Song Cycle (Completed 1st and 2nd Movement)

This is my plan for a song cycle I am writing on some of the poems of W.H. Auden. It will consist of Three poems with one of the poems being in two parts with an introduction (so, five movements total). I originally believed I wanted to use a piano/vocal combination, however... I really think I ought to orchestrate it. some of the parts are just TOO hard for a pianist, and I believe it will be a very nice chamber piece. I know that this could mean that I will not be able to have it performed most places, however, I am going to originally score it for piano and THEN orchestrate, therefore keeping the solo piano or optional chamber orchestration. I have been planning motifs and such for about a year now and written half of some of the movements. FINALLY, in the next few days, I am going to bring this work together.

This is probably one of my largest and most ambitious works so far; I know the Age of Anxiety is also a poem by W.H. Auden, and that inspired the music of Leonard Bernstein, one of my heroes.

I. Introduction and Opening Statements:

"Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods."

II. Vintage (Part I)

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,

"Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good."

III. Lullabye

"Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

"Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.

"Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

"Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find our mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love."

IV. Vintage (Part II)

"O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; 'O Johnny, let's play':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

"O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity Matinee Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
'Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

"Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver and golden silk gown;
'O John I'm in heaven,' I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

"O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
'O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

"O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:
But you frowned like thunder and you went away."

V. As I Walked out One Evening

"As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

"And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

"But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

"It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on."

O.K. What do you think?

The music is beautiful! I really like the kind of harmonic language that you use, with the clusters and color tones. However, I'm a little put off by the extreme disconnect in tone between the music and the text. This is very bleak, miserable poetry, while the music, on first listen, sounds very sunny and joyful. What made you make those choices?

I assume you are talking about Vintage. Well, I was envisioning myself going through that kind of pain, and the way I would deal with it would be to go pretty much insane, which is the point of the disharmony. It is an insane asylum version of a love song; if you slow it down enough, you can MAYBE hear the original love ballad I wrote for Vintage Part II (which I am trying to convert madly to computer from paper).

Is it scored for soprano tenor that rumbly baritone?

soprano tenor that rumbly baritone?

Originally Posted by Morivou

soprano tenor that rumbly baritone?

In other words what are the solo voices?

it is just scored for a solo Baritone singer.

All the poems will have the genders changed and this will be marked in the score.

Originally Posted by Morivou

it is just scored for a solo Baritone singer.

All the poems will have the genders changed and this will be marked in the score.

Cool, interesting you choose baritone though alot of times it's a tenor or soprano, I'm not sure about alot of alto soloists

Well, I mostly picked baritone because I am a baritone and intend to perform it.

Originally Posted by Morivou

Well, I mostly picked baritone because I am a baritone and intend to perform it.

Oh didn't know, what's your personal range morivou?