Official site of composer Andrea Clearfield. Biography, list of works with audio, score samples, reviews and program notes, photographs, upcoming performances.
Scored for: mezzo-soprano, baritone and piano. Individual songs available. Text: Frost, Kancewick, Wagoner, Keats, Shakespeare, Hoelderlin and Rilke Language: English Duration: 9 songs, 45 min. Premiere: 1/27/13, Lyric Fest:Katherine Pracht, mezzo-soprano, Randall Scarlatta, baritone, Laura Ward, piano, The Academy of Vocal Arts, Philadelphia Commissioned by: Lyric Fest, with support from Sandi and John Stouffer Published by: Self-published, Angelfire Press
Contact Andrea Clearfield for score and parts:
REVIEW
“…she bore deep into the meaning of the text with full-fisted piano writing and vocal lines of considerable literary sensitivity.”
David Patrick Stearns, The Phildelphia Inquirer, January 29, 2013
LISTEN: (excerpts from the premiere performance) Katherine Pracht, mezzo-soprano, Randall Scarlatta, baritone, Laura Ward, piano
TEXTS
I. END OF THE ROAD
1. Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet questions “Whither?”
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Robert Frost, from A Boy’s Will
2. Roads
End of the road.
Just a thought
until I came here.
Here all of the –
roads—have ends
you come to. I came
to understand
that to go
on, I need to change
modes. It’s a step
different
into wilderness
a yessing step
into self
where roads continue
as long as you
follow them –
yes, that long. Yes-long.
Mary Kancewick
Published in poetryALASKAwomen:
Top of the World (edited by Suzanne Summerville)
Used with kind permission by Mary Kancewick.
3. Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
David Wagoner
Published in Traveling Light by the University of Illinois Press
Used with permission by David Wagoner
II. FOR LOVE IS A THING OF CHANGES
4. Wind and Window Flower
(Out of the winter things he fashions a story of modern love)*
Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.
When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,
He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.
He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.
But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.
Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.
But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.
Robert Frost, from A Boy’s Will
5. In a Drear-nighted December
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne-er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
Ah! Would’t were so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.
John Keats
6. Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
William Shakespeare
As You Like It (II, vii, 174-76)
III. EINSAMKEIT (LONLINESS/SOLITUDE)
7. Half of Life
With yellow pears
And full of red roses
The shore hangs into the lake,
You gracious swans,
And drunk with kisses
You dip your heads
Into the holy and sober water.
Ah, where will I find,
when it is winter, the flowers,
And where the sunshine
And the shadows of the earth?
The walls stand
Speechless and cold,
In the wind
The flags are clanging.
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (Translated by Manfred Fischbeck)
8. You are not surprised at the force of the storm
You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.
The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit;
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again a stranger.
Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered
leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all can feel you when he reaches for you.
Rainer Maria Rilke
From “The Book of Pilgrimage” in RILKE’S Book of Hours
Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.
Used with kind permission from Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
9. Be It My Loss
(It is time to make an end of speaking)*
Now close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.
It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird;
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
Robert Frost, from A Boy’s Will
*Frost’s description of these poems in the Table of Contents
to A Boy’s Will
The Drift of Things; Winter Songs
Scored for: mezzo-soprano, baritone and piano. Individual songs available.
Text: Frost, Kancewick, Wagoner, Keats, Shakespeare, Hoelderlin and Rilke
Language: English
Duration: 9 songs, 45 min.
Premiere: 1/27/13, Lyric Fest:Katherine Pracht, mezzo-soprano, Randall Scarlatta, baritone, Laura Ward, piano, The Academy of Vocal Arts, Philadelphia
Commissioned by: Lyric Fest, with support from Sandi and John Stouffer
Published by: Self-published, Angelfire Press
Contact Andrea Clearfield for score and parts:
REVIEW
“…she bore deep into the meaning of the text with full-fisted piano writing and vocal lines of considerable literary sensitivity.”
David Patrick Stearns, The Phildelphia Inquirer, January 29, 2013
LISTEN: (excerpts from the premiere performance) Katherine Pracht, mezzo-soprano, Randall Scarlatta, baritone, Laura Ward, piano
TEXTS
I. END OF THE ROAD
1. Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet questions “Whither?”
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Robert Frost, from A Boy’s Will
2. Roads
End of the road.
Just a thought
until I came here.
Here all of the –
roads—have ends
you come to. I came
to understand
that to go
on, I need to change
modes. It’s a step
different
into wilderness
a yessing step
into self
where roads continue
as long as you
follow them –
yes, that long. Yes-long.
Mary Kancewick
Published in poetryALASKAwomen:
Top of the World (edited by Suzanne Summerville)
Used with kind permission by Mary Kancewick.
3. Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
David Wagoner
Published in Traveling Light by the University of Illinois Press
Used with permission by David Wagoner
II. FOR LOVE IS A THING OF CHANGES
4. Wind and Window Flower
(Out of the winter things he fashions a story of modern love)*
Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.
When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,
He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.
He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.
But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.
Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.
But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.
Robert Frost, from A Boy’s Will
5. In a Drear-nighted December
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne-er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
Ah! Would’t were so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.
John Keats
6. Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
William Shakespeare
As You Like It (II, vii, 174-76)
III. EINSAMKEIT (LONLINESS/SOLITUDE)
7. Half of Life
With yellow pears
And full of red roses
The shore hangs into the lake,
You gracious swans,
And drunk with kisses
You dip your heads
Into the holy and sober water.
Ah, where will I find,
when it is winter, the flowers,
And where the sunshine
And the shadows of the earth?
The walls stand
Speechless and cold,
In the wind
The flags are clanging.
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (Translated by Manfred Fischbeck)
8. You are not surprised at the force of the storm
You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.
The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit;
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again a stranger.
Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered
leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all can feel you when he reaches for you.
Rainer Maria Rilke
From “The Book of Pilgrimage” in RILKE’S Book of Hours
Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.
Used with kind permission from Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
9. Be It My Loss
(It is time to make an end of speaking)*
Now close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.
It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird;
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
Robert Frost, from A Boy’s Will
*Frost’s description of these poems in the Table of Contents
to A Boy’s Will