Del malogrado Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920), podemos oir el tristísimo primer lied, "El lamento de Ian, the Proud", de su Opus 11 (Tres poemas de MacLeod), compuesto en 1918, interpretado por el barítono Marcus De Loach, con Thomas Bagwell al piano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnvyhKFZtDI

What is this crying that I hear in the wind?
Is it the old sorrow and the old grief?
Or is it a new thing coming, a whirling leaf
About the gray hair of me who am weary and blind?
I know not what it is, but on the moor above the shore
There is a stone which the purple nets of heather bind,
And thereon is writ: She will return no more.
O blown, whirling leaf, and the old grief,
And wind crying to me who am old and blind!


¿Que es ese grito que oigo en el viento?
¿Es el viejo dolor y la antigua pena?
¿O es algo nuevo que llega, una hoja volandera
alrededor de mis cabellos grises, yo, que estoy agotado y ciego?
No sé lo que es, pero en la orilla del río
hay una piedra rodeada por una red púrpura de brezo
y en ella está escrito: “Ella no volverá”
¡Oh, hoja agitada, volandera, y la antigua pena,
y cómo me grita el viento que soy viejo y ciego!

http://open.spotify.com/track/1VjNjj2vwxRQTq3guoKjtW

Sweet Polly Oliver
Britten/Pears


Sweet Polly Oliver

Language: English


As sweet Polly Oliver lay musing in bed,
A sudden strange fancy came into her head.
"Nor father nor mother shall make me false prove,
I'll 'list as a soldier, and follow my love".

So early next morning she softly arose
And dressed herself up in her dead brother's clothes.
She cut her hair close and she stained her face brown,
And went for a soldier to fair London Town.

Then up spoke the sergeant one day at his drill.
"Now who's good for nursing? A captain, he's ill".
"I'm ready", said Polly. To nurse him she's gone,
And finds it's her true love all wasted and wan.

The first week the doctor kept shaking his head,
"No nursing, young fellow, can save him", he said.
But when Polly Oliver had nursed him back to life,
He cried, "You have cherished him as if you were his wife".

Oh, then Polly Oliver, she burst into tears
And told the good doctor her hopes and her fears,
And very shortly after, for better or for worse,
The captain took joyfully his pretty soldier nurse.

La soprano Ilona Domnich nos presenta esta canción del compositor israelí Paul Ben-Haim, Ani Havazelet ha-Sharon (Soy el lirio del valle), adaptada del "Cantar de los Cantares":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTGvyP4ybeg

http://open.spotify.com/track/73fEbI9Fgur37Y7es3ibP0

There's none to soothe

Britten/Pears


There's none to soothe


There's none to soothe my soul to rest,
There's none my load of grief to share,
Or wake to joy this lonely breast,
Or light the gloom of dark despair.

The voice of joy no more can cheer,
The look of love no more can warm
Since mute for aye's that voice so dear,
And closed that eye alone could charm.

En el hilo de temporadas operísticas foreras, salió a colación el nombre del compositor de The Aspern Papers, Dominick Argento.

En 1962, Argento publicó un ciclo de canciones, Six Elizabethan Songs, para soprano y orquesta.

Escuchamos Winter, sobre un texto de Shakespeare, en la voz de Leontyne Price:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHf_ae0_7qw

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;

When blood is nipt and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tuwhoo! Tuwhit! Tuwhoo! A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw;

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tuwhoo! Tuwhit! Tuwhoo! A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Probando, probando. Este me ha encantado y Kirchschlager, deliciosa. Supongo que ya habrá salido, pero por si no...un poco más de Hugo Wolf.

Das verlassene Mägdlein

http://open.spotify.com/track/2Xkg9nkA90NW9moDw3mJKX

Ya era hora que asomaras por aquí otro poco!
Kirchschlager bien.
Wolf, Hugo Wolf bien.

Ahora pongo otro Britten :

http://open.spotify.com/track/1k1fAMXCk1ZqfQUmPaIjFy

Little Sir William

Easter day was a holiday
Of all the days in the year,
And all the little schoolfellows
Went out to play
But Sir William was not there.

Mamma went to the School Wife House
And knocked at the ring,
Saying, "Little Sir William
if you are there,
Pray let your mother in."

The School Wife open'd the door
And said "He is not here today.
He is with the little schoolfellows
Out on the green
Playing some pretty play."

Mamma went to the Boyne water
That is so wide and deep, saying,
Little Sir William if you are there,
Oh pity your mother's weep."

"How can I pity your weep, mother
And I so long in pain?
For the little penknife
Sticks close to my heart
And the School Wife hath me slain.

Go home, go home my mother dear,
And prepare my winding sheet,
For tomorrow morning before eight o'clock,
You with my body shall meet.

And lay my prayer book at my head,
And my grammar at my feet,
That all the little schoolfellows
as they pass by
May read them for my sake."

Sigo con Ippolitov-Ivanov y Tagore. Tercera canción "O My Friend, Here Is a Flower":



Texto

Gracias por todas las aportaciones.

Cuarto Tagore de Ippolitov-Ivanov, "The yellow bird sings in their tree":



Texto

El Britten de hoy:

http://open.spotify.com/track/4mBYR3smTmshLpPSFwsoUv

The brisk young widow

In Chester town there liv'd
A brisk young widow.
For beauty and fine clothes
None could excel her.
She was proper stout and tall,
Her fingers long and small,
She's a comely dame withall,
She's a brisk young widow.

A lover soon there came,
A brisk young farmer,
With his hat turn'd up all round,
Seeking to gain her.
"My dear, for love of you
This wide world I'd go through
If you will but prove true
You shall wed a farmer."

Says she: "I'm not for you
Nor no such fellow.
I'm for a lively lad
With lands and riches,
'Tis not your hogs and yowes
Can maintain furbelows,
My silk and satin clothes
Are all my glory".

"O madam, don't be coy
For all your glory,
For fear of another day
And another story.
If the world on you should frown
Your top-knot must come down
To a Lindsey-woolsey gown.
Where is then your glory?"

At last there came that way
A sooty collier,
With his hat bent down all round,
And soon he did gain her:
Whereat the farmer swore,
"The widow's mazed, I'm sure.
I'll never court no more
A brisk young widow!"

Ippolitov Ivanov - 5 Poemas japoneses. El primero: Alleji vse osypany listvoju (The alleys are strewn with leaves). Larisa Makarskaya (la calidad no es muy buena).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaG8s0wOS18

Texto

http://open.spotify.com/track/7mog4xLA8uhFN4yLao1Cp9

Más folksong de Britten

http://open.spotify.com/track/7mog4xLA8uhFN4yLao1Cp9

Tom Bowling

Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the tempest howling,
For death has broached him to.
His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft.
Faithful below, Tom did his duty,
And now he's gone aloft.

Tom never from his word departed,
His virtues were so rare;
His friends were many and true-hearted,
His Poll was kind and fair:
And then he'd sing so blithe and jolly,
Ah! many's the time and oft;
But mirth is turned to melancholy,
For Tom is gone aloft.

Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather,
When He, who all commands,
Shall give, to call life's crew together.
The word to pipe all hands:
Thus death, who kings and tars despatches,
In vain Tom's life hath doffed;
For though his body's under hatches,
His soul is gone aloft.

Yuri Shaporin: Your Languid Southern Voice (Tvoj juzhnyj golos tomen). Canta Dolukhanova.



Texto

Sigo con Britten, pero enough de folksongs

Tit for tat

Have you been catching fish, Tom Noddy?
Have you snared a weeping hare?
Have you whistled "No Nunny" and gunned a poor bunny,
Or blinded a bird of the air?

Have you trod like a murderer through the green woods,
Through the dewy deep dingles and glooms,
While every small creature screamed shrill to Dame Nature
"He comes - and he comes!"?

Wonder I very much do,Tom Noddy,
If ever, when off you roam,
An ogre from space will stoop a lean face,
And lug you home:

Lug you home over his fence, Tom Noddy,
Of thorn-sticks nine yards high,
With your bent knees strung round his old iron gun
And your head a dan-dangling by:

And hung you up stiff on a hook, Tom Noddy,
From a stone-cold pantry shelf,
Whence your eyes will glare in an empty stare,
Till you are cooked yourself!

by Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

http://open.spotify.com/track/0mjsurZUZ8VaL5vA6p8H6c

Hay ahora una exposición en el Reina Sofía que se llama "Atlas ¿Cómo llevar el mundo a cuestas?" y leyendo el catálogo escrito por Didi-Huberman me he encontrado esto hablando del lied Der Atlas de Schubert:

"Antes de que el barítono Thomas Quasthoff ofreciera su admirable versión, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau cantó y comentó espléndidamente Der Atlas, evocando en estos términos el "trabajo de lo negativo": "El tema inicial de Der Atlas es de naturaleza sinfónica, trágica y grandiosa. Se presenta como gimiendo bajo el peso, con un paso cansino. La repetición de la segunda estrofa, obra de Schubert, conduce dentro de la sobrecarga de dolor al triunfo de la automortificación. El tono de rebeldía y desafío, la tensión del recitativo, los recuerdos de orgullo en la parte central, el triunfo de la negativo del final" , todo ello concurre a hacer de ese canto algo semejante a una grandeza bajo coerción [...] Brigitte Massin realizó un análisis del pequeño drama musical casi inmóvil, donde el tema se canta en un registro grave, violentamente marcado por los bajos y cuyos "sobresaltos" como ella escribe, acaban siempre en una "caída catastrófica"...[pp. 75-76]

Aquí el lied por Quathoff:
http://open.spotify.com/track/7H5CWcScER3rSBDPbI4V4Z

Y aquí por Hans Hotter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWwnugSH ... re=related
con la fotografía de la escultura que tenía Aby Warburg en el Bilderatlas Mnemosyne (panel 2)

En el texto se comentan muchas otras cosas pero no me da tiempo a copiarlas.