The way that cannot be followed alone…

PROGRAM NOTES & SONG TEXTS

 
 

The title of today’s recital, “The way that cannot be followed alone…” is borrowed from a letter by American photographer Ansel Adams. In this letter to his closet friend and mentor, photographer Cedric Wright, Adams transcribes his personal revelations after witnessing a large thunderstorm in Yosemite National Park. His words address the pathways of life, and the relationships and connections we form while surrounded by the lands that raise us. This program is an homage to both American song from the past 100 years and the unique landscapes that have shaped the history and the people of the United States. 

The texts of these songs exemplify the poetic practice of seeing oneself or one’s emotions mirrored in the landscape and the reaching for nature analogy when descriptions of our own forms are insufficient. These words artfully reveal how our connections to landscape define and re-define the topography lines of our identities and interpersonal lives. “Landscapes” defined may include spaces with or without man-made features and are both visual and experienced. The places we inhabit are witness to us, to our joys and sorrows, accompanying our daily lives and memories while also providing resources for living. What do we owe one another for such dedicated companionship?

“Every love has a landscape.” These words penned by Rebecca Solnit echo the sentiments of the first set, with songs influenced by Black American music traditions. We move with the winds of love’s intensity and tenderness in Undine Smith Moore’s “Love Let the Wind Cry” and feel the weight of heartache and loneliness with Rufus Wainwright’s cabaret song “True Loves” and Leslie Adams’ “Sense You Went Away”.

The second set opens with the first movement of George Crumb’s Apparition, setting up a space of liminality through Walt Whitman’s text that exalts Night as the ancient entity of both death and life. We see and hear golden hour in Puerto Rican composer Carlos Cabrer’s “Canción” and Rebecca Clarke’s pastoral song “June Twilight”, then experience dual feelings of grief and connection that come with endings and beginnings in NH born songwriter Connie Converse’s lilting song “How Sad, How Lovely.”

Our second half opens with Ives’ “The Housatonic at Stockbridge,” originally for orchestra and later recomposed as a song. This piece utilizes the element of water, its constant movement, and its association with deep memory and longing as heard in Libby Larsen’s “Raspberry Island”. The set includes Claire’s original medley of the late Ella Jenkins’ song “Wake Up Little Sparrow” and the American spiritual “I’m a Poor Wayfaring Stranger.”

Our final set celebrate works that capture the rapturous vulnerability of an open heart, requiring patience and nurturing like forests and gardens. We close with another poignant Connie Converse’s tune, which expresses the desire to bloom and requests, “tell me how to be a lily, if you know.”  

Landscape and song are palimpsests of our cultural histories. While “growth” is demanded, while change is rapid, and while the arts are continually undervalued, the voices behind these words and this music instead urge us to be present, to observe, to feel, and to connect.

Thank you for being present with us.

 

PROGRAM TEXTS

I’ve Got the Sun in the Morning

Got no diamonds, got no pearls,

Still I think I'm a lucky girl.

I've got the sun in the morning

And the moon at night.

Got no mansion, got no yacht,

Still I'm happy with what I got.

I've got the sun in the morning

And the moon at night

 

Sunshine gives me a lovely day,

Moonlight gives me the Milky Way.

Got no checkbooks, got no banks,

Still, I'd like to express my thanks.

I've got the sun in the morning

And the moon at night.

And with the sun in the morning

And the moon in the evening

I'm alright.

 

Love Let the Wind Cry

Love let the wind cry on the dark mountain,

Bending the ash trees and the tall hemlocks

With the great voice of Thunderous legions,

How I adore thee.

 

Let the hoarse torrent in the blue canyon,

Murmuring mightily out of the gray mist

Of primal chaos, cease not proclaiming

How I adore thee.

 

Let the long rhythm of crunching rollers,

Breaking and bursting on the white seaboard

Titan and tireless, tell, while the world stands,

How I adore thee.

 

Love, let the clear call of the tree cricket,

Frailest of creatures, green as the young grass,

Mark with his trilling resonant bell-note,

How I adore thee.

 

But, more than all sounds, surer, serener,

Fuller of passion and exultation,

Let the hushed whisper in thine own heart say,

How I adore thee.

 

True Loves

A heart of ice is easily melted

A heart of stone is easily thrown away

It's the true loves

That make me want to cry

It's the true loves

That make me want to say goodbye

 

A heart of ice is easily molded

A heart of stone is easily hidden away

It's the true loves

That make me want to cry

It's the true loves

That make me want to say goodbye

 

So take your true loves down to the river

And I will watch you here on the corner

And if you need me I'll always be here

A heart of stone never goes anywhere

 

Sence You Went Away
Seems lak to me de stars don't shine so bright,

Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light,

Seems lak to me der's nothin' goin' right,

Sence you went away.

 

Seems lak to me de sky ain't half so blue,

Seems lak to me dat ev'ything wants you,

Seems lak to me I don't know what to do,

Sence you went away.

 

Seems lak to me dat ev'ything is wrong,

Seems lak to me de day's jes twice as long,

Seems lak to me de bird's forgot his song,

Sence you went away.

 

Seems lak to me I jes can't he'p but sigh,

Seems lak to me ma th'oat keeps gittin' dry,

Seems lak to me a tear stays in my eye,

Sence you went away.

 

I. The Night In Silence Under Many a Star

The night, in silence, under many a star;

The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;

And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d Death,

And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Canción

Sonaba la tarde (The afternoon rang)

por los senderos; (on the pathways)

sonaba la tarde. (The afternoon rang)

 

Había una luz (there was a final light)

última en el aire (in the aire)

y en la rama alta (and on the old branches)

del chopo grande, (of the great poplar)

sonaba la tarde. (sounded the afternoon)

 

Caía del cielo (there fell from the sky)

un gozo, y el aire… (a joy, and the air…)

sonaba la tarde (the afternoon rang)

en el aire. (In the air)

 

Iba el corazón (the hear went along)

llenándose de alguien. (filling itself with someone)

Por los senderos (on the pathways)

sonaba la tarde. (The afternoon rang)

June Twilight

The twilight comes;

the sun dips down and sets,

The boys have done

play at the nets.

 

In a warm golden glow

The woods are steeped.

The shadows grow;

The bat has cheeped.

 

Sweet smells the new-mown hay;

The mowers pass

Home, each his way,

through the grass.

 

The night-wind stirs the fern,

A night-jar spins;

The windows burn

In the inns.

 

Dusky it grows. The moon! The dews descend.

Love, can this beauty in our hearts end?

How Sad How Lovely

How sad, how lovely,

how short, how sweet,

to see that sunset

at the end of the street.

 

And the day gathered in

to a single light,

and the shadows rising

from the brim of the night.

 

Too few, too few

are the days that will hold

your face, your face

in a blaze of gold.

 

How sad, how lovely,

how short, how sweet,

to see that sunset

at the end of the street.

 

And the lights going on

in the shops and the bars,

and the lovers looking

for the first little stars.

 

Like life, like a smile,

like the fall of a leaf,

how sad, how lovely,

how brief.

 

The Housatonic at Stockbridge

Contented river! In thy dreamy realm

The cloudy willow and the plumy elm:

Thou beautiful!

From ev’ry dreamy hill

what eye but wanders with thee at thy will,

Contented river!

And yet over-shy

To mask thy beauty from the eager eye;

Hast thou a thought to hide from field and town?

In some deep current of the sunlit brown

Ah! there’s a restive ripple,

And the swift red leaves

September’s firstlings faster drift;

Wouldst thou away, dear stream?

Come, whisper near!

I also of much resting have a fear:

Let me tomorrow thy companion be,

By fall and shallow to the adventurous sea!

 

Raspberry Island

My father loved spring floods. “Dont drive down to the river,” my mother would say when my father and I piled into the Ford. “H-m-m,” he replied. “H-m-m.” He drove slowly, pausing and pointing and not saying much. Ducks, he would say, watercress, mushrooms caves, Raspberry Island.

 We sat there, not speaking for a while in the pleasant afternoon… two slender boats skimming along the river. “This used to be the place where people gathered- picnics, swimming, music” (my father said). And why not? Why not gather at the river?... All of us (should come). We’ll hear music… Here at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river.

 

Wake Up, Little Sparrow & Poor Wayfaring Stranger

Wake up, wake up

Little sparrow

Don't make your home

Out in the snow

 

Little bird,

Don't you know

Your friends flew south

Many months ago

 

You’re just a babe

You cannot fly

Your wings won't spread

Up against the sky

 

I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger,

A-trav’ling through this world of woe,

But there’s no sickness, toil, nor danger

In that bright land to which I go.

 

I’m going there to see my Mother,

I’m going there no more to roam,

I’m just a-going over Jordan,

I’m just a-going over home.

little 

Little Stream

Little stream upon the mountainside

Water spirit be my guide

Teach me how to laugh and play

Let me learn from you to flow.

Longing to return to mother sea, you’re just like me

Making up a song as you go

Oh take me back, my friend

Little campfire in the night

Burning spirit of delight

Teach me how to see the light

Let me learn to warm the heart

Deep within your flame is father sun, all things are one

For he is my father too

Oh take me back, my friend

Made my bed beneath the cedar tree

Let the night winds speak to me

Tell me of the times that used to be

Tell me of the times to come

Oh Thou holy Earth what have we done? We me who live

Will there be the time to forgive?

Oh take me back, my friend,

Take me back with you

Take me back again.

 

I Have Considered the Lilies

I have considered the lilies

They never toil they only bloom

They never feel chilly, or tired, or silly

And they don’t need much room

 

I have considered the lilies

I have considered how they grow

Tell me, tell me how to be a lily

If you know

 

Oh lilies, toil not, neither do they spin

I'm gonna take my working papers

And turn them in

I'm handing over my pencil and pen

I won't be needing my broom again

I'll bloom by day, I'll bloom by night

And blooming will be my delight

 

White tigerlily still waterlily

See how they all dilly-dally

Look at the day lily, lemon lily, calla-lily

And the lovely little lilies of the valley

 

Oh lilies, toil not, neither do they spin

I'm gonna take my working papers

And turn them in

To be more splendid than Solomon

I'll walk around wearing the morning sun

The sun by day, the moon by night

And blooming will be my delight

 

It would be fun but I'm afraid that I would freeze

King Solomon was not arrayed like one of these

 

So lilies, I can't afford to dilly-dally

I've got to work for my cotton, work for my denim

Linen and damask and challis

Not like the day lily, lemon lily, calla-lily

And the lovely little lilies of the valley

 

I have considered the lilies

I have considered how they grow

Tell me, tell me how to be a lily

If you know