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Catalogue of the Music of Larry BellOpus number: 42Title: A Cry Against the Twilight (text by Wallace Stevens) Instrumentation: five solo voices SSATB Date written: 1996, Boston Length: fifteen minutes Commissioner and dedicatee: Modus Novus, San Francisco Premiere performance: Modus Novus, San Francisco, California, St. Gregory’s Church, May 19, 1996; Cheryl Keller, soprano; Marcia Gronewold, mezzo soprano; Lynne Morrow, mezzo soprano; Sanford Dole, tenor; and John Corry, bass-baritone. Program notes: Following performances in the fall of 1995 of the madrigal Domination of Black, the members of Modus Novus in San Francisco asked Bell to write a set of companion pieces. The result is this group of eight songs on poems of Wallace Stevens that deal with light and dark, death and life. The works were arranged for brass quintet. See op. 48. 1. Valley Candle My candle burned alone in an immense valley. Beams of the huge night converged upon it, Until the wind blew. Then beams of the huge night Converged upon its image, Until the wind blew. 2. Tattoo The light is like a spider. It crowds over the water. It crawls over the edges of the snow. It crawls under your eyelids And spreads its webs there– Its two webs. The webs of your eyesAre fastened To the flesh and bones of you As to rafters or grass. There are filaments of your eyes On the surface of the water And in the edges of the snow. 3. Tea When the elephants-ear in the park Shriveled in frost, And the leaves on the paths Ran like rats, Your lamp-light fell On shining pillows, Of sea-shades and sky-shades, Like umbrellas in Java. 4. Infanta Marina Her terrace was the sand And the palms and the twilight. She made of the motions of her wrist The grandiose gestures Of her thought. The rumpling of the plumes Of this creature of the evening Came to be sleights of sails Over the sea. And thus she roamed In the roamings of her fan, Partaking of the sea, And of the evening As they flowed around And uttered their subsiding sound. 5. Domination of Black At night, by the fire, The colors of the bushes And of the fallen leaves, Repeating themselves, Turned in the room, Like the leaves themselves Turning n the wind Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks Came striding And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. The colors of their tails Were like the leaves themselvesTurning in the wind, In the twilight wind They swept over the room, Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks Down to the ground. I heard them cry–the peacocks. Was it a cry against the twlight Or against the leaves themselves Turning in the wind, Turned in the fire, Turning as the tails fo the peacocks Turned in the loud fire, Loud as the hemlocks Full of the cry of the peacocks? Or was it a cry against the hemlocks? Out of the window, I saw how the planets gathered Like the leaves themselves Turning in the wind. I saw how the night came, Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks I felt afraid. And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. 6. The Death of a Soldier Life contracts and death is expected, As in a season of autumn. The soldier falls. He does ot become a three-days personage, Imposing his spearation, Calling for pomp. Death is absolute and without memorial, As in a season of autumn, When the wind stops, When the wind stops and, over the heavens, The closes go, nevertheless In their direction. 7. Lunar Paraphrase The moon is the mother of pathos and pity. When, at the wearier end of November, Her old light moves along the branches, Feebly, slowly, depending upon them; When the body of Jesus hangs in a pallor Humanly near, and the figure of Mary, Touched on by hoar-frost, shrinks in a shelter Made by the leaves, that have rotted and fallen’ When over the houses, a golden illusion Brings back an earlier season of quiet And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness– The mother is the mother of pathos and pity. 8. Sonatina to Hans Christian If any duck in any brook, Fluttering the water For your crumb, Seemed the helpless daughter Of a mother Regretful that she bore her; Or of another, Barren and longing for her; What of the dove, Or thrush or any singing mysteries? What of the trees And intonations of the trees? What of the night That lights and dims the stars? Do you know, Hans Christian, Now that you see the night? Excerpt: 2.Tattoo All music is published by Casa Rustica Publications, 73 Hemenway Street, #501, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 |
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