spring
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing, are dancing)
o, it’s spring
Will there really be a morning? Ricky Ian Gordon
Emily Dickinson
Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains if I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Does it come from famous places of which I have never heard?
Oh, some scholar, oh some sailor, oh some wise man from the skies
Please to tell this little pilgrim where the place called morning lies.
Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains if I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Does it come from famous places of which I have never heard?
Oh, some scholar, oh some sailor, oh some wise man from the skies
Please to tell this little pilgrim where the place called morning lies.
Once I was Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon
Once I was, I was, I was
There were ribbons in my hair
There were leaves of streaming gold everywhere
If a boy said hello I would hide trembling so, trembling so
Now I barely know what the meaning of “no” is
Now I am, I am, I am
Past an audience I stare what is gold is how the lights touch my hair
All the boys turn to men, all the leaves change again, change again
Still I answer yes though I know what will happen
As these phases come and go, music tells me what I need to know.
The Red Dress Ricky Ian Gordon
Dorothy Parker
I always saw, I always said if I were
grown and free
I’d buy a gown of reddest red as fine as you could see
To wear out walking sleek and slow upon a summer’s day
And there’d be one to see me so and flip the world away
And he would be a gallant lad with stars behind his eyes
And hair like metal in the sun and lips too warm for lies
I always saw us gay and good high honored in the town
Now I am grown to womanhood
I have the silly gown
Coyotes Ricky Ian Gordon
Ray Underwood
I understand you coyotes; I
understand the song you croon
I never did before, before I hungered for his kisses underneath an amber moon
Oh how I loathe you, coyotes, and everything you know of me
You sing of my demise, that laughing in your eyes turns all my love to bitter mockery
Yes, coyotes, you tell of all that I am dreaming of
Yes, coyotes, you tell of these fools fool enough to love
Laugh on, laugh on you wild coyotes.
With angels on you razor backs who tell me not to stay and beckon me away
To run the ridges with your frenzied packs
No man may own my soul from off this frozen knoll
I’ll scream it till I turn that moon to wax!
The Secrets of the Old Samuel Barber
William Butler Yeats
I have old women’s secrets now
That had those of the young
Madge tells me what I dared not think when my blood was strong
And what had drowned a lover once sounds like an old song
Though Margery is stricken dumb if thrown in Madge’s way
We three make up a solitude
For none alive today can know the stories that we know or say the things we say
How such a man pleased women most of all that are gone
How such a pair loved many years and such a pair, but one
Stories of the bed of straw or the bed of down.
Promiscuity Samuel Barber
9th Century
I do not know with whom Edan will sleep
But I do know that fair Edan will not sleep alone
Sure on this shining night Samuel Barber
James Agee
Sure on this shining night of star
made shadows round
Kindness must watch for me this side the ground
The late year lies down the north
All is healed
All is health
High summer holds the earth
Hearts all whole
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder
Wandering far alone of shadows on the stars
In the Wilderness Samuel Barber
Robert Graves
He, of his gentleness thirsting and
hungering walked in the wilderness
Soft words of grace he spoke unto lost desert folk that listen wondering
He heard the bittern call from ruined palace wall answered him brotherly
He held communion with the she pelican of lonely piety
Basilisk, cockatrice flocked to his homilies
With mail of dread device with monstrous barbed stings with eager dragon eyes
Great bats on leathern wings and old blind broken things mean in their miseries
Then ever with him went of all his wanderings comrade with ragged coat
Gaunt ribs poor innocent, bleeding foot burning throat
The guiles young scapegoat
For forty night and days followed in Jesus’ ways
Sure guard behind him kept
Tears like a lover wept
Nocturne Ralph Vaughn Williams
Walt Whitman
Whispers of heavenly death murmured I hear
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorales’
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low
Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing
(Or is it the plashing of tears? The measureless water of human tears)
I see, just see skyward, great cloud masses
Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing
With at times a half dimmed saddened far off star
Appearing and disappearing
(Some parturition, rather)
Some solemn immortal birth, on the frontiers to eyes impenetrable
(Some soul is passing over)
A Clear Midnight Ralph Vaughn Williams
Walt Whitman
This is thy hour, O soul thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best
Night, sleep, death and the stars
Joy, shipmate, joy! Ralph Vaughn Williams
Walt Whitman
Joy, shipmate, joy!
(Pleased to my soul at death I cry)
Our life is closed, our life begins
The long, long anchorage we leave
The ship is clear at last, she leaps,
She swiftly courses to the shore
Joy, shipmate, joy!