2004-10-28 Music in the Britsh Isles [recital program]

              School of Music
U N C G
School of Music
U N C G
The UNCG School of Music has been recognized for years as one of the elite
music institutions in the United States. Fully accredited by the National
Association of Schools of Music since 1938, the School offers the only
comprehensive music program from undergraduate through doctoral study in
both performance and music education in North Carolina. From a total
population of approximately 14,000 university students, the UNCG School of
Music serves nearly 600 music majors with a full-time faculty and staff of more
than sixty. As such, the UNCG School of Music ranks among the largest Schools
of Music in the South.
The UNCG School of Music now occupies a new 26 million dollar music building,
which is among the finest music facilities in the nation. In fact, the new music
building is the second-largest academic building on the UNCG Campus. A large
music library with state-of-the-art playback, study and research facilities houses
all music reference materials. Greatly expanded classroom, studio, practice
room, and rehearsal hall spaces are key components of the new structure. Two
new recital halls, a large computer lab, a psychoacoustics lab, electronic music
labs, and recording studio space are additional features of the new facility. In
addition, an enclosed multi-level parking deck is adjacent to the new music
building to serve students, faculty and concert patrons.
Living in the artistically thriving Greensboro—Winston-Salem—High Point “Triad”
area, students enjoy regular opportunities to attend and perform in concerts
sponsored by such organizations as the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, the
Greensboro Opera Company, and the Eastern Music Festival. In addition,
UNCG students interact first-hand with some of the world’s major artists who
frequently schedule informal discussions, open rehearsals, and master classes at
UNCG.
Costs of attending public universities in North Carolina, both for in-state and out-of-
state students, represent a truly exceptional value in higher education.
For information regarding music as a major or minor field of study, please write:
Dr. John J. Deal, Dean
UNCG School of Music
P.O. Box 26167
Greensboro, North Carolina 27402-6167
(336) 334-5789
On the Web: www.uncg.edu/mus/
Artist Faculty Chamber Series
presents
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Thursday, October 28, 2004
7:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Commentary by Keith Cushman
Four Hymns Ralph Vaughan Williams
Lord! come away! (1898-1937)
Who is this fair one?
Come Love, come Lord
Evening Hymn
Robert Bracey, tenor
Scott Rawls, viola
Andrew Harley, piano
Sonata in C Major for cello and piano, Op. 65 (1961) Benjamin Britten
Dialogo: Allegro (1913-1976)
Scherzo Pizzicato: Allegretto
Elegia: Lento
Marcia: Energico
Moto Perpetuo: Presto
Brooks Whitehouse, violoncello
Andrew Willis, piano
Intermission
Façade: An Entertainment William Walton
Fanfare · Hornpipe · En Famille · Mariner Man (1902-1983)
Long Steel Grass · Through Gilded Trellises · Tango-Pasadoble Edith Sitwell
Lullaby for Jumbo · Black Mrs. Behemoth · Tarantella (1887-1964)
A Man from a Far Countree · By the Lake · Country Dance
Polka · Four in the Morning · Something Lies Beyond the Scene
Valse · Jodelling Song · Scotch Rhapsody
Popular Song · Fox-Trot · Sir Beelzebub
Robert Wells, reciter
Deborah Egekvist, flute and piccolo
Ed Riley, clarinet and bass clarinet
Steven Stusek, saxophone
Scott Toth, trumpet
Grace Lin, violoncello
Robert Rocha, percussion
David Nelson, conductor
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Patrons are encouraged to take note of the exits located throughout the hall.
In an emergency, please use the nearest exit, which may
be behind you or different from the one through which you entered.
active choral conductor, Wells served as Director of the Fredonia College Choir and was
recognized for his work with numerous professional and community choral organizations in
Western New York. Wells formerly served on the faculty at the State University of New
York College at Fredonia, where he was Co-Chair of the Voice Faculty and was a sought-after
clinician and adjudicator.
Brooks Whitehouse (BA, Harvard College; MMA and DMA, SUNY Stony Brook) comes to
Greensboro from the University of Florida where he spent a year as Assistant Professor of
Cello and Chamber Music. Whitehouse has performed and taught chamber music
throughout the US and abroad, holding Artists-in-Residence positions at SUNY Stony
Brook, the Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY, the University of Virginia (as a member of The
Guild Trio) and The Tanglewood Music Center. The Guild Trio was a winner of both the
"USIA Artistic Ambassador" and "Chamber Music Yellow Springs" competitions, and with
them he has performed and held master classes throughout the United States and Canada,
as well as in Norway, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, Belgium,Luxembourg, Germany,
Portugal, France and Australia. In 1991 The Guild Trio received a three-year grant from
Chamber Music America for their unique music/medicine residency at SUNY Stony Brook's
Medical School. The trio has been a frequent feature on National Public Radio's
"Performance Today", and has also appeared on the University of Missouri's public
television series "Premiere Performances", and "Front Row Center" on KETC-TV9 in St.
Louis. As a soloist Whitehouse has appeared with the New England Chamber Orchestra,
the Nashua Symphony, the New Brunswick Symphony, the Billings Symphony, and the
Owensboro Symphony, and has appeared in recital throughout the northeastern United
States. His performances have been broadcast on WQXR's "McGraw-Hill Young Artist
Showcase", WNYC's "Around New York," and the Australian and Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation networks. He has held fellowships at the Blossom and Bach Aria festivals, and
was winner of the Cabot prize as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. As guest artist
he has appeared with the Seacliffe Chamber Players, the New Millennium Ensemble, the
JU Piano Trio, The Apple Hill Chamber Players, the Atelier Ensemble and the New Zealand
String Quartet. His principal teachers were Timothy Eddy and Norman Fischer.
Andrew Willis is recognized for his performances on historical and modern pianos in the United
States and abroad. He has recorded a wide variety of solo and chamber repertoire for Claves,
Albany, Centaur, Newport Classics, and CRI records. The New York Times called his recording
of Beethoven’s Op. 106 “a ‘Hammerklavier’ of rare stature.” At UNCG, where he joined the piano
faculty in 1994, Willis serves as Artistic Director of the biennial Focus on Piano Literature, at
which he premiered Martin Amlin’s Sonata No. 7 in 2000. Willis holds the BM in Piano from The
Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Mieczyslaw Horszowski, the MM in Accompanying
from Temple University, where he studied with George Sementovsky and Lambert Orkis, and the
DMA in Historical Performance from Cornell University, where he studied with Malcolm Bilson.
For a number of years, his multifaceted musical career was based in Philadelphia, where he
served as keyboardist of The Philadelphia Orchestra for several seasons. He has also taught at
several colleges and universities and at Tanglewood.
Keith Cushman is well-known as a critic and editor of D. H. Lawrence. He is the author of D. H.
Lawrence at Work (University Press of Virginia). His edited books include The Letters of D. H.
Lawrence and Amy Lowell, 1914-1925, and Lawrence’s Memoir of Maurice Magnus. He has also
edited three collections of essays, The Challenge of D. H. Lawrence, D. H. Lawrence’s Literary
Inheritors, and D. H. Lawrence: New Worlds. He wrote the introduction and notes for the Penguin
edition of Love Among the Haystacks and Other Stories and the Modern Library Classics edition
1 The Rainbow. Professor Cushman has lectured in Italy, Finland, the Czech Republic, Poland,
Bulgaria, India, Japan, and Korea. He has received the Harry T. Moore Award for Lifetime
Contributions to and Encouragement of D. H. Lawrence Studies. He is at work on a book titled D.
H. Lawrence Among the Painters. He has broad interests in modern and contemporary drama
and British poetry and fiction. He teaches seminars on Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, modern Irish
literature, and British poetry.
Ed Riley joined the faculty at UNCG in 2002. Dr. Riley is a nationally known recitalist,
soloist, and clinician. He received his BM and MS degrees from The Juilliard School and
his DMA degree from the University of Iowa. His teachers include Bernard Portnoy, Joseph
Allard, George Silfies, and Himie Voxman. Riley plays assistant principal/2nd clarinet in the
Greensboro Symphony and plays regularly as an extra with the North Carolina Symphony.
Most recently, he has performed as principal clarinet with the Carolina Ballet. Formerly, Dr.
Riley played in the American Symphony under Leopold Stokowski, and was principal
clarinet in the Cedar Rapids Symphony and the Columbus Symphony. He also played
clarinet in the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and the Georgia Sinfonia in Atlanta. Dr. Riley plays
Selmer (Paris) clarinets and has been a national clinician with the Selmer Company since
1979. He has performed clinics at Midwest in Chicago, National MENC, Texas
Bandmasters, and over 30 state and regional MENC conferences. During the past few
years, he has presented clinics and master classes at over 100 universities, colleges, and
conservatories throughout the United States representing the Selmer Corporation.
Robert Rocha, from Miami, Florida, is currently in his second year of a Master’s Degree in
Percussion Performance. Mr. Rocha is a student of Dr. Cort McClaren with primary
emphasis on marimba performance and literature. Mr. Rocha graduated from Florida
International University with a B.M. in Percussion Performance, where he studied with John
Tafoya and Keith Aleo.
Steve Stusek has earned an international reputation for virtuosic performances of standard
and new works for the saxophone as well as for his engaging master classes and clinics. A
founding member of both the acclaimed Red Clay Sax Quartet and the UNCG Quatuor
d’Anches, he has won the prestigious Dutch Chamber Music Competition as part of the
saxophone-accordion duo 2Track with Dutch accordion player Otine van Erp. Along with
degrees from Indiana University (BM, DM) and Arizona State University (MM), Stusek has
studied at the Paris Conservatoire and the Conservatoire de la Region de Paris, where he
earned the Prix d'Or à l'Unanimité in saxophone performance. He is also founder and host
of the Carolina Saxophone Symposium, a day-long conference held at UNCG each Fall,
and dedicated to the highest level of saxophone performance and education. The CSS is
open to all saxophonists at no charge. In addition to being performing artist for the
Vandoren and Selmer companies, Stusek is on the faculty of the Blue Lake Fine Arts
Academy.
Scott Toth is currently pursuing a DMA in performance and a Certificate of Theory
Pedagogy at UNC Greensboro and studies with Dr. Edward Bach. He has studied with Mr.
Richard Illman, Dr. Stephen Jones, and Mr. Scott Thornburg before coming to Greensboro.
Mainly a classical player, Scott has played with many orchestras, both large and small. He
has performed with various college orchestras, the Kalamazoo Symphony, the Southwest
Michigan Symphony, the Battle Creek Symphony, the West Shore Symphony, and the
Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as many small orchestral chamber
ensembles, operatic and theatrical productions, and brass quintets.
Robert Wells is currently Assistant Professor of Voice and teaches studio voice and vocal
pedagogy. He also serves on the faculty of the Schlern International Music Festival in Voels
am Schlern, Italy. He holds the BM in Voice from the State University of New York College
at Fredonia, received the MM in Voice, and is currently completing the DMA degree
program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. A frequent recitalist
and collaborative artist, Wells has also enjoyed an active performance career in both
oratorio and opera in New York State and the Midwest, and his performances have taken
him to Great Britain and Europe. He has sung leading roles in Le Nozze di Figaro, Così fan
tutte, and Albert Herring and has appeared as baritone soloist in such works as Benjamin
Britten’s War Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and the St. John Passion of J. S. Bach. An
Ralph Vaughan Williams:
Four Hymns
Lord! come away!
Lord! come away! Why dost Thou stay?
Thy road is ready; and Thy paths made straight
With longing expectation, wait
The consecration of Thy beauteous feet!
Ride on triumphantly!
Behold we lay our lusts and proud wills in Thy way!
Hosanna! Welcome to our hearts!
Lord, here Thou hast a temple too; and full as dear
As that of Sion, and as full of sin:
Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein;
Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor!
Crucify them that they may never more
Profane that holy place
Where thou hast chose to set Thy face!
And then, if our stiff tongues shall be
Mute in the praises of thy Deity,
The stones out of the temple wall
Shall cry aloud, and call
'Hosanna!' and Thy glorious footsteps greet!
— Jeremy Taylor
Who is this fair one?
Who is this fair one in distress,
That travels from the wilderness,
And press'd with sorrows and with sins
On her beloved Lord she leans?
This is the spouse of Christ our God,
Bought with the treasures of His blood,
And her request and her complaint
Is but the voice of ev'ry saint:
"O let my name engrave stand
Both on Thy heart and on Thy hand;
Seal me upon mine arm and wear
That pledge of love for ever there.
"Stronger than death Thy love is known
Which floods of wrath could never drown,
And hell and earth in vain combine
To quench a fire so much divine.
"But I am jealous of my heart
Lest it should once from Thee depart;
Then let my name be well impress’d
As a fair signet on Thy breast.
Till Thou hast brought me to Thy home,
Where fears and doubts can never come,
Thy countenance let me often see,
And often shalt Thou hear from me:
"Come, my beloved, hast away,
Cut short the hours of Thy delay,
Fly like a youthful hart or roe,
Over the hills where spices blow."
— Isaac Watts
Come Love, come Lord
Come Love, come Lord, and that long day
For which I languish, come away,
When this dry soul those eyes shall see
And drink the unseal'd source of Thee,
When glory's sun faith's shades shall chase,
Then for Thy veil give me Thy face.
—Richard Crashaw
Evening Hymn
O gladsome light, O Grace
Of God the Father's face,
The eternal splendour wearing;
Celestial, holy, blest,
Our Saviour, Jesus Christ,
Joyful in Thine appearing:
Now, ere day fadeth quite,
We see the evening light,
Our wonted hymn outpouring;
Father of might unknown,
Thee, His incarnate Son,
And Holy Spirit adoring.
To Thee of right belongs
All praise of holy songs,
O Son of God, Life-giver;
Thee, therefore, O Most High,
The world doth glorify,
And shall exalt for ever.
—Robert Bridges (from the Greek)
Andrew Harley is Associate Professor of Accompanying in the School of Music at UNCG. He
received a BA and M. from Oxford University, the Artist Diploma from the Royal Northern College
of Music in Manchester and a DMA from the University of Southern California. He has been heard
in recital throughout Europe and the States in solo, accompanying and chamber music
performances. His recital tours this year include performances in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona,
New York, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Delaware. Previous appointments have
included the University of California Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and the
University of California Santa Barbara where he was Head of Accompanying. In addition to these
positions, he has also held numerous posts at a variety of summer schools. For five years, he
was Director of Chamber Music for the International Institute for Young Musicians and more
recently was Associate Faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. In the past
year, Harley has been invited to join the faculty at the AIMS program in Graz, Austria as well as
the University of Miami Summer program in Salzburg, Austria. In addition he was invited to
participate in the 2004 IDRS Conference in Melbourne, Australia together with bassoonist
Michael Burns. His latest recording project, The Chamber Music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, was
recently released on the Centaur Label. Two other recordings are currently in production; Sweet
was the Song, is a collection of English art songs set to Elizabethan texts which he recorded with
tenor, Robert Bracey and a second CD recorded with Brooks Whitehouse featuring works from
the UNCG Special Cello Collection will be released next year. A third recording, The Chamber
Music of Eddie Bass will be recorded in 2005 with members of Middle Voices. Harley is currently
Director of the Accompanying Program at UNCG. In addition to running the new DMA degree in
Accompanying and Chamber Music, he is also the Artistic Director for the Liberace Graduate
Piano Trio - a resident graduate ensemble sponsored as a result of a grant awarded to UNCG by
the Liberace Foundation. Harley has recently been invited to judge the International CyberSing
Competition administered by the Lotte Lehmann Foundation.
Grace Lin began her musical training in her native Taiwan, and continued at the Juilliard School
after immigrating to the United States. Having captured top prizes at the Artists International
Competition and the National Federation of Music Clubs Competition, Grace is establishing
herself as a leading cellist of her generation. In 1999, her New York debut at Weill Recital Hall at
Carnegie Hall met enthusiastic acclaim. Subsequently, Ms. Lin performed as a recitalist and
chamber musician in major cities throughout North America and Europe. Her performance
credits include recitals as a soloist and chamber musician at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center,
Bargemusic, and music festivals at Aspen, Caramoor, Los Angeles International Laureates,
Santa Barbara, and Nova Scotia. As an active chamber musician, Ms. Lin has collaborated with
musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center such as Cho-Liang Lin, Paul
Neubauer and Fred Sherry. In addition, Ms. Lin has performed as a member of the Proteaus Five
and Scott Johnson contemporary music ensembles, with tours to Italy, Holland, Germany and
France. Ms. Lin earned her Bachelor's degree from Harvard University and Master's at the
Juilliard School. Her primary teachers have been Fred Sherry and Bernard Greenhouse. Ms. Lin
has also participated in masterclasses with Janos Starker and Luis Claret. She is currently
pursuing her Doctorate at UNCG.
David Nelson joined the UNCG School of Music as Associate Dean in 2003. He holds a BM in
Music Education from the University of Michigan, and his graduate degrees – a MM in
Conducting and a PhD in Music Theory – are from Northwestern University. He has published
articles and presented papers on the wind music of Mozart, Stravinsky, and Messiaen, has
authored a chapter in the music education monograph “On the Nature of Musical Experience,”
and is currently finishing a book on the musical sites of Vienna. A strong believer of international
education, Dr. Nelson has taught in Austria and the Czech Republic, and has led more than 100
students and adults on musical tours of Vienna, Salzburg, and Prague. He has also lectured at
the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the University of Innsbruck. For 16 years, Dr. Nelson was on the
faculty of the University of New Orleans where he was Associate Chair, Graduate Coordinator,
and Marshall Plan Anniversary Professor of Austrian Studies. He directed the UNO Wind
Ensemble and the New Orleans Civic Symphony Orchestra, and conducted numerous operas
and musicals including The Magic Flute, Gianni Schicchi, Suor Anglica, Kiss of the Spider
Woman, La Cage Aux Folles, and Assassins.
Fall Choral Concert
Featuring the University Chorale, Chamber Singers,
Women’s Choir, and Men’s and Women’s Glee Clubs
Sunday, October 31 · 3:30 pm
Aycock Auditorium
Connie Frigo, saxophone · Rebecca Grausam, piano
Guest Recital
Sunday, October 31 · 5:30 pm
Recital Hall
Music of Fitz, Debussy, Engebretson, Corigliano, and Albright
For tickets, please contact the University Box Office at (336) 334.4849
performance
forthcomi
Robert Bracey, tenor, joined the School of Music faculty in 2003. He holds a BM in Music
Education from Michigan State University, a MM and a DMA in Voice Performance from the
University of Michigan. He previously served on the faculties at Bowling Green State University
and Michigan State University. He has also taught on the voice faculty of the Michigan All-State
program at the Interlochen Arts Camp for twelve summers. Dr. Bracey was awarded first place in
the 2002 Oratorio Society of New York¹s International Solo Competition at Carnegie Hall. A
Regional Finalist in the New York Metropolitan Opera Auditions, he also won first place in the
NATS Regional Competition where he received the Jessye Norman Award for the most
outstanding soloist at the competition. In 1999, he made his Detroit Symphony debut at Orchestra
Hall and in 1994, his Kennedy Center debut in Washington, DC with the Choral Arts Society of
Washington. Most recent highlights include performances with the Oratorio Society of New York
at Carnegie Hall, Pacific Symphony (CA), Orlando Philharmonic, Choral Arts Society of
Washington, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, Wichita Symphony, North Carolina
Symphony, Duluth-Superior Symphony, Duke University Chapel Choir, Ann Arbor Symphony,
and the Greater Lansing Symphony. Engagements for 2004-2005 include performances with the
Telemann Chamber Orchestra in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra,
Independence (MO) Messiah Festival, Grand Rapids Symphony, and the Boise Philharmonic.
Dr. Bracey's first solo compact disc will be released by Centaur Records in 2005. The recording
of English art songs also features UNCG faculty Andrew Harley, piano and Scott Rawls, viola.
Deborah Egekvist earned the BM from Lawrence University, the MM at the Eastman
School of Music, and the DM at Florida State University. She has taught at Marshall
University in Huntington, West Virginia, and at the University of Oklahoma at Norman.
Active as a soloist and chamber musician, Egekvist has performed throughout the United
States, Germany, Canada, and the Asian South Pacific. She has appeared as soloist with
the Minnesota Orchestra, the Green Bay Symphony, the West Virginia Symphonette, the
Aurora Symphony, and the Huntington Chamber Orchestra. She has also performed as
principal flute of the Huntington Chamber Orchestra, the Greensboro Symphony, and the
EastWind Quintet at UNCG. In June 1989, Egekvist made her New York debut at Carnegie
Recital Hall.
William Walton:
Façade: An Entertainment with Poems by Edith Sitwell (1922)
Hornpipe
Sailors come
To the drum
Out of Babylon;
Hobby-horses
Foam, the dumb
Sky rhinoceros-glum
Watched the courses of the breakers' rocking-horses and with Glaucis
Lady Venus on the settee of the horsehair sea!
Where Lord Tennyson in laurels wrote a gloria free,
In a borealic iceberg came Victoria; she
Knew Prince Albert's tall memorial took the colours of the floreal!
And the borealic iceberg; floating on they see
New-arisen Madam Venus for whose sake from far
Came the fat and zebra'd emperor from Zanzibar
Where like golden bouquets lay far Asia, Africa, Cathay,
All laid before that shady lady by the fibroid Shah.
Captain Fracasse stout as any water-butt came, stood
With Sir Bacchus both a-drinking the black tarr'd grapes' blood
Plucked among the tartan leafage
By the furry wind whose grief age
Could not wither - like a squirrel with a gold star-nut.
Queen Victoria sitting shocked upon the rocking horse
Of a wave said to the Laureate, "This minx of course
Is as sharp as any lynx and blacker-deeper than the drinks and quite as
Hot as any hottentot, without remorse!
“For the minx," said she,
“And the drinks, You can see
Are hot as any hottentot and not the goods for me!”
_____
En Famille
In the early spring-time, after their tea,
Through the young fields of the springing Bohea, Jemima, Jocasta, Dinah, and Deb
Walked with their father Sir Joshua Jebb -
An admiral red, whose only notion,
(A butterfly poised on a pigtailed ocean)
Is of the peruked sea whose swell
Breaks on the flowerless rocks of Hell.
Under the thin trees, Deb and Dinah,
Jemima, Jocasta, walked, and finer
Their black hair seemed (flat-sleek to see)
Than the young leaves of the springing Bohea;
Their cheeks were like nutmeg-flowers when swells
The rain into foolish silver bells.
They said, "If the door you would only slam,
Or if, Papa, you would once say 'Damn' -
Instead of merely roaring 'Avast'
Or boldly invoking the nautical Blast -
We should now stand in the the street of Hell
Watching siesta shutters that fell
With a noise like amber softly sliding;
Our moon-like glances through these gliding
Would see at her table preened and set
Myrrhina sitting at her toilette
With eyelids closed as soft as the breeze
That flows from gold flow'rs on the incense-trees."
The Admiral said, "You could never call -
I assure you it would not do at all!
She gets down from table without saying 'Please,'
Forgets her prayers and to cross her T's,
In short, her scandalous reputation
Has shocked the whole of the Hellish nation;
And every turbaned Chinoiserie,
With whom we should sip our black Bohea,
Would stretch out her simian fingers thin
To scratch you, my dears, like a mandoline;
For Hell is just as properly proper
As Greenwich, or as Bath, or Joppa!"
Mariner Man
"What are you staring at, mariner-man
Wrinkled as sea-sand and old as the sea?"
"Those trains will run over their tails, if they can,
Snorting and sporting like porpoises. Flee
The burly, the whirligig wheels of the train,
As round as the world and as large again,
Running half the way over to Babylon, down
Through fields of clover to gay Troy town
A-puffing their smoke as grey as the curl
On my forehead as wrinkled as sands of the sea!
But what can that matter to you, my girl?
(And what can that matter to me?)"
Long Steel Grass
Long steel grass
The white soldiers pass
The light is braying like an ass. See
The tall Spanish jade
With hair black as nightshade Worn as a cockade!
Flee
Her eyes' gasconade
And her gown's parade
(As stiff as a brigade).
Tee-hee!
The hard and braying light
Is zebra'd black and white
It will take away the slight
And free,
Tinge of the mouth-organ sound,
Fox-trot “Old Sir Faulk”
Old Sir Faulk,
Tall as a stork,
Before the honeyed fruits of dawn were ripe, would walk,
And stalk with a gun
The reynard-coloured sun,
Among the pheasant-feathered corn the unicorn has torn, forlorn the
Smock-faced sheep
Sit and sleep;
Periwigged as William and Mary, weep. . .
"Sally, Mary, Mattie, what's the matter, why cry?"
The huntsman and reynard-coloured sun and I sigh;
"Oh, the nursery-maid Meg
With a leg like a peg
Chased the feathered dreams like hens, and when they laid an egg
In the sheepskin meadows where
The serene King James would steer
Horse and hounds, then he
From the shade of a tree
Picked it up as spoil to boil for nursery tea," said the mourners.
In the corn, towers strain,
Feathered tall as a crane,
And whistling down the feathered rain, old Noah goes again.
An old dull mome
With a head like a pome,
Seeing the world as a bare egg,
Laid by the feathered air; Meg
Would beg three of these
For the nursery teas
Of Japhet, Shem, and Ham; she gave it
Underneath the trees
Where the boiling water,
The boiling water hissed,
Like the goose-king's feathered daughter,
Feathered daughter kissed,
Pot and pan and copper kettle
Put upon their proper mettle,
Lest the Flood - the Flood,
The Flood begin again through these, again through these!
Sir Beelzebub
When
Sir
Beelzebub called for his syllabub in the hotel in Hell
Where Proserpine first fell,
Blue as the gendarmerie were the waves of the sea,
(Rocking and shocking the bar-maid).
Nobody comes to give him his rum but the
Rim of the sky hippopotamus-glum
Enhances the chances to bless with a benison
Alfred Lord Tennyson crossing the bar laid
With cold vegetation from pale deputations
Of temperance workers (all signed In Memoriam)
Hoping with glory to trip up the Laureate's feet,
(Moving in classical metres) . . .
Like Balaclava, the lava came down from the
Roof, and the sea's blue wooden gendarmerie
Took them in charge while Beelzebub roared for his rum. . . . None of them come!
Popular Song
Lily O'Grady,
Silly and shady,
Longing to be
A lazy lady,
Walked by the cupolas, gables in the
Lake's Georgian stables,
In a fairy tale like the heat intense,
And the mist in the woods when across the fence
The children gathering strawberries
Are changed by the heat into negresses,
Through their fair hair
Shines there
Like gold-haired planets, Calliope, Io, Pomona, Antiope, Echo, and Clio.
Then Lily O'Grady,
Silly and shady,
Sauntered along like a
Lazy lady.
Beside the waves' haycocks her gown with tucks
Was of satin the colour of shining green ducks,
And her fol-de-rol parasol
Was a great gold sun o'er the haycocks shining,
But she was a negress black as the shade
That time on the brightest lady laid.
Then a satyr, dog-haired as trunks of trees,
Began to flatter, began to tease,
And she ran like the nymphs with golden foot
That trampled the strawberry, buttercup root,
In the thick gold dew as bright as the mesh
Of dead Panope's golden flesh,
Made from the music whence were born
Memphis and Thebes in the first hot morn,
And ran, to wake
In the lake,
Where the water-ripples seem hay to rake.
And Charlottine, Adeline,
Round rose-bubbling Victorine,
And the other fish
Express a wish
For mastic mantles and gowns with a swish;
And bright and slight as the posies
Of buttercups and of roses,
And buds of the wild wood-lilies
They chase her, as frisky as fillies.
The red retriever-haired satyr
Can whine and tease her and flatter,
But Lily O'Grady,
Silly and shady,
In the deep shade is a lazy lady;
Now Pompey's dead, Homer's read,
Heliogabalus lost his head,
And shade is on the brightest wing,
And dust forbids the bird to sing.
(Oyster-stall notes) oozing round
Her flounces as they sweep the ground. The
Trumpet and the drum
And the martial cornet come
To make the people dumb-
But we
Won't wait for sly-foot night
(Moonlight, watered milk-white, bright)
To make clear the declaration
Of our Paphian vocation,
Beside the castanetted sea,
Where stalks II Capitaneo
Swaggart braggadocio
Sword and moustachio -
He
Is green as a cassada
And his hair is an armada.
To the jade: "Come kiss me harder"
He called across the battlements as she
Heard our voices thin and shrill
As the steely grasses' thrill,
Or the sound of the onycha
When the phoca has the pica
In the palace of the Queen Chinee!
Through Gilded Trellises
"Through gilded trellises
Of the heat, Dolores,
Inez, Manuccia,
Isabel, Lucia,
Mock Time that flies.
'Lovely bird, will you stay and sing,
Flirting your sheened wing,
Peck with your beak, and cling
To our balconies?'
They flirt their fans, flaunting
'O silence, enchanting
As music!' then slanting
Their eyes,
Like gilded or emerald grapes,
They take mantillas, capes,
Hiding their simian shapes.
Sighs
Each lady, 'Our spadille
Is done' . . . 'Dance the quadrille From Hell's towers to Seville; Surprise
Their siesta, 'Dolores
Said. Through gilded trellises
Of the heat, spangles
Pelt down through the tangles
Of bell-flowers; each dangles
Her castanets, shutters
Fall while the heat mutters,
With sounds like a mandoline
Or tinkled tambourine. . .
Ladies, Time dies!”
Tango-Pasodoble
When Don Pasquito arrived at the seaside
Where the donkey's hide tide brayed, he
Saw the banditto Jo in a black cape
Whose slack shape waved like the sea
Thetis wrote a treatise noting wheat is silver like the sea; the lovely cheat is sweet as foam;
Erotis notices that she . . . will . . . . steal . . . . . the
Wheat-king's luggage, like Babel
Before the League of Nations grew -
So Jo put the luggage and the label
In the pocket of Flo the Kangaroo.
Through trees like rich hotels that bode
Of dreamless ease fled she,
Carrying the load and goading the road
Through the marine scene to the sea.
"Don Pasquito, the road is eloping
With your luggage, though heavy and large;
You must follow and leave your moping
Bride to my guidance and charge!"
When Don Pasquito returned from the road's end,
Where vanilla-coloured ladies ride
From Sevilla, his matilla'd bride and young friend
Were forgetting their mentor and guide.
For the lady and her friend from Le Touquet
In the very shady trees upon the sand
Were plucking a white satin bouquet
Of foam, while the sand's brassy band
Blared in the wind. Don Pasquito
Hid where the leaves drip with sweet. . .
But a word stung him like a mosquito. . .
For what they hear, they repeat!
_____
Lullaby for Jumbo
Jumbo asleep!
Grey leaves thick-furred
As his ears, keep Conversations blurred. Thicker than hide
Is the trumpeting water; Don Pasquito's bride
And his youngest daughter Watch the leaves Elephantine grey:
What is it grieves
In the torrid day?
In it the animal
World that snores
Harsh and inimical
In sleepy pores?
And why should the spined flowers
Red as a soldier
Make Don Pasquito
Seem still mouldier?
And Mrs. Cow.
Man must say farewells
To storks and Bettes,
And to roses' bells,
And statuettes.
Forests white and black
In spring are blue
With forget-me-nots,
And to lovers true
Still the sweet bird begs
And tries to cozen them:
'Buy angels' eggs, sold by the dozen.'
Gone are clouds like inns
On the gardens' brinks,
And the mountain djinns,
Ganymede sells drinks;
While the days seem grey,
And his heart of ice,
Grey as chamois, or
The edelweiss,
And the mountain streams
Like cowbells sound -
Tirra lirra, drowned
In the waiter's dreams
Who has gone beyond
The forest waves,
While his true and fond
Ones seek their graves."
Scotch Rhapsody
Do not take a bath in Jordon, Gordon,
On the holy Sabbath, on the peaceful day!"
Said the huntsman, playing on his old bagpipe,
Boring to death the pheasant and the snipe
Boring the ptarmigan and grouse for fun
Boring them worse than a nine-bore gun.
Till the flaxen leaves where the prunes are ripe,
Heard the tartan wind a-droning through the pipe,
And they heard McPherson say:
“Where do the waves go? What hotels
Hide their bustles and their gay ombrelles?
And would there be room? - would there be room? - would there be room for me? ,"
There is a hotel at Ostend
Cold as the wind, without an end,
Haunted by ghostly poor relations
Of Bostonian conversations
(Like bagpipes rotting through the walls.)
And there the pearl-ropes fall like shawls
With a noise like marine waterfalls.
And “Another little drink wouldn't do us any harm”
Pierces through the Sabbatical calm.
And that is the place for me!
So do not take a bath in Jordan, Gordon,
On the holy Sabbath, on the peaceful day
Or you'll never go to heaven, Gordon McPherson,
And speaking purely as a private person
That is the place - that is the place - that is the place for me!
And the nymphs of deep waters,
The nymph Taglioni, Grisi the ondine,
Wear plaided Victoria and thin Clementine
Like the crinolined waterfalls;
Wood-nymphs wear bonnets, shawls,
Elegant parasols
Floating are seen.
The Amazons wear balzarine of jonquille
Beside the blond lace of a deep-falling rill;
Through glades like a nun
They run from and shun
The enormous and gold-rayed rustling sun;
And the nymphs of the fountains
Descend from the mountains
Like elegant willows
On their deep barouche pillows,
In cashmere Alvandar, barege Isabelle,
Like bells of bright water from clearest wood-well.
Our elegantes favouring bonnets of blond,
The stars in their apiaries,
Sylphs in their aviaries,
Seeing them, spangle these, and the sylphs fond
From their aviaries fanned
With each long fluid hand
The manteaux espagnoles,
Mimic the waterfalls
Over the long and the light summer land.
So Daisy and Lily,
Lazy and silly,
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,
Talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree. Rose castles,
Tourelles,
Those bustles!
Mourelles
Of the shade in their train follow.
Ladies, how vain, hollow,
Gone is the sweet swallow,
Gone, Philomel'"
Jodelling Song
"We bear velvet cream,
Green and babyish
Small leaves seem; each stream
Horses' tails that swish,
And the chimes remind
Us of sweet birds singing,
Like the jangling bells
On rose trees ringing.
Man must say farewells
To parents now,
And to William Tell
Black Mrs. Behemoth
In a room of the palace
Black Mrs. Behemoth
Gave way to wroth
And the wildest malice.
Cried Mrs. Behemoth,
"Come, come,
Come, court lady,
Doomed like a moth,
Through palace rooms shady!"
The candle flame
Seemed a yellow pompion, sharp as a scorpion,
Nobody came. . .
Only a bugbear
Air unkind,
That bud-furred papoose.
The young spring wind,
Blew out the candle,
Where is it gone?
To flat Coromandel
Rolling on!
_____
Tarantella
Where the satyrs are chattering, nymphs in their flattering glimpse of the forest enhance
All the beauty of marrow and cucumber narrow
And Ceres will join in the dance.
Where the satyrs can flatter the flat-leaved fruit
And the gherkin green and the marrow,
Said Queen Venus, "Silenus, we'll settle between us
The gourd and the cucumber narrow."
See, like palaces hid in the lake, they shake -
Those greenhouses shot by her arrow narrow!
The gardener seizes the pieces, like Croesus, for gilding the pottingshed barrow
There the radish roots
And the strawberry fruits
Feel the nymphs' high boots in the glade.
Trampling and sampling mazurkas, cachucas and turkas,
Cracoviaks hid in the shade.
Where, in the haycocks, the country nymphs' gay flocks
Wear gowns that are looped over bright yellow petticoats,
Gaiters of leather and pheasants' tail feathers
In straw hats bewildering many a leathern bat.
There they haymake,
Cowers and whines in showers,
The dew in the dogskin bright flowers;
Pumpkin and marrow
And cucumber narrow
Have grown through the spangled June hours.
Melons as dark as caves have for their fountain waves thickest gold honey.
And wrinkled as dark as Pan,
Or old Silenus, yet youthful as Venus,
Are gourds and the wrinkled figs
Whence all the jewels ran.
Said Queen Venus, "Silenus
We'll settle between us
The nymphs' disobedience, forestall
With my bow and my quiver
Each fresh evil liver:
For I don't understand it at all!"
_____
A Man from a far Countree
Rose and Alice,
Oh, the pretty lassies,
With their mouths like a calice
And their hair a golden palace
Through my heart like a lovely wind they blow.
Though I am black and not comely,
Though I am black as the darkest trees,
I have swarms of gold that will fly like honey-bees,
By the rivers of the sun I will feed my words
Until they skip like those fleeced Iambs
The waterfalls, and the rivers (horned rams),
Then for all my darkness I shall be
The peacefulness of a lovely tree -
A tree wherein the golden birds
Are singing in the darkest branches, oh!
_____
By The Lake
Across the thick and the pastel snow
Two people go. . . "And do you remember
When last we wandered this shore?" . . . "Ah no!
For it is cold-hearted December."
"Dead, the leaves that like asses' ears hung on the trees
When last we wandered and squandered joy here;
Now Midas your husband will listen for these
Whispers - these tears for joy's bier."
And as they walk, they seem tall pagodas;
And all the ropes let down from the cloud
Ring the hard cold bell-buds upon the trees - codas
Of overtones, ecstasies, grown for love's shroud.
Something Lies Beyond the Scene
Something lies beyond the scene, the encre de chine, marine, obscene
Horizon in hell
Black as a bison
See the tall black Aga on the sofa in the alga mope, his
Bell-rope Moustache
(clear as a great bell!)
Waves in eighteen-eighty
Bustles come late with tambourines of rustling foam.
They answer to the names
Of ancient dames and shames, and
Only call horizons their home.
Coldly wheeze (Chinese as these black-armoured fleas that dance) the breezes
Seeking for horizons wide; from her orisons
In her wide vermilion pavilion
By the seaside the doors clang open and hide
Where the wind died
Nothing but the Princess
Cockatrice lean
Dancing a caprice
To the wind's tambourine.
Valse
“Daisy and Lily,
Lazy and silly,
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,
Talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree.
Rose castles,
Tourelles,
Those bustles
Where swells
Each foam-bell of ermine,
They roam and determine
What fashions have been and what fashions will be,
What tartan leaves born,
What crinolines worn.
By Queen Thetis,
Pelisses
Of tarlatine blue,
Like the thin plaided leaves that the castle crags grew,
Or velours d'Afrande:
On the water-gods' land
Her hair seemed gold trees on the honey-cell sand
When the thickest gold spangles, on deep water seen,
Were like twanging guitar and like cold mandoline,
And the nymphs of great caves,
With hair like gold waves,
Of Venus, wore tarlatine.
Louise and Charlottine
(Boreas'daughters)
Country Dance
That hobnailed goblin, the bob-tailed Hob,
Said, “lt is time I began to rob.”
For strawberries bob, hob-nob with the pearls
Of cream (like the curls of the dairy girls),
And flushed with the heat and fruitish-ripe
Are the gowns of the maids who dance to the pipe.
Chase a maid?
She's afraid!
"Go gather a bob-cherry kiss from a tree,
But don't, I prithee, come bothering me!"
She said -
As she fled.
The snouted satyrs drink clouted cream
'Neath the chestnut-trees as thick as a dream;
So I went,
And leant,
Where none but the doltish coltish wind
Nuzzled my hand for what it could find.
As it neighed,
I said,
"Don't touch me, sir, don't touch me, I say.
You'll tumble my strawberies into the hay."
Those snow-mounds of silver that bee, the spring,
Has sucked his sweetness from,
I will bring
With fair-haired plants and with apples chill
For the great god Pan's high altar. . . I'll spill
Not one!
So, in fun,
We rolled on the grass and began to run
Chasing that gaudy satyr the Sun;
Over the haycocks, away we ran
Crying, "Here be berries as sunburnt as Pan!"
But Silenus
Has seen us . . .
He runs like the rough satyr Sun.
Come away!
Polka
“'Tra la la la la la la
La la!
See me dance the polka,’ Said Mister Wagg like a bear,
With my top hat
And my whiskers that - (Tra la la la) trap the Fair.
Where the waves seem chiming haycocks I dance the polka; there
Stand Venus' children in their gay frocks, - Maroon and marine, - and stare
To see me fire my pistol
Through the distance blue as my coat;
Like Wellington, Byron, the Marquis of Buzbied great trees float.
While the wheezing hurdy-gurdy
Of the marine wind blows me
To the tune of Annie Rooney, sturdy,
Over the sheafs of the sea;
And bright as a seeds man's packet
With zinnias, candy tufts chill,
Is Mrs. Marigold's jacket
As she gapes at the inn door still,
Where at dawn in the box of the sailor,
Blue as the decks of the sea,
Nelson awoke, crowed like the cocks,
Then back to the dust sank he.
And Robinson Crusoe rues so
The bright and foxy beer, -
But he finds fresh isles in a negress' smiles,
The poxy doxy dear.
As they watch me dance the polka,' Said Mister Wagg like a bear.
'In my top hat and my whiskers that, - Tra la la la, trap the Fair.
Tra la la la la, la -
Tra la la la la, la -
Tra la la la la la la la
La La La!"
_____
Four in the Morning
Cried the navy-blue ghost of Mister Balaker
The allegro negro cocktail-shaker:
“Why did the cock crow,
Why am I lost
Down the endless road to Infinity toss'd?”
The tropical leaves are whispering white as water:
I race the wind in my flight down the promenade,
Edging the far-off sand
Is the foam of the sirens' Metropole and Grand,
As I raced through the leaves as white as water
My ghost flowed over a nursemaid, caught her,
And there I saw the long grass weep,
Where the guinea-fowl plumaged houses sleep
And the sweet ring-doves of curded milk
Watch the Infanta's gown of silk
In the ghost-room tall where the governante
Whispers slyly fading andante.
In at the window then looked he,
The navy-blue ghost of Mister Belaker,
The allegro negro cocktail-shaker, -
And his flattened face like the moon saw she,
Rhinoceros-black yet flowing like the sea.
Country Dance
That hobnailed goblin, the bob-tailed Hob,
Said, “lt is time I began to rob.”
For strawberries bob, hob-nob with the pearls
Of cream (like the curls of the dairy girls),
And flushed with the heat and fruitish-ripe
Are the gowns of the maids who dance to the pipe.
Chase a maid?
She's afraid!
"Go gather a bob-cherry kiss from a tree,
But don't, I prithee, come bothering me!"
She said -
As she fled.
The snouted satyrs drink clouted cream
'Neath the chestnut-trees as thick as a dream;
So I went,
And leant,
Where none but the doltish coltish wind
Nuzzled my hand for what it could find.
As it neighed,
I said,
"Don't touch me, sir, don't touch me, I say.
You'll tumble my strawberies into the hay."
Those snow-mounds of silver that bee, the spring,
Has sucked his sweetness from,
I will bring
With fair-haired plants and with apples chill
For the great god Pan's high altar. . . I'll spill
Not one!
So, in fun,
We rolled on the grass and began to run
Chasing that gaudy satyr the Sun;
Over the haycocks, away we ran
Crying, "Here be berries as sunburnt as Pan!"
But Silenus
Has seen us . . .
He runs like the rough satyr Sun.
Come away!
Polka
“'Tra la la la la la la
La la!
See me dance the polka,’ Said Mister Wagg like a bear,
With my top hat
And my whiskers that - (Tra la la la) trap the Fair.
Where the waves seem chiming haycocks I dance the polka; there
Stand Venus' children in their gay frocks, - Maroon and marine, - and stare
To see me fire my pistol
Through the distance blue as my coat;
Like Wellington, Byron, the Marquis of Buzbied great trees float.
While the wheezing hurdy-gurdy
Of the marine wind blows me
To the tune of Annie Rooney, sturdy,
Over the sheafs of the sea;
And bright as a seeds man's packet
With zinnias, candy tufts chill,
Is Mrs. Marigold's jacket
As she gapes at the inn door still,
Where at dawn in the box of the sailor,
Blue as the decks of the sea,
Nelson awoke, crowed like the cocks,
Then back to the dust sank he.
And Robinson Crusoe rues so
The bright and foxy beer, -
But he finds fresh isles in a negress' smiles,
The poxy doxy dear.
As they watch me dance the polka,' Said Mister Wagg like a bear.
'In my top hat and my whiskers that, - Tra la la la, trap the Fair.
Tra la la la la, la -
Tra la la la la, la -
Tra la la la la la la la
La La La!"
_____
Four in the Morning
Cried the navy-blue ghost of Mister Balaker
The allegro negro cocktail-shaker:
“Why did the cock crow,
Why am I lost
Down the endless road to Infinity toss'd?”
The tropical leaves are whispering white as water:
I race the wind in my flight down the promenade,
Edging the far-off sand
Is the foam of the sirens' Metropole and Grand,
As I raced through the leaves as white as water
My ghost flowed over a nursemaid, caught her,
And there I saw the long grass weep,
Where the guinea-fowl plumaged houses sleep
And the sweet ring-doves of curded milk
Watch the Infanta's gown of silk
In the ghost-room tall where the governante
Whispers slyly fading andante.
In at the window then looked he,
The navy-blue ghost of Mister Belaker,
The allegro negro cocktail-shaker, -
And his flattened face like the moon saw she,
Rhinoceros-black yet flowing like the sea.