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Catalog: Song Information: Page 20 of 83

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"Epithalamion"

Song 4 (extractable) from set Welsh Songs

Music:

by Vores, Andy (Welsh, 1956 - )

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by Abse, Dannie (Welsh, 1923 - )

in English

from a gender-neutral perspective

This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98

Editions:

bass clef, B2 - G4 (original key), medium low tessitura, 1 voice and 1 piano [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Text Comments: Singing, today I married my white girl beautiful in a barley field. Green on thy finger a grass blade curled, so with this ring I thee wed, I thee wed, and send our love to the loveless world of all the living and all the dead. Now, no more than vulnerable human, we, more than one, less than two, are nearly ourselves in a barley field - and only love is the rent that's due though the bailiffs of time return anew to all the living but not the dead. Shipwrecked, the sun sinks down harbours of a sky, unloads its liquid cargoes of marigolds, and I and my white girl lie still in the barley - who else wishes to speak, what more can be said by all the living against all the dead? Come then all you wedding guests: green ghost of trees, gold of barley, you blackbird priests in the field, you wind that shakes the pansy head fluttering on a stalk like a butterfly; come the living and come the dead. Listen flowers, birds, winds, worlds, tell all today that I married more than a white girl in the barley - for today I took to my human bed flower and bird and wind and world, and all the living and all the dead.

This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98.  The contributor(s) composed the song.

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"Ernestine Saunders"

Song 1 (extractable) from set Portraits
(Audio clip needs 28.8K connection or better and RealPlayer G2)

Music:

by Locklair, Dan (American)

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by Wilson, Emily Herring (American)

from the author's Arise Up and Call Her Blessed [Iron Mountain Press, 1982]

in English

from a female perspective

This entry contributed by anonymous around 9/29/99

Editions:

treble clef, C4 - Bb5 (original key), high tessitura, 1 voice and 1 piano [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Music Comments: Marked "Like a dreamy waltz" at the beginning, then "Still like a waltz but slower" when the voice enters. Returns to first tempo with mention of France. Requires strong G5--held and repeated at last repetition of Ernestine's name. Powerful song.

Text Comments: So many years I spent dreaming of France. In Paris they called me Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! I was walking on air. In Alabame, in my buried world, shopkeepers passed me on the street and did not see me. Their hats were raised to others. And I walked in the shadows where they could ignore me and could not say my name familiar on their lips: Ernestine.

This entry contributed by anonymous around 9/29/99.  The contributor(s) looked over the song.

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"Eternal Love"

Song not from a cycle or set
(Audio clip needs 28.8K connection or better and RealPlayer G2)

Music:

by Stouffer, Paul M. (American, 1916 - )

premiered by Shannon E. Coulter, Soprano

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by Stouffer, Paul M. (American, 1916 - )

in English

from a gender-neutral perspective

This entry contributed by Paul M. Stouffer around 3/7/99

Editions:

treble clef, C4 - F5 (original key), high tessitura, 1 voice and 1 piano [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Music Comments: Tempo: Lento=70 Time: 3:10 Smooth, heartfelt interpretation for both singer and accompaniment Audience: Educated, Serious Music Lovers Strength: Well rounded phrases and well architecturally molded melody.

Text Comments: Somewhere in the lifestream of Man a Love exists like an atom in time, An emotional nucleus, focused on trust, friendship and necessity. An amorphous form ever-bearing Seed; a positive charge igniting the Heart Touching the Soul with feeling The earth resolves upon its axis turning day into night and night into day. Time undefined, place unspecified, moments stretch to years and fears preside. Love comes along and all doubts subside, Humans tossed about, Lovers having doubts Somewhere within this vast world of ours True Love finds ways to mend broken dreams. Somewhere within this Lifespan True Love is always near; True Love can lessen Fears, True Love will always find a way.

This entry contributed by Paul M. Stouffer around 3/7/99.  The contributor(s) composed the song.

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"Etude"

Song 5 (extractable) from set Mouvements du coeur

Music:

by Preger, Leo

premiered by Doda Conrad, bass

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by De Vilmorin, Louise

in French

from a gender-neutral perspective

This entry contributed by G&K around 1/20/99

Editions:

bass clef, A2 - D4 (original key), medium low tessitura, 1 voice and 1 piano [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Music Comments: Simple and beautiful. Moderato. Vocal line often reminiscent of plainchant, both because of modal sound and because of frequent meter changes between 3/4, 4/4 and 2/4.

Text Comments: Seigneur, venez à mon secours, Tendez-moi votre main si grande Qu'elle est le dôme des amours, Des océans, des monts, des landes, De l'éternel et de nos jours. Tendez-moi, Seigneur, ne serait-ce Qu'un de vos doigts pour m'y poser, Emmenez-moi me reposer Loin de tout ce qui me délaisse Et loin de ce que j'ai osé. Écartez-moi de la rivière, Conduisez-moi sur le chemin Qui mène au coeur de la prière. Tendez-moi votre grande main D'où sort la nuit et la lumière. Tout m'est trop proche et trop lointain, Mon coeur est mort, mon âme pleure, Le temps ne m'apporte plus d'heures, Mes battement se sont éteints Sous un pas quittant ma demeure J'ai rendu le dernier soupir, Seigneur écoutez la prière De celui qui voudrait dormir, Fermez mes rouges paupières Car j'ai grand sommeil de mourir.

My best attempt at translation:
Lord, come to my aid; offer me your hand so great that it is the dome of loves, of the oceans, of the mountains, of the land, of the eternal, and of our days. Offer me, Lord, to put only one of your fingers down here for me, take me to rest far from all who abandon me and far from that which I dared. Remove me from the river, conduct me on the path that leads to the heart of the prayer. Offer me your great hand from which comes the night and the daylight. Everything is too close to me and too far away, my heart is dead, my soul cries, time brings me no more hours, my heartbeats themselves are extinguished beneath a step leaving my residence. I returned the last sigh, Lord, listen to the prayer from one who wants to sleep, and close my red eyelids, because I have the great tiredness of death.

This entry contributed by G&K around 1/20/99.  The contributor(s) looked over the song.

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"Evangeline"

Song not from a cycle or set

Music:

by Forsyth, Malcolm (Canadian, 1936 - )

premiered by Heidi Klassen, soprano

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (American, 1807 - 1882)

in English

from a gender-neutral perspective

This entry contributed by CounterPoint Musical Services around 10/6/99

Editions:

treble clef, G3 - C5 (original key), high tessitura, 1 voice and trumpet obligato, chamber orchestra (strings, fl, ob, 2 cl, bsn, 2 horn, 1 perc, harp), women's chorus (live or pre-recorded) [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Music Comments: This approximately 55-minute long cantata is divided into four parts: introduction (4'46"), part the first (19'06"), part the second (15'18"), epilogue (6'29"). All but part two was premiered in 1994 in Winnipeg by the Laughton Humphreys Duo, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and Simon Streatfeild, conductor. The full piece was premiered in 1997 by the same ensemble except with Heidi Klassen, soprano, as the vocal soloist. The vocal part contains many alternate passages which can make various passages variously easier and (more often) more difficult. While tessitura changes, the range essentially stays the same. One sprechstimme scream calls for an approximate E5, but this was not included in the range listing here because of the approximation involved. The following is the six-paragraph introduction to the piano-vocal score.

This work was commissioned by the Laughton-Humphreys Duo with financial assistance from the Canada Council. It was the result of a long-held dream of trumpeter Stuart Laughton in collaboration with conductor Simon Streatfeild to bring to the concert hall an adaptation of Longfellow's celebrated epic poem of the uprooting and exile of French settlers in Nova Scotia by the British crown in 1755. "This is the forest primeval..." is surely one of the most loved of opening lines learned by the American children of a generation or two ago.

Composer Malcolm Forsyth was persuaded to set the text as far back in time as 1990, and began the task in earnest in 1993 while on a Fellowship at the Carmago Foundation in Cassis, France.

The Introduction is an atmospheric setting of an evocative opening scene describing the land of Acadie (now Nova Scotia) and the little town of Grand-Pré on the shores of the basin of Minas. Soprano voice intones the famous lines accompanied by soft strings and sprays of woodwind color.

Part the First describes the gentle maid Evangeline, "pride of the village", her betrothal to Gabriel and the subsequent tragedy of the burning of the town by the British military, An opening dance featuring solo trumpet is a happy mood gives way to dark and foreboding cellos, the snare drum heralding the Governor's dreaded royal order of the exile and a passionate Dirge as the people are marched to the waiting ships. The sound of the women in the little church rises above the clamour, singing the hymn "Sacre coeur de Jesus". The drama heightens steadily, until suddenly flames are seen as the village is torched.

Part the second opens with a soprano aria in which the longing of the exiles for their destroyed homes mingles with a description of their plight as they sail in makeshift craft down the rivers and tributaries of the Mississippi towards the haven of Louisiana, still ruled by the French king. The most heart-rending moment of Longfellow's poem occurs when the two barges, one carrying Evangeline and the other Gabriel (for they were torn apart in the tumult of the departure years before) actually pass one another in the reeds at night, but unaware, they sail on. An extended dialogue between soprano and natural trumpet evokes the scene. The tragedy is played to a conclusion when, years later in a town near New Orleans, Evangeline, now a nun in a convent, recognises the aged and sick Gabriel on his deathbed in the sanitorium. Her anguished scream and his last gasp fade to silence. A solo viola accompanies the declamatory lines.

The Epilogue is a sad reminiscence of the vicissitudes of those earlier settlers' lives by the grandmothers who experienced it, to their young descendants who listen raptly before the firesides of cottagers who were eventually able to return to Acadie...and always the forest primeval, listening, unchanged, bearing witness. The lament of the solo flugelhorn precedes the telling of the tale and together with the soprano, they spin the epic to its inevitable conclusion.

Text Comments: While the full text is far too long to enter here, here is the brief introduction to the epic poem.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic. This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman? Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of the Acadian farmers, -- Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands? List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest; List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

This entry contributed by G&K around 10/6/99.  The contributor(s) looked over the song.

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"even in castles"

Song 11 (extractable) from set haiku

Music:

by Kohn, Steven Mark (American, 1957 - )

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by Kyoriku (Japanese)

in English

from a gender-neutral perspective

This entry contributed by G&K around 10/14/98

Editions:

treble clef, E4 - D5 (original key), medium tessitura, 1 voice and 1 piano [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Music Comments: "Stately and solemn, feel in slow 'one'." "distantly." quarter = 80-84. EM feel with interesting dissonances. A bit more than a minute long. Alternating rolled and block chords in the piano.

Text Comments: The power of the winter wind can reach even into castles.

This entry contributed by G&K around 10/14/98.  The contributor(s) looked over the song.

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"Expatriate"

Song not from a cycle or set

Music:

by Blitzstein, Marc (American, 1905 - 1964)

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by Blitzstein, Marc (American, 1905 - 1964)

from the author's this is a song (words and music) from No For an Answer

in English

from a gender-neutral perspective

This entry contributed by G&K around 5/8/99

Editions:

treble clef, C4 - G5 (original key), medium high tessitura, 1 voice and 1 piano [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Music Comments: Marked "brightly", then "Poco tragico" after the stock market crash, but then back to a rollicking close at the very end. Completed by Leonard Lehrman.

Text Comments: I want to be an emigré the Hemingway and walk and talk and look the way a hero looks In all the latest ultramodern books. It's heaven! It's murder! Life's only South of France for me or Italy--I'm home in Nice or Rome the way the Romans are. I always do my roamin' near the bar. And how! I love that cryptic, elliptic mode of speech, Somewhere's a ruin, Somewhere a beach, Grapes and rapes within my reach, Oh, ain't it great, I'm an expatriate! [spoken] But wait! oh didn't they tell you, the lira's up, the dollar's down? [announcing] Stockmarket crash blamed for failure of the Bank of the United States, New York City. [spoken] You mean we all gotta go home? [sung] Now we can't be an emigré the Hemingway and walk and talk and look the way a hero looks In all the fancy ultramodern books. My troubled soul, it had a chance in Southern France. I'm so at peace in Nice, I'm like a little child. O you should see the little child run wild! It's rotten but what can you do? Forgotten the way to tell time, ain't you? Never early, never late What year is it, 'twenty-eight? I said I never, never want to go back home. I always want to stay in Nice or Rome. But if they're gonna make me go back home To be return'd to me home state, To go to be an ex-Expatriate, I'll go back--I won't argue, I'll go back As for drinkin' I'll be drinkin' I'll be stinkin', Gonna open their horizon, With European civilizin'. I'll arrive with all my books and banners, loud Hosannas, Drums and pianas, dried bananas, my bandanas; my bad manners--I'll be an emigré the Hemingway back home!

This entry contributed by G&K around 5/8/99.  The contributor(s) looked over the song.

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"Factory Windows Are Always Broken"

Song 1 (extractable) from set Five American Songs
(Audio clip needs 28.8K connection or better and RealPlayer G2)

Music:

by Vores, Andy (Welsh, 1956 - )

premiered by Karol Bennett, soprano

in a 20th Century Classical style

Text:

by Lindsay, Vachel (American, 1879 - 1931)

in English

from a gender-neutral perspective

This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98

Editions:

treble clef, Eb4 - A5 (original key), high tessitura, 1 voice and 1 piano [GET IT!]

Know this song? Add your review!

Music Comments: Duration 1:00 Doesn't let up much; relentless piano part, a slightly arch setting.

Text Comments: Factory windows are always broken. Somebody's always throwing bricks, Somebody's always heaving cinders, Playing ugly Yahoo tricks. Factory windows are always broken, Other windows are left alone. No one throws through the chapel-window The bitter, snarling derisive stone. Factory windows are always broken. Something or other is going wrong. Something is rotten - I think in Denmark. End of the factory-window song.

This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98.  The contributor(s) composed the song.

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