GORDON GETTY THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL Nikolai Schukoff, Melody Moore, Lester Lynch Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Rundfunkorchester Asher Fisch, Ulf Schirmer The Little Match Girl Joan and the Bells A Prayer for My Daughter A PRAYER FOR MY In the elms above the fl ooded stream; Their magnanimities of sound, Gordon Getty (born 1933) Cantata for Soprano, Baritone, Chorus and Orchestra DAUGHTER Imagining in excited reverie Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Text by Gordon Getty Yeats was fi fty-one when he married That the future years had come, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. 1 A Prayer for my Daughter 13. 22 Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1916. He wrote WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Dancing to a frenzied drum, Oh, may she live like some green laurel For Chorus and Orchestra 6 Judgment 7. 03 “A Prayer for My Daughter” on the birth Out of the murderous innocence of the Rooted in one dear perpetual place. Text by William Butler Yeats 7 Joan in Her Chamber 6. 16 of Anne Yeats in 1919. The “loveliest Once more the storm is howling, and sea. 8 The Square at Rouen 6. 39 woman born” in the third to last stanza half hid My mind, because the minds that I Poor Peter would be Maud Gonne, the love of his Under this cradle-hood and coverlid May she be granted beauty and yet not have loved, For Tenor, Chorus and Orchestra life, and the “old bellows full of angry My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle Beauty to make a stranger’s eye The sort of beauty that I have approved, Text by Gordon Getty wind” would be the man she married, But Gregory’s Wood and one bare hill distraught, Prosper but little, has dried up of late, Total playing time: 66. 59 Major John MacBride. Both were violent Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Yet knows that to be choked with hate 2 Where is My Lady 2. 46 revolutionaries. MacBride had been wind, Being made beautiful overmuch, May well be of all evil chances chief. 3 Tune the Fiddle 1. 24 executed for his part in the Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; Consider beauty a suffi cient end, If there’s no hatred in a mind 4 Ballad of Poor Peter 5. 21 Easter uprising of 1916 when the poem And for an hour I have walked and Lose natural kindness and maybe Assault and battery of the wind was written. prayed The heart-revealing intimacy Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. 5 The Little Match Girl 23. 45 Nikolai Schukoff , Tenor (Poor Peter) It is one of the most admired works by Because of the great gloom that is in That chooses right and never fi nd a For Chorus and Orchestra Melody Moore, Soprano (Joan and the Bells) one of the most admired poets of the my mind. friend. * An intellectual hatred is the worst, Text by Hans Christian Andersen Lester Lynch, Baritone (Joan and the Bells) age. Any setting would need to deal with So let her think opinions are accursed. (English translation by H. B. Paull) Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks the storm described in the fi rst two I have walked and prayed for this young May she become a fl ourishing hidden Have I not seen the loveliest woman From the short story The Little Match Girl Chorus Masters: Jörn Hinnerk Andresen (1 - 5) and Robert Blank (6 - 8) stanzas. Mine abates it in the third, child an hour tree born Münchner Rundfunkorchester leaves out the fourth and fi fth, then And heard the sea-wind scream upon That all her thoughts may like the linnet Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn, brings back fl urries now and then until the tower, be, Because of her opinionated mind Conducted by the last. The appeal to ceremony at that And under the arches of the bridge, And have no business but dispensing Barter that horn and every good Asher Fisch (1 - 5) and Ulf Schirmer (6 - 8) point invited a brass chorale to close. and scream round By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind? * Composer did not set stanza 4 and 5 Poor Peter of Wandering Aengus,” where a girl POOR PETER Easterly, southerly, follow the train of the original poem. materializes magically, runs off , and is GORDON GETTY Where she runs in the starlight, she runs Considering that, all hatred driven hence, Poor Peter is set in the Middle Ages of followed by Aengus forever: in the rain, The soul recovers radical innocence Text: “A Prayer for my Daughter,” myth, of Sherwood Forest or Camelot WHERE IS MY LADY? In footfall and starfall, again and And learns at last that it is self- by William Butler Yeats, or Christmas carols. “Where is My “Though I am old with wandering, again, delighting, adapted by Gordon Getty. Lady,” which opens the cycle, also Through hollow lands and hilly lands, Where is my lady, O where has she Beauty and grace she is, beauty and Self-appeasing, self-aff righting, Source: William Butler Yeats, “A Prayer appears in my opera Usher House. I will fi nd out where she has gone, gone? grace And that its own sweet will is heaven’s for my Daughter” in Michael Robartes There it is sung by the narrator, who And kiss her lips and take her hands; Over the moonrise and over the dawn. Hang in the air like chimes where she will; And The Dancer, (Churchtown, I make to be Poe himself, and then And walk among long-dappled grass, Follow her easterly, follow the trace goes by. She can, though every face should Dundrum, Ireland: Cuala Press, 1920), reprised wordlessly by Madeline as she And pluck, till time and times are done, Of her toe on the wind; she has run to scowl Pages 20-23. walks up from her crypt at the end. The The silver apples of the moon, the place TUNE THE FIDDLE And every windy quarter howl “Beauty and grace…” refrain, although The golden apples of the sun.” Where the morning begins, and the sea Or every bellows burst, be happy still. not so much the whole poem, is meant and the sky; Tune the fi ddle and fetch the drum, to sound as if Poe might have written it. The debt of my own lines to this, Beauty and grace she is, beauty and Stamp and clap as the dancers come, And may her bride-groom bring her to particularly in my third stanza, is plain grace In green and blues, in ranks and a house “Tune the Fiddle” off ers a foot-stomping enough. Hang in the air like chimes where she queues, Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious; contrast in tempo and dynamic, and goes by. Two by twos in dancing shoes. For arrogance and hatred are the wares gives a hint of the sass and cheek Even so, Aengus and Poor Peter are not Peddled in the thoroughfares. expected of actual minstrels in festive the same. We cannot imagine Aengus What if I follow, as best I can try, Carve the roast and fi ll the bowl, How but in custom and in ceremony songs. Minstrels seem to have been a singing “Tune the Fiddle.” Poor Peter And ring the wide world, and yet fail in Here’s to our host, and the thirsty soul, Are innocence and beauty born? Münchner Rundfunkorchester rowdy lot, incidentally, judging from has a twinkle; he is audience-aware, he the chase? And the company whole. Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn, © Denis Pernath Grove’s. invites the smile and the tear together. Follow her southerly, follow the mark And custom for the spreading laurel The main idea of “The Ballad of Poor These traits give him a place in the world Of her foot in the light, of her foot in O Master of Revels, O Lord of Misrule, tree. Peter” comes from Yeats’ “The Song we know, as well as the world of dreams. the dark, You have set us to school with the ape and the fool! Ladies fair will dance in the air, You lost me when the world began.” Or nothing if you haven’t any, The Little Match Girl THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL which were quite red and blue with even a penny of money. Her father If we drink, we are giddy, if not, we are Gallants tall will chase them all, I asked her meaning, but she ran And bless you all the while. HANS CHRISTIAN the cold. In an old apron she carried a would certainly beat her; besides, it dry, And catch them as they fall. Into the wild. “The Little Match Girl” is best read number of matches, and had a bundle was nearly as cold at home as here, for Then let it go by, with never a why. Poor Peter: © 2013 Rork Music sitting down. Heartbreak, catharsis, ANDERSEN of them in her hands. No one had they had only the roof to cover them, Tune the fi ddle and fetch the drum, Now where she went, and what she redemption. We are the ones redeemed bought anything of her the whole day, through which the wind blew, although Up to your toes, Miss Gillian, Stamp and clap as the dancers come, meant, because we care. It was terribly cold and nearly dark on nor had anyone given her even a penny.