Thursday
April 14, 2011, 8:30 pm
Kulas Recital Hall
Concert No. 266 / Junior Recital
Lucas Levy, tenor
Kelsey Robertson,
mezzo-soprano
From Rosy Bowers (D’Urfey) Henry Purcell
(1659–1695)
Fenella Theodore, piano
A Young Man’s Exhortation, Op.14 (Hardy) Gerald Finzi
1. A Young Man’s Exhortation (1901–1956)
2. Ditty
4. Her Temple
5. The Comet at Yell’ham
7. The Sigh
9. Transformations
Miles Fellenberg, piano
Drei Mignon Lieder (Goethe) Franz Schubert
Kennst du das Land? (1797–1828)
Heiss mich nicht reden
So lasst mich scheinen
Fenella Theodore, piano
‘A Vucchella Francesco Paolo Tosti
Ideale (1846–1916)
Non t’amo più
L’ultima canzone
Miles Fellenberg, piano
The poor soul sat sighing (Shakespeare) Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Tell me where is fancy bred (1895–1968)
How should I your true love know?
Fenella Theodore, piano
Please silence all cell phones and refrain from the use of video cameras
unless prior arrangements have been made with the performers.
The use of flash cameras is prohibited. Thank you.
Translations
From Rosy Bowers (D’Urfey) Purcell
From Rosy bow’rs where sleeps the god of love
Hither ye little waiting cupids fly;
Teach me in soft melodious songs to move
With tender passion my heart's darling joy:
Ah! let the soul of music tune my voice
To win dear Strephon who my soul enjoys.
Or if more influencing is
To be brisk and airy,
With a step and a bound
And a frisk from the ground
I will trip like any fairy;
As once on Ida dancing,
Were three celestial bodies,
With an air and a face
And a shape and a grace
Let me charm like beauty's goddess.
Ah! 'tis in vain, 'tis all in vain,
Death and despair must end the fatal pain;
Cold despair disguised like snow and rain
Falls on my breast, bleak winds in tempests blow,
My veins all shiver and my fingers glow,
My pulse beats a dead march for lost repose
And to a solid lump of ice my poor fond heart is froze.
Or say ye powers, my peace to crown,
Shall I thaw myself or drown
Amongst the foaming billows,
Increasing all with tears I shed,
On beds of ooze and crystal pillows
Lay down my love-sick head?
No, no, I'll straight run mad,
That soon my heart will warm,
When once the sense is fled,
Love has no power to charm:
Wild through the woods I'll fly,
Robes, locks shall thus be tore;
A thousand deaths I'll die
Ere thus in vain adore.
A Young Man’s Exhortation (Hardy) Finzi
Call off your eyes from care
By some determined deftness; put forth joys
Dear as excess without the core that cloys,
And charm Life’s lourings fair
Exhalt and crown the hour
That girdles us, and fill it full with glee,
Blind glee, excelling aught could ever be
Were heedfulness in power.
Send up such touching strains
That limitless recruits from Fancy’s pack
Shall rush upon your tongue, and tender back
All that your soul contains.
For what do we know best?
That a fresh love-leaf crumpled soon will dry
And that men moment after moment die,
Of all scope dispossest.
If I have seen one thing
It is the passing preciousness of dreams;
That aspects are within us; and who seems
Most kingly is the King.
Ditty (Hardy)
Beneath a knap where flown
Nestlings play,
Within walls of weathered stone,
Far away
From the files of formal houses,
By the bough the firstling browses,
Lives a Sweet: no merchants meet,
No men barters, no man sells
Where she dwells.
Upon that fabric fair
“Here is she!”
Seems written everywhere
Unto me.
But to friends and nodding neighbours,
Fellow-wights in lot and labours,
Who descry the times as I,
No such lucid legend tells
Where she dwells.
Should I lapse to what I was
Ere we met;
(Such will not be, but because
Some forget
Let me feign it)– none would notice
That where she I know by rote is
Spread a strange and withering change,
Like a drying of the wells
Where she dwells.
To feel I might have kissed–
Loved as true–
Otherwhere, nor Mine have missed
My life through,
Had I never wandered near her,
Is a smart severe– severer
In the thought that she is nought,
Even as I, beyond the dells
Where she dwells.
And Devotion droops her glance
To recall
What bond-servants of Chance
We are all.
I but found her in that, going
On my errant path unknowing,
I did not outskirt the spot
That no spot on earth excels,
Where she dwells!
Her Temple (Hardy)
Dear, think not that they will forget you:
–If craftsmanly art should be mine
I will build up a temple, and set you
Therein as its shrine.
They may say: “Why a woman such honor?”
–Be told, “O, so sweet was her fame,
That a man heaped this splendour upon her’
None now knows his name.”
The Comet at Yell’ham (Hardy)
It bends far over Yell’ham Plain,
And we, from Yell’ham Height,
Stand and regard its fiery train,
So soon to swim from sight.
It will return long years hence, when
As now its strange swift shine
Will fall on Yell’ham; but not then
On that sweet form of thine.
The Sigh (Hardy)
Little head against my shoulder,
Shy at first, then somewhat bolder,
And up-eyed;
Till she, with a time quaver,
Yielded to the kiss I gave her;
But, she sighed.
That there mingled with her feeling
Some sad thought she was concealing
It implied.
–Not that she had ceased to love me,
None on earth she set above me;
But she sighed.
She could not disguise a passion,
Dread, or doubt, in weakest fashion
If she tried;
Nothing seemed to hold us sundered,
Hearts were victors; so I wondered
Why she sighed.
Afterwards I knew he thoroughly,
And she loved me staunchly, truly,
Till she died;
But she never made confession
Why, at that first sweet concession,
She had sighed.
It was in our May, remember;
And though now I near November,
And abide
To my appointed change, unfretting,
Sometimes I sit half regretting
That she sighed.
Transformations (Hardy)
Portion of this yew
Is a man my grandsire knew,
Bosomed here at its foot:
This branch may be his wife,
A ruddy human life
Now turned to a green shoot.
These grasses must be made
Of her who often prayed,
Last century, for repose;
And the fair girl long ago
Whom I often tried to know
May be entering this rose.
So, they are not underground,
But as nerves and veins abound
In the growths of upper air,
And they feel the sun and rain,
And the energy again
That made them what they were!
Kennst du das Land (Goethe) Schubert
Do you know the country where the lemon trees bloom
where among the dark leaves the golden oranges glow,
where a soft wind wafts from the blue heaven,
where the myrtle stands motionless and the laurel grows high?
Do you really know it?–There!
There I would go with you, my beloved.
Do you know the house? Its roof rests on columns;
the great hall shines, the rooms glitter,
And marble statues stand looking at me–
“What have they done to you, poor child?”
Do you really know it?–There! There
I would go with you, my protector.
Do you know the mountain and its cloud-veiled path?
The mule tries to find its way in the mist;
in the caves lives the ancient brood of dragons;
The cliff falls sheer and over in the torren
Do you really know?–There!
There leads our way! O father, let us go!
Heiss mich nicht redden
Do not ask me to speak, tell me to be silent,
For my secret is my duty;
I would reveal to you my inmost being,
But fate will not have it so.
At the appointed time the sun’s course drives away
The gloomy night, and it cannot choose but brighten
The hard rock opens its bosom;
It does not begrude the earth its deep-hidden springs.
Every man seeks rest in the arms of a friend,
For there he can pour out the troubles of his heart.
But a vow seals my lips,
And only a god can prevail upon me to open them.
So lasst mich scheinen
So let me seem, until I become so;
Do not divest me of my white garment!
I am hastening from the beautiful earth
Down to that impregnable house.
There I shall rest a little while in tranquility,
Then a fresh vision will open up;
I shall leave behind then the pure raiment,
The girdle and the wreath.
And those heavenly beings
Do not concern themselves with man and woman,
And no garments, no robes, cover the transfigured body.
True, I have lived without trouble and toil,
Yet I have felt deep pain enough.
Through sorrow I have aged too early–
O make me forever young again!
‘A Vucchella (D’Annunzio) Tosti
Yes, like a tiny flower
is your little mouth
only slightly
faded.
Oh, come give me, come give me,
–like a small rose–
give me a tiny kiss,
give me one, Cannetella!
Give one and take one,
a tiny little kiss
like this tiny mouth
which seems like a little rose
only slightly
faded.
Ideale (Errico)
I followed you like a rainbow of peace
across the paths of the sky:
I followed you like a friendly torch
in the veil of the night.
I felt you in the light, in the air,
in the scent of the flowers;
the lonely room was full
of you and your beauty.
Entranced by you, by the sound of your voice,
I dreamed at length;
and all the trouble and anguish of the world
were forgotten in that dream.
Come back, dear perfection, come back for a moment
and smile on me again,
and from your face will shine on me
a new dawn.
Non t’amo più (Errico)
Do you remember the day we met;
do you still remember the promises you made?
Madly in love, I followed you, we fell in love,
and by your side I dreamed, madly in love.
Happily I dreamed of endless caresses and kisses
dissolving into heaven:
but your words were false,
for your heart is made of ice.
I no longer place my faith in you, no longer
are you my great desire, or my dream of love:
I do not seek your kisses, nor think of you;
I dream of another perfection; I don’t love you anymore.
In those dear days we spent together,
I strewed your path with flowers:
you were the single hope of my heart;
the only thought in my mind.
You saw me beg, grow pale,
you saw me weeping before you:
to fulfill a wish of yours
I would have given my blood and my faith.
I no longer place my faith in you, no longer
are you my great desire, or my dream of love:
I do not seek your kisses, nor think of you;
I dream of another perfection; I don’t love you anymore.
L’ultima canzone (Cimmino)
They’ve told me that tomorrow,
Nina, you’re to be wed,
and yet I still sing my serenade to you!
There, on the empty plains,
there, in the shady valley,
how often I’ve sung it to you!
“Rose-petal,
o amaranth flower,
even though you marry,
I’ll be with you still,
rose-petal.”
Tomorrow you’ll be surrounded
by celebration, smiles and flowers;
you won’t give a thought to our old love.
But night and day, forever
filled with passion,
lamenting, my song will come to you:
“Leaf of mint,
flower of pomegranate,
Nina, remember
the kisses I gave you!
Leaf of mint!”
The poor soul sat sighing (Shakespeare) Castelnuovo-Tedesco
“The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow.
Her hand on her bosom,
Her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow!
The fresh streams ran by her,
And murmured her moans;
Sing willow, willow, willow!
Her salt tears fall from her,
And softened the stones
Sing willow, willow, willow!”—
Prythee, hie-thee; he’ll come anon:
“Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve”–
Nay, that’s not next…Hark! Who is ’t that knocks?
It is the wind…
“I called my love false love; but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow!
If I court more women, you’ll couch with more men!”—
Tell me where is fancy bread (Shakespeare)
Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourishèd?
Reply, reply.
It is engender’d in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle, where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy’s knell;
I will begin it – Ding, dong, bell.
How should I your true love know? (Shakespeare)
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone,
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
White his shroud as the mountain snow,
Larded with sweet flowers,
Which bewept to the ground did go
With true love showers.
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber door.
Let in the maid that out a maid
Never departed more.
“By Gis, and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie, for shame!
Young men will do ’t, if they come to ’t.
By cock, they are to blame!”
Quoth she, “Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.”
“So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
And thou hadst not come to my bed.”
They bore him barefaced on the bier,
Hey, non, nonny, nonny hey nonny;
And on his grave rain’d many a tears
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy…
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead, go to thy death-bed
He never will come again!
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll
He is gone, he is gone!
And we cast away moans
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
And of all Christians souls!
I pray God!
God be with you!