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Catalog: Song Information: Page 62 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. "The Cradle Will Rock"Song not from a cycle or set
This entry contributed by G&K around 5/8/99
Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Allegro marcia. Powerful and angry, with many surprising harmonies. Text Comments: Upon the topmost bough of yonder tree now, like bees in their hives, the lords and their lackeys and wives, a-swingin' Rock-a-bye baby in a nice cradle. Then they remark the air is chilly up there The sky beetle-browed, Can that be a cloud over there? And then they put out their hands and feel stormy weather! A birdie ups and cries, "Boys, this looks bad. You haven't used your eyes. You'll wish you had. That's thunder, that's lightning and it's going to surround you! No winder, those storm-birds seem to circle around you! Well you can't climb down and you can't sit still. That's a storm that's going to last until the final wind blows, and when the wind blows The cradle will rock! [one more verse, similar] See Marc Blitzstein: Songs (Sharp, Holvik, Blier) (Recordings) This entry contributed by G&K around 5/8/99. The contributor(s) heard the song. "The Craftsmen of the Little Box"
This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Duration 0:50 Urgent, in 5/8, the piano part starts as a low ostinato. Text Comments: Don't open the little box Heaven's hat will fall out of her Don't close her for any reason She'll bite the trouser leg of eternity Don't drop her on the earth The sun's eggs will break inside her Don't throw her in the air Earth's bones will break inside her Don't hold her in your hands The dough of the stars will go sour inside her What are you doing for God's sake Don't let her get out of your sight This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98. The contributor(s) composed the song. "The Diary (April, 1919)"Song 1 (not extractable) from set From the Diary of Virginia Woolf
This entry contributed by G&K around 11/12/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: The musical lines in voice and piano are lyrical while still being somewhat angular--it is based on a twelve tone row, although the music is very welcoming to my ear. Requires pp Gb5. "Mosso e pensieroso" quarter = 84. Text Comments: Beginning of text: "What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind. I should like . . . I should like it to resemble some deep old desk . . . In which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through." more--she wants the diary to magically coalesce to reflect our life. Recordings: 4 recordings at Amazon.com. The one linked below is a special order at Amazon (there are two that are available for almost immediate shipping) but the one below is Janet Baker's recording and includes some RealAudio clips you can hear over the net. See Argento: From the Diary of Virginia Woolf (Baker, Isepp) (Recordings) This entry contributed by G&K around 11/12/98. The contributor(s) looked over the song. "The Dong with a luminous nose"Song not from a cycle or set
This entry contributed by CounterPoint Musical Services around 9/16/99
Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments:
A 19 page song (or even cantata!) that could be appropriate for mezzo, baritone, or conceivable bass-baritone. Different sections of the poem are set almost as set pieces, but the song continues through all of them. Simultaneously hilarious and touching. Al three soloists are challenged musically. The following is the forward found in the edition: Text Comments:
When awful darkness and silence reign, Over the great Gromboolian Plain, Through the long, long wintry nights When the angry breakers roar as they beat on the rocky shore--When storm clouds brood on the towering heights of the Hills of the Chankley Bore The through the vast and gloomy dark there moves what seems a spark with silvery rays, Piercing the cool black night, A meteor strange and bright Hither and thither the vision strays, a single lurid light. Slowly it wanders, pauses, creeps; Anon it sparkles, flashes, leaps. And ever, as onward it gleaming goes, a light on the Bong-tree stem it throws And those who watch at that midnight hour from Hall or terrace or Lofty Tower, Cry as the wild light passes along, "The Dong, The Dong, The wandering Dong through the forest goes! The Dong, The Dong--The Dong with a luminous nose--nose--nose" This entry contributed by G&K around 9/16/99. The contributor(s) looked over the song. "The Dreadful Has Already Happened"
This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/22/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Duration 4:25 A nightmare made worse by the gentle almost matter-of-fact telling, ends with a big piano postlude synthesizing material from all the previous songs. This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/22/98. The contributor(s) composed the song. "The Earth Laughs"Song 7 (not extractable) from set The Long Shadow of Lincoln
This entry contributed by G&K around 9/7/98
Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: A final relaxation from the tension of songs 4 and 5. Quarter note = 72, 1:40. Not difficult for anyone involved (voice, violin, cello, piano). Text Comments: Full text (see songs 1 and 5 for other full texts): The earth laughs, the sun laughs over ev'ry wise harvest of man, over man looking toward peace by the light of the hard old teaching: "We must disenthrall ourselves." Recordings: none--see comments in song 1 This entry contributed by G&K around 9/7/98. The contributor(s) rehearsed the song. "The Economy of Vegetation"
This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: Duration 0:30 Marked 'warlike'--a furious onslaught against garden pests. Text Comments: Sylphs! on each oak-bed wound the wormy galls, With pygmy spears, or crush the venom'd balls; Fright the green locust from his foamy bed, Unweave the caterpillar's gluey thread; Chase the fierce earwig, scare the bloated toad, Arrest the snail upon his slimy road. This entry contributed by Andy Vores around 11/21/98. The contributor(s) composed the song. "The End of the World"Song 8 (extractable) from set We Happy Few
This entry contributed by G&K around 1/11/99 Know this song? Add your review! Music Comments: A disturbed, disturbing chromatic and dissonant circus waltz gives way to slow block chords after the top blows off. Very effective. High F# marked as "shouted." Text Comments: Quite unexpectedly, as Vaserot The armless ambidextrian was lighting A match between his great and second toe, And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting the neck of Madame Sossman while the drum Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough In waltztime swinging Jocko by the thumb--Quite unexpectedly the top blew off: And there, there overhead, there, there hung over Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes, There in the starless dark the poise, the hover, There with vast wings across the cancelled skies, There in the sudden blackness the black pall of nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all This entry contributed by G&K around 1/11/99. The contributor(s) looked over the song. Please contribute to the catalog
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