"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."
~Henry David Thoreau
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"One finds here three basic truths: imagination, dialectic, and religious melancholy.
The truth Soren Kierkegaard sought after was a truth which was a truth for me."
Samuel Barber
“I was meant to be a composer and will be I'm sure. Don't ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football - please.”
Samuel Barber
"This brooding song for baritone and string quartet, written in the days preceding World War II, might be taken as an attempt to warn, for it sets with almost miraculous appropriateness one of the grimmest poems of World War I. It is a marvel of lyricism, yet is mysteriously touching throughout. Incidentally, Barber was a well-trained singer and, singing this piece, became perhaps the only classical composer to sing one of his own works on a professional, major-label recording. ---All Music Guide"
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Three Songs to Poems of James Joyce, Op. 10
No. 1 - "Rain Has Fallen"
Gerald Finley (baritone)
Julius Drake (piano)
Samuel Barber's background, deeply rooted in singing, his love of poetry, and his intimate knowledge and appreciation of the human voice, inspired his vocal writing.
Barber set to music six poems by James Joyce from his _Chamber Music_. Three of these songs were published in 1939 as Barber's Op. 10.
"Rain has fallen," the first song, has an interesting piano accompaniment. High, cascading arpeggios are meant to convey the idea of falling rain. Also, in the middle section, the piano has a low, chromatically descending line which also sounds like falling rain. This song has a dramatic tone throughout. (AllMusic.com)
"Rain Has Fallen", Op. 10, No. 1
Rain has fallen all the day.
O come among the laden trees:
The leaves lie thick upon the way
Of memories.
Staying a little by the way
Of memories shall we depart.
Come, my beloved, where I may
Speak to your heart.
James Joyce
For Robert Desnos (with Samuel Barber) from Ray Anderson on Vimeo.
Cathedral from Alex Gallitano on Vimeo.
Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (tune 'Adagio for Strings')
"The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei (Basílica El Escorial)"
Numerical Art, Drawings, Painting, Sculpture by Jacqueline Waechter.
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