Though we were unable to print texts for this week's recital, you may review them here. While the Copland and Kohn texts, being folk and popular songs of their day may be straightforward, much of the rest is either sophisticated poetry, otherwise unusual combinations of words, or in the case of "Charlie Rutlage" spoken word over a ruckus piano part in a Texas dialect.
Hope to see there.
Thursday evening, March 17, 201 7PM at Kulas Chamber Hall Baldwin-Wallace college.
The Boatmen’s Dance
The boatmen dance, the boatmen sing,
The boatmen up to ev'rything,
And when the boatman gets on shore
He spends his cash and works for more.
High row the boatmen row,
Floatin' down the river the Ohio.
Then dance the boatmen dance,
O dance the boatmen dance.
O dance all night 'til broad daylight,
And go home with the gals in the mornin'.
High row the boatmen row. . . etc
I went on board the other day
To see what the boatmen had to say.
There I let my passion loose
An' they cram me in the callaboose.
O dance the boatmen dance. . .
High row the boatmen row . . . etc
The boatman is a thrifty man,
There's none can do as the boatman can.
I never see a pretty gal in my life
But that she was a boatman's wife.
O dance the boatmen dance. . .
High row the boatmen row. . . etc
The Little Horses
Hush you bye,
Don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake,
You shall have,
All the pretty little horses.
Blacks and bays,
Dapples and grays,
Coach and six-a little horses.
Blacks and bays,
Dapples and grays,
Coach and six-a little horses.
Hush you bye,
Don't you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake,
You'll have sweet cake and
All the pretty little horses.
A brown and gray and a black and a bay and a
Coach and six-a little horses.
A black and a bay ad a brown and a gray and a
Coach and six-a little horses.
Hush you bye,
Don't you cry,
Oh you pretty little baby.
Go to sleepy little baby.
Oh you pretty little baby.
The Dodger
Yes the candidate's a dodger,
Yes a well-known dodger.
Yes the candidate's a dodger,
Yes and I'm a dodger too.
He'll meet you and treat you,
And ask you for your vote.
But look out boys,
He's a-dodgin' for your note.
Yes we're all dodgin'
A-dodgin', dodgin', dodgin'.
Yes we're all dodgin'
Out away through the world.
Yes the preacher he's a dodger,
Yes a well-known dodger.
Yes the preacher he's a dodger,
Yes and I'm a dodger too.
He'll preach you a gospel,
And tell you of your crimes.
But look out boys,
He's a-dodgin' for your dimes.
Yes we're all dodgin' . . . etc.
Yes the lover he's a dodger,
Yes a well-known dodger.
Yes the lover he's a dodger,
Yes and I'm a dodger too.
He'll hug you and kiss you,
And call you his bride,
But look out girls,
He's a-tellin' you a lie.
Yes we're all dodgin' . . . etc.
Ching-a-ring chaw
Ching-a-ring-a ring ching ching,
Hoa dinga ding kum larkee,
Ching-a-ring-a ring ching ching,
Hoa ding kum larkee.
Brothers gather round,
Listen to this story,
'Bout the promised land,
An' the promised glory.
You don' need to fear,
If you have no money,
You don' need none there,
To buy you milk and honey.
There you'll ride in style,
Coach with four white horses,
There the evenin' meal,
Has one two three four courses.
Nights we all will dance
To the harp and fiiddle,
Waltz and jig and prance,
"Cast off down the middle!"
When the mornin' come,
All in grand and spendour,
Stand out in the sun,
And hear the holy thunder.
Brothers hear me out,
The promised land's a-comin'
Dance and sing and shout,
I hear them harps a strummin'.
Beggar’s Song
Good people keep their holy day,
They rest from labor on a Sunday;
But we keep holy every day,
And rest from Monday until Monday.
And yet the noblest work on earth
Is done when beggars do their part:
They work, dear ladies, on the soft
And tender feelings in your heart.
Sure on this Shining Night James Agee
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand'ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.
Nocturne Frederic Prokosch
Close my darling both your eyes
Let your arms lie still at last
Calm the lake of falsehood lies,
And the wind of lust has passed,
Waves across these hopeless sands
Fill my heart and end my day.
Underneath your moving hands
All my aching flows away
Even the human pyramids
Blaze with such a longing now:
Close, my love, your trembling lids,
Let the midnight heal your brow.
Northward flames Orion's horn
Westward the Egyptian light.
None watch us, none to warn
But the blind eternal night.
I Hear an Army James Joyce
I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the reins, with flutt'ring whips, the charioteers.
They cry unto the night their battlename:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.
They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:
They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
My love, my love, why have you left me alone?
Charlie Rutlage
Another good cowpuncher has gone to meet his fate,
I hope he'll find a resting place, within the golden gate.
Another place is vacant on the ranch of the X I T,
'Twill be hard to find another that's liked as well as he.
The first that died was Kid White, a man both tough and brave,
While Charlie Rutlage makes the third to be sent to his grave,
Caused by a cowhorse falling, while running after stock;
'Twas on the spring round up, a place where death men mock,
He went forward one morning on a circle through the hills,
He was gay and full of glee, and free from earthly ills;
But when it came to finish up the work on which he went,
Nothing came back from him; his time on earth was spent.
'Twas as he rode the round up, a XIT turned back to the herd;
Poor Charlie shoved him in again, his cutting horse he spurred;
Another turned; at that moment his horse the creature spied
And turned and fell with him, beneath poor Charlie died,
His relations in Texas his face never more will see,
But I hope he'll meet his loved ones beyond in eternity,
I hope he'll meet his parents, will meet them face to face,
And that they'll grasp him by the right hand at the shining throne of grace.
Serenity John Greenleaf Whittier
O, Sabbath rest of Galilee!
O, calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee,
the silence of eternity
Interpreted by love.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease:
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess,
the beauty of thy peace.
The Greatest Man Anne Collins
My teacher said us boys should write
about some great man, so I thought last night
'n thought about heroes and men
that had done great things,
'n then I got to thinkin' 'bout my pa;
he ain't a hero 'r anything but pshaw!
Say! He can ride the wildest hoss
'n find minners near the moss
down by the creek; 'n he can swim
'n fish, we ketched five new lights, me 'n him!
Dad's some hunter too - oh, my!
Miss Molly Cottontail sure does fly
when he tromps through the fields 'n brush!
(Dad won't kill a lark 'r thrush.)
Once when I was sick 'n though his hands were rough
he rubbed the pain right out. "That's the stuff!"
he said when I winked back the tears. He never cried
but once 'n that was when my mother died.
There're lots o' great men: George Washinton 'n Lee,
but Dad's got 'em all beat holler, seems to me!
He is There John McCrae
Fifteen years ago today
A little Yankee, little yankee boy
Marched beside his granddaddy
In the decoration day parade.
The village band would play
those old war tunes,
and the G. A. R. would shout,
"Hip Hip Hooray!" in the same old way,
As it sounded on the old camp ground.
That boy has sailed o'er the ocean,
He is there, he is there, he is there.
He's fighting for the right,
but when it comes to might,
He is there, he is there, he is there;
As the Allies beat up all the warlords!
He'll be there, he'll be there,
and then the world will shout
the Battle-cry of Freedom
Tenting on a new camp ground.
For it's rally round the Flag boys
Rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.
Fifteen years ago today
A little Yankee, with a German name
Heard the tale of "forty-eight"
Why his Granddaddy joined Uncle Sam,
His fathers fought that medieval stuff
and he will fight it now;
"Hip Hip Hooray! this is the day,"
When he'll finish up that aged job.
That boy has sailed o'er the ocean...
There's a time in ev'ry life,
When it's do or die, and our yankee boy
Does his bit that we may live,
In a world where all may have a "say."
He's conscious always of his country's aim
which is Liberty for all,
"Hip Hip Hooray!" is all he'll say,
As he marches to the Flanders front.
That boy has sailed o'er the ocean...
American Folk Set
“Ten Thousand Miles Away” premiered November 23, 2002, Carnegie Hall David Daniels, countertenor, Martin Katz, piano ; “The Gallows Tree” : September 21, 2007, Mills Hall at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Andrew Garland, baritone, Martha Saywell, piano ; Tonight is the premiere of “Hell in Texas” premiered November 21, 2008, Carnegie Hall, Andrew Garland, baritone, Donna Loewy, piano.
"10,000 Miles Away"
Sing I for a brave and a gallant barque;
for a stiff and a ratling breeze,
A bully crew and a captain true,
to carry me o’er the seas.
To carry me o’er the seas, my boys,
to my true love so gay,
who went on a trip on a Government ship
ten thousand miles away!
Oh, blow, ye winds, hi oh!
a roaming I will go.
I’ll stay no more on England’s shore
so let the music play.
I’ll start by the morning train
to cross the raging main,
for I’m on the road to my own true love,
ten thousand miles away.
My true love she was handsome,
my true love she was young
Her eyes were blue as the violet’s hue.
and silv’ry was the sound of her tongue.
And silv’ry was the sound of her tongue, my boys,
and while I sing this lay,
she’s a-doing of the grand in a far off land,
ten thousand miles away.
Oh, blow, ye winds, hi oh!
A roaming I will go.
I’ll stay no more on England’s shore,
so let the music play.
I’ll start by the morning train
to cross the raging main!
For I’m on the road to my
On the Other Shore
I have a mother gone to glory,
I have a mother gone to glory,
I have a mother gone to glory,
On the other shore.
By and by I’ll go to meet her,
By and by I’ll go to meet her,
By and by I’ll go to meet her,
On the other shore.
Won’t that be a happy meetin’
Won’t that be a happy meetin’
Won’t that be a happy meetin’
On the other shore.
There we’ll see our good old neighbors
There we’ll see our good old neighbors
There we’ll see our good old neighbors
On the other shore.
There we’ll see our blessed savior
There we’ll see our blessed savior
There we’ll see our blessed savior
On the other shore.
The Farmer’s Curst Wife
There was an old man at the foot of the hill.
If he ain’t moved away, he’s a’livin’ there still.
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
The devil he some to his house one day,
says “one of your family I’m gonna take away.”
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
“Take her, my wife, with all a’my heart,
and I hope by golly, you never part.”
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
The devil he put her up on his back,
and off to Hell he went, clickity clack.
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
When he got her down to the gates of Hell,
he says "punch up the fire, we'll scorch her well."
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
In come a little devil draggin' a chain,
She upped with a hatched and split his brain!
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
Now Nine little devils went a'climbin the wall
sayin' "take her back, daddy! She'll a'murder us all!"
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
The old man was a peepin' out of a crack.
amd he saw the old Devil come draggin' her back.
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
Now there's one advantage women have over men.
They can all go to Hell! ...and come back again.
Sing hi didle-i diddle-i fi diddle-i diddle-i day.
Poor Wayfaring Stranger
I am a poor wayfaring stranger
A travlin’ through this world of woe
And there’s no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright land to which I go.
I’m goin’ there to meet my mother,
I’m goin’ there no more to roam.
I’m just a goin’ over Jordan
I’m just a goin’ over home.
I am a poor wayfaring stranger
A travlin’ through this world of woe
And there’s no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright land to which I go.
I’m goin’ there to meet my mother,
I’m goin’ there no more to roam.
I’m just a goin’ over Jordan
I’m just a goin’ over home.
Hell in Texas
Oh, the devil in Hell they say he was chained. And there for a thousand years he remained.
He never complained, no, nor did he groan, but decided he’s start up a Hell of his own.
Where he could torment the souls of men, free from the walls of his prison pen.
So he asked the Lord if he had any sand left over from making this great land.
The Lord said “why yes, I have plenty on hand. It’s way down south on the Rio Grande.
But I’ve got to be honest the stuff is so poor, that I wouldn’t use it for Hell anymore.”
So the devil went down to look over his truck. It came as a gift, so he figured he’s stuck.
And when he examined it careful and well, he decided the stuff was too dry for Hell.
Well, the Lord he just wanted the stuff of his hands, so he promised the devil he’d water the land.
He had some old water that wasn’t no use, a rancid old puddle that stunk like the deuce.
The Lord he was crafty, the deal was arranged. He laughed to himself as the deed was exchanged.
But the devil was ready to go with his plan to make up a Hell and so he began.
He scattered tarantulas over the roads, put thorns on the cactus and horns on the toads.
He sprinkled the sand with millions of ants, so if you sit down, you need souls on your pants.
He put water puppies in all of the lakes and under the rocks he put poisonous snakes.
He mixed all the dust up with jiggers and fleas, hung thorns and brambles all over the trees.
The heat in the summer’s a hundred and ten. Not bad for the devil but way too hot for men!
And after he’d fixed things so thorny and well, he said “I’ll be damned if this don’t beat Hell!”
Then he flapped up his wings and away he flew, and vanished from earth in a blaze of blue!
So if you ever end up in Texas, let me know if it’s true!
America 1968 poems by Robert Hayden
Premiered November 21, 2008, Carnegie Hall, Andrew Garland, baritone, Donna Loewy, piano.
Monet’s Water Lilies
Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.
Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.
O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy
Hey Nonny No
Lord Riot
naked
in flaming clothes
cannibal ruler
of anger’s
carousals
sing hey nonny no
terror
his tribute
shriek of bloody class
his praise
sing wrathful sing vengeful
sing hey nonny no
gigantic
and laughing sniper on tower
I hate
I destroy
I am I am
sing hey nonny no
sing burn baby burn
The Point
(Stonington, Connecticut)
Land’s end. And sound and river come
together, flowing to the sea.
Wild swans, the first I’ve ever seen,
cross the Point in translucent flight.
On lowtide rocks terns gather;
sunbathers gather on the lambent shore.
All for a moment seems inscribed
on brightness, as on sunlit
bronze and stone, here at land’s end,
praise for dead patriots of Stonington;
we are for an instant held in shining
like memories in the mind of God.
The Whipping
The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:
My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful
Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,
And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged--
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Frederick Douglass
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues' rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.
"Monet's Waterlilies," IV from Words in the Mourning Time," "The Point," "The Whipping," "Those Winter Sundays," and "Frederick Douglass" from COLLECTED POEMS OF ROBERT HAYDEN by Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher. Copyright 1962, 1966, 70. Copyright c 1985 by Emma Hayden. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
AMERICAN FOLK SET
Folk songs are passed down through the generations by people singing them to one another. Along the way, each party uses artistic license to embellish a song at their whim, thereby making it their own. Words and melody are continuously altered; on shipboard, around campfires, on front porches, in saloons and whorehoueses, on cattle drives, in cotton fields and just about everywhere else that there is a shared human experience. By the time the scribes track down and notate these songs for posterity, they are privy to only the latest incarnations, sometimes having to piece together chunks from different sources to contruct one coherent song.
Like the folks who came before me, I indulged my own sensibilities regarding the material, knowing that certain liberties would have to be taken to transform unaccompanied melodies into arrangements suitable for performance. A word might be modified or inserted to create a smoother line. Meter changes were occasionally used to extend words or phrases. A melody note might be altered to allow a phrase to land more sensibly. With all that said, respect was paid to the shape and content of the source material. My goal was to expand the storytelling power of these songs by creating accompinaments which had a more extended, even epic sweep, and thereby put them into a context where they could be performed by recitalists. These songs were selected because they offered either an emotional, dramatic or musical potential worth exploring.
-Steven Mark Kohn
AMERICA 1968
For some time, I have wanted to create a piece about 1968. To think back on that year today is to be flooded with powerful images: two assassinations, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Apollo 8 orbiting the moon, the black power salute of John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the medal-stand of the Mexico City Olympics. The particular vision of our nation expressed in America 1968 may seem, to some, a bit unusual. It is, at times, disturbing; at times even violent. Still, it is a true, if difficult, view of our country during a volatile time. Ultimately, the vision is positive and encouraging, but the journey to that positive conclusion is harrowing – or at least I hope it is.
I found in Robert Hayden’s eloquent poetry a bridge to my memories of the time – and to my own ambivalence about the era. In Hayden’s poems, the redemptive powers of art and nature can assuage the reader even when “the news from Selma and Saigon poison the air like fallout.” But the rhythms and cadences of urban violence can be heard in Lord Riot, and the casual, misdirected cruelty of those who have themselves been victims finds its expression in The Whipping. Those Winter Sundays is perhaps Hayden’s most famous poem. In it, one feels, belatedly, an appreciation for the sacrifices of another, as one does, perhaps even more viscerally, in Frederick Douglass. To me, Hayden is at his most moving in The Point, celebrating a transcendent meeting of light and water, a moment when people are “held in shining, like memories in the mind of God.”
While tonight’s performance marks the world premiere of the complete piece, two of the songs in America 1968 were composed earlier. A version of Monet’s Waterlilies for chamber ensemble and baritone was written in 2004 for the new-music group Sequitur, and The Point was originally part of my song-cycle Climbing: 7 Songs on 8 Poems by African-Americans.
I would like to express my deep appreciation to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo, and Copland House – the sites where America 1968 was composed.
Tom Cipullo
