BIRTHDAY BOUQUET
BIRTHDAY BOUQUET
High Voice and Piano
Composer's Note:
The title song in this cycle is joyful, spontaneous, and rapturous. Different ostinato patterns link this with the second song. The clear, unambiguous melodic line, almost folklike in nature, contrast with the sensuous and chromatic piano line.
The second song, full of sun and shadow, contains a brief quote from Hugo Wolf's "Gesang Weylas" (from "Mörikelieder"), a personal "dream picture' shared by my husband and myself.
The ground of the third song, a serene lament, pays homage to Dido's famous lament from Purcell's opera. Moving into a more reflective mood, the final song gives off "clouds' of sound in the piano, appearing and dissolving, as the poet-singer looks beyond the bond between two lovers into the equally intimate world of personal wishes and dreams.
Movements: I. for your birthday (EE Cummings), II. Your Birthday (Christina Rossetti), III. Remember (Christina Rossetti), IV. He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven (W.B. Yeats)
Authored (or revised): 1990
Text source: On Four Poems by EE Cummings (with permission of Liveright Publishing),Christine Rossetti (2), William Butler Yeats (with permission of A.P. Watt).
Duration (minutes): 12
Book format: Score
SKU
ACA-AUSE-025Subtotal
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