Other Voices
Liner Notes   Cat. No. NWCRL370     Release Date: 2011-01-15

William A. Brown, tenor; Jan deGaetani, mezzo-soprano; Arthur Weisberg, bassoon; Martha Hanneman, soprano; Leo Smit, piano; Men and Boys Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, Buffalo, N.Y.; Henrik Svitzer, flute; Nora Post, oboe; Leo Smit, speaker; Frederick Burgomaster, choirmaster and conductor

Olly Wilson writes:

Sometimes was composed especially for William Brown and is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Black spiritual 'Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.' In this work, I attempted to recreate within my own musical language, not only the profound expression of human hopelessness and desolation that characterizes the traditional spiritual, but simultaneously on another level, a reaction to that desolation which transcends hopelessness. It is for this reason that musical events associated with the original spiritual appear in this work in a number of different ways — sometimes straight forward, sometimes fragmentized or extended, and sometimes in completely new relationships with one another, both on the immediate as well as the large scale formal level.

Allan Blank writes:

Two Songs for Voice and Bassoon (1964) was premiered at my Composers' Forum concert in New York in 1964. While it is problematic and certainly subjective to pinpoint the expressive content of any music, these songs, I believe, combine humor and nostalgic wistfulness — characteristics that attracted me to the Ferlinghetti poems. As an example of two-part writing in which no consistent sustaining element appears, one of the issues I had to face was to construct the pitch and registral changes so that there is an illusion of harmonic fullness and a closing of the gap between the wide register of the voice and the bassoon.

Leo Smit writes:

Songs of Wonder was composed during the summer of 1976, which I spent in Santa Fe, New Mexico, near the Indian pueblos of the Rio Grande, the brooding Jemez mountains and the clefted Sangre de Cristo range. In this ancient and sacred land of ceremonial dance and song, I received several poems by Beth Frost written last year when she was twelve years old. I found the twin themes of Nature and Metaphysics (so characteristic of young children and old cultures only to be exchanged in time for the less poetic subjects of Man and Physics) in perfect harmony with the extraordinarily beautiful landscape, and chose three poems for the song cycle, all of which are suffused with the sense of awe and wonder...

“I composed At the Corner of the Sky to celebrate the spiritual example of the ancient American people who inhabited this continent for many thousands of years.

This title, originally issued on the CRI label, is now available as a burn-on-demand CD (CD-R) or download in MP3/320, FLAC or WAV formats. CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print booklet or jewel case included. Liner notes are accessible via the link above.

Various Artists

Other Voices

MP3/320 $13.00
FLAC $13.00
WAV $13.00
CD-R $13.00
CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print material or jewel case included.
A *.pdf of the notes may be accessed here free of charge.
   Liner Notes



Track Listing

Two Songs for Voice and Bassoon: I. Don't Let that Horse Eat that Violin
Allan Blank
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Two Songs for Voice and Bassoon: II. The Penny Candy Store Beyond the El
Allan Blank
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Sometimes
Olly Wilson
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Songs of Wonder: I. Untold Wonders
Leo Smit
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Songs of Wonder: II. The Horizons of Time
Leo Smit
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Songs of Wonder: III. A Magic Starry Night
Leo Smit
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At The Corner of The Sky: I. Vision Event I "Sioux"
Leo Smit
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At The Corner of The Sky: II. Lullaby "Tsimshian"
Leo Smit
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At The Corner of The Sky: III. Vision Event 2 "Eskimo"
Leo Smit
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At The Corner of The Sky: IV. Mourning Song "Tsimshian"
Leo Smit
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At The Corner of The Sky: V. Animal Songs
Leo Smit
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At The Corner of The Sky: VI. Vision Event 3 "Eskimo"
Leo Smit
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At The Corner of The Sky: VII. Song of an Initiate "Huichol"
Leo Smit
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