The New Vocality

Extended techniques

Bolero rhythm

Mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian (1928-83)

STRIPSODY (1966)

Luciano Berio (1925-2003), Circles (1960)

for soprano, harp, percussion

Movement I: “stinging” (1923 text by e.e. cummings [1894-1962])

written for Cathy Berberian (1928-83)

stinging

gold swarms

upon the spires

silver

chants the litanies the

great bells are ringing with rose

the lewd fat bells

and a tall

wind

is dragging

the

sea

with

dream

-S

George Crumb (b. 1929), Ancient Voices of Children (1970)

for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano (offstage until final page), amplified piano

(doubling on toy piano in song 4), oboe (doubling on harmonica in song 4),

mandolin (doubling on musical saw in song 2), harp, and 3 percussionists

Song 3: “¿De dónde vienes?” (Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle)

written for Jan DeGaetani (1933-89)

“In Ancient Voices of Children, as in my earlier Lorca settings, I have sought musical images that enhance and reinforce the powerful, yet strangely haunting imagery of Lorca‟s poetry. I feel that the essential meaning of this poetry is concerned with the most primary things: life, death, love, the smell of the earth, the sounds of the wind and the sea. These „ur-concepts‟ are embodied in a language which is primitive and stark, but which is capable of infinitely subtle nuance. In a lecture entitled Theory and Function of the ‘Duende’, Lorca has, in fact, identified the essential characteristic of his own poetry. Duende(untranslatable, but roughly: passion, élan, bravura in its deepest, most artistic sense) is for Lorca „all that has dark sounds…. This „mysterious power that everyone feels but that no philosopher has explained‟ is in fact the spirit of the earth…. All one knows is that it burns the blood like powdered glass, that it exhausts, that it rejects all the sweet geometry one has learned.

“It is sometimes of interests to a composer to recall the original impulse—the „creative germ‟—of a compositional project. In the case of Ancient Voices I felt this impulse to b the climactic final words of the last song: „..and I will go very far…to ask Christ the Lord to give me back my ancient soul of a child.‟”

“¿De dónde vienes?”Text by Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)

¿De dónde vienes, amor, mi niño? [soprano]

De la cresta del duro frío. [boy soprano]

¿Qué necesitas, amor mi niño? [soprano]

La tibia tela de tu vestido. [boy soprano]

¡Que se agiten las ramas al so [soprano]

y salten las fuentes alrededor!

En el patio ladra el perro, [boy soprano/spoken]

en los árboles canta el viento.

Los bueyes mugen al boyero

y la luna me riza los cabellos. END OF CYCLE 1

¿Qué pides, niños, desde tan lejos? [soprano]

Los blancos montes que hay en tu pecho. [boy soprano]

¡Que se agiten las ramas al so [soprano]

y salten las fuentes alrededor!

Te diré, niño mio, que sí, [soprano/spoken]

tronchada y rota soy para ti.

¡Cómo me duele esta cintura

donde tendrás primera cuna! END OF CYCLE 2

¿Cuando, mi niño, vas a venir? [soprano]

Cuando tu carne huela a jazmín. [boy soprano]

¡Que se agiten las ramas al so [soprano]

y salten las fuentes alrededor! END OF CYCLE 3

Where are you from, Love, my child?

From the hard frozen mountain.

What do you need, Love, my child?

The warm cloth of your dress.

Let the branches rustle in the sun

and the fountains leap about!

In the courtyard the dog barks,

in the trees the wind sings.

The oxen low for the ox herder,

and the moon curls my hair.

What do you ask for, child, from afar?

The white mountains of your breast.

Let the branches rustle in the sun

and the fountains leap about!

I will tell you, my child, yes,

I am torn and broken for your sake.

How painful is this waist

where you shall have your first cradle!

When, my child, will you come?

When your flesh smells of jasmine.

Let the branches rustle in the sun

and the fountains leap about!