Henning's Headquarters

[karlhenning]

The texts which I have (probably entirely too ambitiously)  selected for the Cantata are:

I.  "The Crystalline Ship" — Leo Schulte

And so the crystalline ship has sailed,
Where you feasted on the soul's hard bread,
With the winds in league
With the seas calm or gale
The crystalline ship must sail
Somewhere
You rested in the soul's long bed,
And dreamed you were alive
On the crystalline ship
With the fish and the birds
And the cook in the galley
Sings to her ears
That water is a three-edged sword,
One for the skin and one for the bone
And one for the spirit all alone,
Who is tempted to splash and thrash
The Pacific of your mind's distress
That the crystalline ship has sailed
Somewhere
You bested the sea and split the shell
With a three-edged sword
Of pain and smiles and a wondering blue,
And now launch a vessel found only in you
Left behind by the crystalline ship.

II.  from "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (Hymn)" — Milton

No War, or Battails sound
Was heard the World around:
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked Chariot stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood,
The Trumpet spake not to the armed throng,
And Kings sate still with awfull eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peacefull was the night
Wherin the Prince of light
His raign of peace upon the earth began:
The Windes, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joyes to the milde Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

III.  "A Cradle Song" — Blake

Sweet dreams form a shade,
O'er my lovely infants head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams

Sweet sleep with soft down.
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child.

Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight.
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes,
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep sleep happy child,
All creation slept and smil'd.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep.
While o'er thee thy mother weep

Sweet babe in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe once like thee.
Thy maker lay and wept for me

Wept for me for thee for all,
When he was an infant small.
Thou his image ever see.
Heavenly face that smiles on thee,

Smiles on thee on me on all,
Who became an infant small,
Infant smiles are His own smiles,
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles.

IV.  "My Symphony" — Wm Henry Channing

To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly,
Talk gently,
Act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
To bear all cheerfully,
Do all bravely,
Await occasions,
Hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.

V.  "These, I singing in spring" — Whitman

THESE, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world—but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side—now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them—
Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
Alone I had thought—yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive—thicker they come, a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens—tossing toward whoever is near me;
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall,
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
These, I, compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have—giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it—but only to them that love, as I myself am capable of loving.

[karlhenning]

On one level, I feel mildly conflicted about the Milton . . . About a year ago, perhaps, I came across the stanza beginning "But peacefull was the night," all on its own, and immediately knew that I wanted to set it to music at some point.

In assembling the five texts together, and fetching electronic copies off'n the Internet, of course I discovered that the Milton Ur-text is nowhere near so brief.  At a cursory glance, it all looks worth setting — but in its entirety, it would burst the scale of the proposed piece.

I am content to just take an excerpt for my present purposes . . . I'm still thinking about maybe adding another 8 or 16 lines.

All the text there at once, it sure does look daunting.

But then, I remember that I did, with patient application, manage to set the Passion; and so my spirit is becalmed.

[Cato]

On one level, I feel mildly conflicted about the Milton . . . About a year ago, perhaps, I came across the stanza beginning "But peacefull was the night," all on its own, and immediately knew that I wanted to set it to music at some point.

In assembling the five texts together, and fetching electronic copies off'n the Internet, of course I discovered that the Milton Ur-text is nowhere near so brief.  At a cursory glance, it all looks worth setting — but in its entirety, it would burst the scale of the proposed piece.

I am content to just take an excerpt for my present purposes . . . I'm still thinking about maybe adding another 8 or 16 lines.

All the text there at once, it sure does look daunting.

But then, I remember that I did, with patient application, manage to set the Passion; and so my spirit is becalmed.

The Whitman especially seems daunting!  To paraphrase a famous line the poem seems to have "too many words."   

But should one dare to second-guess Whitman?   

I know that I would not like to be second-guessed in such things.   0:)

[karlhenning]

From one angle, the sequence of poems could be seen as a kind of life-cycle.  And, perhaps to suggest the cyclical nature, the Cantata does not open with the beginning of the cycle.

From another angle, the poems themselves are in roughly chronological harmony with the life-cycle idea . . . the birth poems from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the poems of 'vivid adulthood' from the 19^th century, and the poem with resonance of "The undiscover'd country from whose bourn / No traveller returns" from the 21^st.

Footnotely, the birth-poems come from English poets, and the after poems from American, which reflects America as a sort of cultural offspring of England.

[karlhenning]

The Whitman especially seems daunting!  To paraphrase a famous line the poem seems to have "too many words."   

He does have a tendency to riff!  I'm not so worried about that, of itself, since I am planning a fairly energetic delivery for that one . . . but this consideration does incline me to leave the Milton excerpt as here displayed, and maybe not expand the text of the Cantata any more.

I've long loved Whitman, but I haven't set anything since a student work at UVa (gosh, wonder if I have that MS. anywhere?)

[Scarpia]

Those texts are so old!  Far be it for me to interfere, but mostly great composers in the past have set texts which were more contemporary to them.  If I were going to try to write a piece with voices, I'd want to try to set something like this (which I have referred to before on this board).

http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Nazim_Hikmet/2369

The texts which I have (probably entirely too ambitiously)  selected for the Cantata are:

I.  "The Crystalline Ship" — Leo Schulte
...

[Luke]

Those texts are so old!  Far be it for me to interfere, but mostly great composers in the past have set texts which were more contemporary to them.  If I were going to try to write a piece with voices, I'd want to try to set something like this (which I have referred to before on this board).

http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Nazim_Hikmet/2369

That Schulte guy especially....

[Franco]

Those texts are so old!  Far be it for me to interfere, but mostly great composers in the past have set texts which were more contemporary to them.  If I were going to try to write a piece with voices, I'd want to try to set something like this (which I have referred to before on this board).

http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Nazim_Hikmet/2369

I assume you are joking.

[Scarpia]

I assume you are joking.

Why would I be joking?

[Franco]

Why would I be joking?

Oh, sorry. 

[karlhenning]

Those texts are so old!  Far be it for me to interfere, but mostly great composers in the past have set texts which were more contemporary to them.

I see no objection to setting old texts.  I am sorry that my selection offends you.

[Scarpia]

That Schulte guy especially....

Never heard of him, but he sounds like he should have lived 200 years ago, even if he didn't.   

[Scarpia]

I see no objection to setting old texts.  I am sorry that my selection offends you.

Never said it offended me.  It's just that those old texts have been around a long long time and lots of composers have had the chance to set them.  It strikes me that if you set something written recently, at least you don't have to compete with Beethoven.   

[karlhenning]

Never heard of him, but he sounds like he should have lived 200 years ago, even if he didn't.   

You know, an interesting parenthesis here . . . after the service at which the First Church Boston choir first sang my setting of "Love is the spirit of this church," one of the parishioners told the choir director that she was astonished, on looking the bulletin over, to find that the composer of that piece was yet living.

I'm not sure that sounds quite right, but I'll leave it . . . .

[karlhenning]

Never said it offended me.  It's just that those old texts have been around a long long time and lots of composers have had the chance to set them.  It strikes me that if you set something written recently, at least you don't have to compete with Beethoven.   

I don't recall Beethoven setting either of the texts which would in principle been available to him ; )

[Cato]

Even while I am at work on the viola sonata, I am plotting the next piece . . . I've about done selecting texts for a cantata for soprano, mezzo, recorder, alto flute & harpsichord.

The instrumentation seems appropriate for such old poems!

[Scarpia]

The instrumentation seems appropriate for such old poems!

No viola da gamba? 

[karlhenning]

No pleasing you here, is there, Scarps? ; )

[Scarpia]

No pleasing you here, is there, Scarps? ; )

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it will be pantonal.

[Cato]

No viola da gamba?

Why not go all the way with a 14-string viola d'amore ?





Scarpia wrote:

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it will be pantonal.

I suspect it must be Zeus-tonal: Karl would not fool around with such minor deities!   0:)