Set I – Finding Folk
University Chorus sings music describing aspects of longing, courtship, and romance. The set presents familiar Broadway music by Rodgers and Hammerstein juxtaposed with the distinct musical idiom of Bulgarian folksong. Despite the musical contrast, our thematic threads connect the two story-telling traditions by way of longing and discerning a desirable romance.
No Other Love is sung by a chorus girl in the musical-about-a-musical Me and Juliet. The song is about longing for a distant love. There is no relief for such longing to be found in the juxtaposed Bulgarian folk song Ergen Dedo, describing the undesired intrusion of an older man into the festivities of the village girls.
Gray bachelor, red-faced man
Has put his cap askew to one side
And went to the village
And took a place in the ring dance
(all the girls have run away)
Out of my Dreams is adapted from the beginning of the dream sequence of the musical Oklahoma! In the musical, leading lady Laurey is confronted with a choice between two suitors, Jud (her disturbed local farmhand) and Curly (an annoying roving cowboy). She sings this song expressing the desire to move from dreaming about romance to being with her true love (who will it be – the close-at-hand farmhand or the ranging cowboy?).
In the next musical juxtaposition, the Bulgarian folksong Kaval Sviri, a girl sings to her mother about hearing a flute being played near the village. The girl will go to find the flutist, and if it is a local fellow, she will love him for a short time. If it is someone from outside the village, she will love them forever.
A flute is playing, mother, near the village.
I will go, mother, to see and hear it.
If it’s someone from our village,
I’ll love him only for a short time.
It it’s someone from another village,
I’ll love him forever.
We close the set with the famous show tune People Will Say We’re in Love, which represents the longing, discerning, and triumph associated with the true love found in Oklahoma! The number originates in the first act of the musical and is reprised at the end when Curly and Laurey are finally together.
Set II – Songs for the time after Valentine’s Day
In contrast to University Chorus, Camerata sings songs related to the absence or ending of closeness for one reason or another. These songs are taken from the American popular song catalog and feature arrangements by Michelle Weir and Steve Zegree.
From the Start is a 2023 song by Icelandic popstar Laufey (pronounced “layfay”) in the throwback style of a Bossa nova jazz tune musing on the feeling of being near someone who does not reciprocate your feelings. This friend-zone anthem is just one facet of Laufey’s significant skill as a classically-trained musician and charting songwriter.
In My Life is considered to be one of the great songs of the 20th century and appeared on the Beatles’ album Rubber Soul. The jazz arrangement performed today is by Steve Zegree, a legend in the vocal jazz world. The song explores the dichotomy between truly loving someone presently and truly loving others that are no longer in one’s life. Two lines sum up this dichotomy: “I love them all,” stated first, and then “I love you more” in the same metrical position of the final strophe. Our losses in life are real – the pain and heartbreak from genuine love – but looking to those you love in the present and future is the way forward.
The Best Things in Life are Free is a song about wisdom. Take the time to enjoy the little things that are freely given to all, and be sure that you avoid chasing the superficial things (that you can lose). We sing it today for its consoling words – ones we might like to hear during a time when we are feeling down: “Love can come to anyone.”
They Can’t Take That Away from Me originally appeared in the Fred Astaire Hollywood musical Shall We Dance in 1937 and again in The Barkleys of Broadway in 1947. In both films he sings it to Ginger Rodgers, a frequent co-star. The song is a celebration of memories that will endure when a couple faces the prospect of splitting up. It’s not always clear whether the behaviors described in the song are positives or negatives, which adds to the enduring charm the song enjoys.
Set III – Imaginary Lines
Concert Choir is performing the first half of the semester’s unit on Eric Whitacre’s choral music. Whitacre, a GRAMMY-winning composer and conductor, has greatly influenced the world of choral music through his artistically fruitful and accessible music.
The pieces we are singing today focus first on the closeness of those we care about in Sing Gently and Home. The former was written during the pandemic when we were all apart, and the latter is from Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil, about a loved one’s life ending.
The second half of the set deals with overcoming our limits, with Whitman’s All Seams Beautiful To Me granting us the agency to realize our strength and potential. Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine imagines Da Vinci pondering an invention to achieve flight. The piece is known for its challenging music, requiring much of the vocal resources and musicianship of the singers: an opportunity for us to realize our strength and potential as an ensemble.
Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
The triumph of a human being ascending
I.
Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine…
Tormented by visions of flight and falling,
More wondrous and terrible each than the last,
Master Leonardo imagines an engine
To carry a man up into the sun…
And as he’s dreaming the heavens call him,
softly whispering their siren-song:
“Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”
(“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”)
L’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale,
(A man with wings large enough and duly connected)
facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria.
(…might learn to overcome the resistance of the air)
II.
Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine…
As the candles burn low he paces and writes,
Releasing purchased pigeons one by one
Into the golden Tuscan sunrise…
And as he dreams, again the calling,
The very air itself gives voice:
“Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”
(“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”)
Vicina all’elemento del fuoco…
(Close to the sphere of elemental fire…)
Scratching quill on crumpled paper,
Rete, canna, filo, carta.
(Net, cane, thread, paper.)
Images of wing and frame and fabric fastened tightly.
…sulla suprema sottile aria.
(…in the highest and rarest atmosphere.)
III.
Master Leonardo Da Vinci Dreams of his Flying Machine…
As the midnight watchtower tolls,
Over rooftop, street and dome,
The triumph of a human being ascending
In the dreaming of a mortal man.
Leonardo steels himself,
takes one last breath,
and leaps…
“Leonardo, Vieni á Volare! Leonardo, Sognare!”
(“Leonardo, come fly! Leonardo, Dream!”)
–Charles Anthony Silvestri
Howard Eckdahl 