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Songs of Insects and Animals
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Emily Dickinson! (High Voice)!
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Daniel Gilliam! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
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Songs of Insects and Animals was composed for Robert Frankenberry and Tanya Stambuk, and commissioned by The Seasons Music Festival 2011. !
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Duration approx. 8 minutes!
Prologue: It's all I have to bring today….1 I. A spider sewed at night...........................3! II. The robin is the one………………....5 III. A narrow fellow in the grass………..7! IV. Like Men and Women…………….10
The Grass divides as with a Comb – A spotted Shaft is seen, And then it closes at your Feet And opens further on –
!
He likes a Boggy Acre A Floor too cool for Corn – But when a Child, and Barefoot I more than once at Noon Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash Unbraiding in the Sun When stooping to secure it It wrinkled, and was gone –
Prologue: ! It's all I have to bring today – This, and my heart beside – This, and my heart, and all the fields – And all the meadows wide – Be sure you count – should I forget Some one the sum could tell – This, and my heart, and all the Bees Which in the Clover dwell.
Several of Nature’s People I know and they know me – I feel for them a transport Of Cordiality –
I. A spider sewed at night Without a light Upon an arc of white. If ruff it was of dame Or shroud of gnome, Himself, himself inform. Of immortality His strategy Was physiognomy.
II. The robin is the one That interrupts the morn With hurried, few, express reports When March is scarcely on. The robin is the one That overflows the noon With her cherubic quantity, An April but begun. The robin is the one That speechless from her nest Submits that home and certainty And sanctity are best.
III. A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides – You may have met Him - Did you not His notice sudden is –
But never met this Fellow Attended or alone Without a tighter Breathing And Zero at the Bone.!
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IV. Like Men and Women shadows walk! Upon the hills today,! With here and there a mighty bow,! Or trailing courtesy! To Neighbors, doubtless, of their own;! Not quickened to perceive! Minuter landscape, as Ourselves! And Boroughs where we live.
Emily Dickinson was, and still is, an enigmatic figure. Each poem seems to be in code, and I rarely take Dickinson at her word. For this cycle I've chosen texts that have to do with animals and insects, in the tradition of bestiaries, popular in the Middle Ages and usually containing religious symbolism. My collection includes the only animal that, as far as we know, is self-aware. The behavior of this being is found in the final song. Some of these songs were composed in hours, others days, and another weeks. Commissioned by The Seasons Music Festival, they are dedicated to this premiering duo of Robert Frankenberry and Tanya Stambuk. !
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Daniel Gilliam! danielgilliam.com! danielgilliam@gmail.com!
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© 2011 FICTIVE MUSIC (ASCAP)!
3
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