Three sonnets of Longfellow - Bird, Peter

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"This piece contains three sonnets: # Mezzo cammin # The sound of the sea # The poets Total length is 10 minutes. These Romantic sonnets described three critical moments in Longfellow's life as a poet: the mid-life crisis which impelled him to start writing seriously; a time when inspiration flowed freely like the tides of the sea; and a moment of retrospection in which he identifies with all poets, past and present."

◈ Genre → Art songs

♯ Tonart G minor

⁄ Taktart 4/4

♬ Besetzung → SATB

◆ Difficulty

Unterstufe

↕ Tonumfang C – e'''

♩ Tempo larghetto (60)

◷ Dauer ~15 min 32 sec

¶ Sprache → Englisch

Takte 264

Textur mixed texture

Stimmen 6

Instrumente Organ

Seiten 31

CPDL Nr. 34519

Bearbeiter Peter Bird

Veröffentlicht 2015-02-09

Lizenz Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike

♫Tonumfänge

SOPRANO

B-3 – a''

ALTO

g – d''

TENOR

d – g'

BASS

E – E-4

Organ

C – g''

Schlagwörter

Pages_using_DynamicPageList3_parser_function Posted_in_February_2015 More_than_90_days_old More_than_30_days_old CPDL_345xy

¶Liedtext

''1. Mezzo cammin'' Half my life is gone, and I have let the years slip from me and have not fulfilled the aspiration of my youth: to build some tower of song with lofty parapet. Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret of restless passions that would not be stilled, but sorrow, and a care that almost killed, kept me from what I may accomplish yet. Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past lying beneath me with its sounds and sights … —A city in the twilight dim and vast, with smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights— and hear above me on the autumnal blast the cataract of Death far thundering from the heights. ''2. The sound of the sea'' The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, and round the pebbly beaches far and wide I heard the first wave of the rising tide rush onward with uninterrupted sweep: A voice out of the silence of the deep, a sound mysteriously multiplied as of a cataract from the mountain's side, or roar of winds upon a wooded steep. So comes to us, at times, from the unknown and inaccessible solitudes of being, the rushing of the sea-tides of the soul. And inspirations that we deem our own are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing of things beyond our reason or control. ''3. The poets'' O ye dead Poets who are living still, immortal in your verse, though life be fled; and ye, O living Poets, who are dead though ye are living, if neglect can kill: Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, with drops of anguish falling fast and red from the sharp crown of thorns upon your head, ye were not glad your errand to fulfil? Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song have something in them so divinely sweet, it can assuage the bitterness of wrong. Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves are triumph and defeat.