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Catalog: Song Information: Page 23 of 83Please keep this site alive by contributing song listings and other information to the catalog. See the bottom of every catalog page for how. "From Blank to Blank"Song not from a cycle or set
This entry contributed by G&K around 11/10/98
Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Andante. Fragile, transparent piano part underneath extremely quiet vocal line. F5 must be pp quality. Rather short song. Text Comments: Full text: From Blank to blank a threadless way I pushed mechanic feet. To stop or perish or advance alike indifferent. If end I gained, if end beyond indefinite disclosed--I shut my eyes and groped as well, 'twas lighter to be blind. This entry contributed by G&K around 11/10/98. The contributor(s) looked over the song. "from watching the moon"Song 16 (extractable) from set haiku
This entry contributed by G&K around 10/14/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: "Very gently and freely". Dolce close in GM after a more ethereal, impressionistic start. No technical challenges except a beautiful pp. Piano closes with a reprise of vocal line. Text Comments: The narrator's "friendly old shadow" led him/her home from observing the moon. This entry contributed by G&K around 10/14/98. The contributor(s) looked over the song. "Genoa: Invitation"Song 4 (extractable) from set Ladies of Their Nights and Days
This entry contributed by G&K around 10/16/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: A Genovese prostitute, down on her luck, dark and moody (although sometimes played for comic effect). Duration: 3:15. [ed.: hangs low] Text Comments: Beginning of lyrics: "Bags under my eyes, rags for my clothes, black and blue thighs, a frostbitten nose. In spite of the fleas you might as well try me. I'm here to please you, so please, why not buy me?" [more] This entry contributed by Richard Pearson Thomas around 10/16/98. The contributor(s) composed the song. "George Hugnet"Song 2 (extractable) from set Two Stein Songs
This entry contributed by G&K around 11/26/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: to be annotated by the composer in early '99 Text Comments: Stein translated Georges Hugnet's long poem "Enfance" but then they got in an argument which ended their friendship. Beginning of text: "George and Genevieve. Geronimo with a with whether they thought they were with whether. Without their finding it out. Without. Their finding it out. With whether. George whether they were about. With their finding their whether it finding it out whether with their finding about it out." [more] Recordings: Opus One Records, catalog number 49 (LP only), available from the company at P.O. Box 604, Grenville, ME 04441 This entry contributed by G&K around 11/26/98. The contributor(s) looked over the song. "Georgia"Song 2 (extractable) from set Three Soupault Songs
This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/22/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Duration 4:00 Smoky, resigned -- a cabaret song. Text Comments: (Translation) I do not sleep Georgia I hurl spears in the night Georgia I am waiting Georgia I am thinking Georgia The fire is like snow Georgia The night is my neighbor Georgia I hear each and every noise Georgia I see the smoke that rises and wisps Georgia I walk like a wolf in the shadows Georgia I am running here is a suburban street Georgia Here is a city that is the same and I've never seen it before Georgia I hurry on and this is the wind Georgia and cold and silence and fear Georgia I escape Georgia I am running Georgia the clouds are low they will fall Georgia I open my arms Georgia I do not close my eyes Georgia I call Georgia I cry Georgia I am calling Georgia I call you Georgia Would you come again Georgia Soon Georgia Georgia Georgia Georgia Georgia I do not sleep Georgia I am waiting for you Georgia This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/22/98. The contributor(s) composed the song. "Germs"Song 1 (extractable) from set Three by the Roadside
This entry contributed by G&K around 6/20/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Song cycle is 6:30. Somewhat disjunct, somewhat challenging to learn notes and rhythms, well-written for voice. Not entirely atonal but often very dissonant. A good song and should be programmed. Text Comments: The beginnings (or germs) of everything (stars, humanity, the unknown and known), "...stand provided for in a handful of space, which I extend my arm and half enclose with my hand...." A song of awe, typical Whitman transcendental nature observations. Requires excellent interpretation for audience to understand these philosophical musings, I would think. Recordings: none? This entry contributed by G&K around 6/20/98. The contributor(s) looked over the song. "Giant Snail"Song 3 (not extractable) from set Rain Forest
This entry contributed by G&K around 1/1/99
Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Andante. Requires pp F4. Relatively low tessitura, like the other baritone cycle in the song. Hoiby's style is accessible, attractive, and interesting. Text Comments: The rain has stopped. The waterfall will roar like that all night. I have come out to take a walk and feed. I have set myself a goal, a certain rock, but it may well be dawn before I get there. Although I move ghost-like and my floating edges barely graze the ground, I am heavy, heavy, heavy. It is only with the greatest effort of my will that I can rise above the smallest stones and sticks. And I must not let myself be distracted by those rough spears of grass. Don't touch them. Draw back. Withdrawal is always best. The rain has stopped. The mountains of black rock give off such clouds of steam! Shiny streamers are hanging down their sides. When this occurs, we have a saying that the Snail gods have come down in haste. I could never descend such steep escarpments, much less dream of climbing them. That toad was too big, too, like me. His eyes beseeched my love. Our proportions horrify our neighbors. Rest a minute. Relax. Flattened to the ground, my body is like a pallid decomposing leaf. What's that tapping on my shell? Nothing. Let's go on. My sides move in rhythmic waves, just off the ground, from front to back, the wake of a ship, wax-white water, or a slowly melting floe. I am cold, cold, cold as ice. My blind, white bull's head was a Cretan scare-head; degenerate, my four horns that can't attack. The sides of my mouth are now my hands. They press the earth and suck it hard. Ah, but I know my shell is beautiful, and high, and glazed, and shining. I know it well, although I have not seen it. Its curled white lip is of the finest enamel. Inside, it is as smooth as silk, and I, I fill it to perfection. My wide wake shines, now it is growing dark. I leave a lovely opalescent ribbon: I know this. But O! I am too big. I feel it. Pity me. If and when I reach the rock, I shall go into a certain crack there for the night. The waterfall below will vibrate through my shell and body all night long. In that steady pulsing I can rest. All night I shall be like a sleeping ear. This entry contributed by G&K around 1/1/99. The contributor(s) looked over the song. "Giant Toad"Song 1 (not extractable) from set Rain Forest
This entry contributed by G&K around 1/1/99
Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Lento; later, Moderato; alternates. often feels faster than Moderato because of meter changes. The tessitura is actually relatively low, and optional notes at the end replace the high G with E-flats; this brings the top note of the piece to an F. The tessitura suggests to me that even a bass-baritone could perform this, as long as he had solid and beautiful access to his top. The piano part in the vocal score looks virtuosic (as reductions are, usually), but I am not a pianist. Hoiby's style is very accessible, attractive, and interesting to my ear. About 7 minutes long. Text Comments: I am too big. Too big by far. Pity me. My eyes bulge and hurt. They are my one great beauty, even so. They see too much, above, below. And yet, there is not much to see. The rain has stopped. The mist is gathering on my skin in drops. The drops run down my skin and drip beneath my belly. Perhaps the droplets on my mottled hide are pretty, like dewdrops, all silver on a moldering leaf? They chill me through and through. Now I shall get beneath that overhanging ledge. Slowly. Hop. Hop. Hop. That was too far. I'm standing up. The lichen's gray, and rough to my front feet. Sit down. Turn facing out. It's safer. Don't breathe until the snail gets by. But we go travelling through the same weathers. Swallow the air and mouthfuls of cold mist. Give voice, just once. Vuuoong... O how it echoed from the rock! What a profound angelic bell I rang! Once, some naughty children picked me up, me and two brothers. They set us down again some where, and in our mouths they put lit cigarettes. We could not help but smoke them. I though it was the death of me. But when I was entirely filled with smoke, when my slack mouth was burning, and all my tripes were hot and dry, they let us go. But I was sick for days. I have big Shoulders, like a boxer. They are not muscle, however, and their color is dark. They are my sacs of poison, my burden and my great responsibility. Big wings of poison, folded on my back. I am an angel in disguise. My wings are evil, but not deadly. If I will it, the poison would break through, blue-black, and dangerous to all. Blue-black fumes would rise upon the air. Beware, you frivolous crab. This entry contributed by G&K around 1/1/99. The contributor(s) looked over the song. Please contribute to the catalog
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