Song and Verse: Crumb, Duke, Bolcom, Gordon, Price, Cage, Larsen, & Hundley

George Crumb | Three Early Songs

Night
Let it be forgotten
Wind Elegy (W.E.W.)

Texts

Night

How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory yonder Moon divine
Rolls through the dark-blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert-circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!

Robert Southey, from Thalaba the Destroyer


Let it be forgotten

Let it be forgotten as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was burning gold.
Let it be forgotten forever and ever.
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten,
Long and long ago.
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed foot-fall
In a long forgotten snow.

Sara Teasdale, from Flame and Shadow


Wind Elegy (W.E.W.)

Only the wind knows he is gone,
Only the wind grieves,
The sun shines, the fields are sown,
Sparrows mate in the eaves;

But I heard the wind in the pines he planted
And the hemlocks overhead,
"His acres wake, for the year turns,
But he is asleep," it said.

Sara Teasdale

John Duke | Songs

I carry your heart
Morning in Paris
Shelling Peas

Texts

i carry your heart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e. e. cummings


Morning in Paris

Early in the morning
Of a lovely summer day,
As they lowered the bright awning
At the outdoor café,
I was breakfasting on croissants
And café au lait
Under greenery like scenery,
Rue François 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 François Premier.
I was twenty and a lover
And in Paradise to stay
Very early in the morning
Of a lovely summer day.

Robert Hillyer


Shelling Peas

Hear the shells crack!
See the people fall!
Hear them thud and thump and bump and crash!
See the people fall!
Hear them:—
What people?
The people in the peapods.
Small people, tall people,
Soft people, hard people,
Old people, young people.
But all of them green people.
We crush their homes,
We drown them with water,
We stifle them with seasonings
And burn them with fire,
And eat them with teeth,
And absorb their heat with blood.
What people?
The poor little green people,
Green people, green people.

Jessica Jackson

William Bolcom | Minicabs

Inspired in part by Carrie Jacobs Bond’s Half-Minute Songs, these “minicabs” — mini-cabaret songs — are fashioned from sometimes one-line sketches in Arnold Weinstein’s papers, at other times certain phrases that had been successfully kited from show to opera to play without ever previously finding homes.          
– William Bolcom

I Feel Good
People Change
Those
Food Song #1
Food Song #2
I Will Never Forgive You
Songette
Not Even a Haiku
Maxim #1
Maxim #2
Anyone
Finale: Mystery of the Song?

Texts

I Feel Good

I feel good about something
and I’m going to find out what it is!

People Change

People change
into what they are.

Those

Those who want to all the time
do it less than those who don’t.

Food Song #1

Are you anti-pasto
or pro-volone?

Food Song #2

French food — flambé.
Mexican food — olé.
Jewish food — oy vay.

I Will Never Forgive You

I will never forgive you
for my behavior.


Songette

You lie through your teeth!
but one little tooth says,
“How can you lie?
You don’t know the truth.”


Not Even a Haiku

I rub your name.
My life appears.

Maxim #1

Half started, half begun.

Maxim #2

You can whack a baby’s behind
with a dead turkey but
don’t spill tomato aspic
on the Law!

Anyone

Anyone who cares enough about you
to steal your mail can’t be all bad.

Finale: Mystery of the Song?

Mystery of the song?
It means what it means
and you mean what you mean
and how the two do together
spells the song.

Arnold Weinstein

Ricky Ian Gordon | Songs

Souvenir
The Spring and the Fall
The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Texts

Souvenir

Just a rainy day or two
In a windy tower,
That was all I had of you-
Saving half an hour.

Marred by greeting passing groups
In a cinder walk,
Near some naked blackberry hoops
Dim with purple chalk.

I remember three or four
Things you said in spite,
And an ugly coat you wore,
Plaided black and white.

Just a rainy day or two
And a bitter word.
Why do I remember you
As a singing bird?

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

The Spring and the Fall

In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.

In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise.
And broke my heart, in little ways.

Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There’s much that’s fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
‘Tis not love’s going hurts my days,
But that it went in little ways.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
 

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

William Butler Yeats

Florence B. Price | Songs

Out of the South Blew a Wind
An April Day

Texts

Out of the South Blew a Wind

Out of the South blew a soft sweet wind,
And on its breath was a song
Of fields and flow’rs and leafy bow’rs,
And bees that hum all day long.

Out from the South blew a soft low wind;
On its wings was the joy of a dream
And it hovered so near I was sure I could hear
The call of the woodland and stream.

Out of the South blew a soft sweet wind.
And on its breath was a song.

Fannie Carter Woods


An April Day

On such a day as this I think,
On such a day as this
When earth and sky and nature’s world are clad in April’s bliss;
And balmy zephyrs gently waft
Up on your cheek a kiss,

Sufficient is it just to live.
On such a day as this.

Joseph F. Cotter

John Cage | Experiences No. 2 (for unaccompanied voice)

The text is from III, one of Sonnets–Unrealities of Tulips and Chimneys (1923) by e. e. cummings.  The last two lines have been omitted.  Other lines and a word have been repeated or used in an order other than that of the original.  The humming passages (not part of the poem) are interpolations.               
– John Cage

Text

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always) and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

—turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.

e. e. cummings

Libby Larsen | Song (for solo soprano)

Text

Song

but we’ve the may
(for you are in love
and i am) to sing,
my darling: while
old worlds and young
(big little and all
worlds) merely have
the must to say

and the when to do
is exactly theirs
(dull worlds or keen;
big little and all)
But lose or win
(come heaven, come hell)
precisely ours
is the now to grow
it’s love by whom
(my beautiful friend)

the gift to live
is without until:
but pitiful they’ve
(big little and all)
no power beyond
the trick to seem

their joys turn woes
and right goes wrong
(dim worlds or bright;
big little and all)
whereas (my sweet)
our summer in fall
and in winter our spring
is the yes of yes

love was and shall
be this only truth
(a dream of a deed,
born not to die)
but worlds are made
of hello and goodbye:
glad sorry or both
(big little and all)

e. e. cummings

Richard Hundley | Two Settings of Emily Dickinson

Heart, We Will Forget Him
Letter from Emily

Texts

Heart, We Will Forget Him

Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!

Letter from Emily

Dear Friend, — We want you to wake — Easter has come and gone.
        Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.
        Quickened toward all celestial things by crows I heard this morning,
        accept a loving caw from a
                 Nameless friend

Emily Dickinson

Richard Hundley | Will There Really be a Morning?

Text

Will There Really be a Morning?

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?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?

Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Men from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called “Morning” lies!

Emily Dickinson