1. The New Vocality
Extended techniques
Bolero rhythm
Mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian (1928-83)
STRIPSODY (1966)

2. Luciano Berio (1925-2003), Circles (1960)
for soprano, harp, percussion
Movement I: “stinging” (1923 text by e.e. cummings [1894-1962])
written for Cathy Berberian (1928-83)
stinging
gold swarms
upon the spires
silver
chants the litanies the
great bells are ringing with rose
the lewd fat bells
and a tall
wind
is dragging
the
sea
with
dream
-S

3. George Crumb (b. 1929), Ancient Voices of Children (1970)
for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano (offstage until final page), amplified piano
(doubling on toy piano in song 4), oboe (doubling on harmonica in song 4),
mandolin (doubling on musical saw in song 2), harp, and 3 percussionists
Song 3: “¿De dónde vienes?” (Dance of the Sacred Life-Cycle)
written for Jan DeGaetani (1933-89)
“In Ancient Voices of Children, as in my earlier Lorca
settings, I have sought musical images that enhance
and reinforce the powerful, yet strangely haunting
imagery of Lorca‟s poetry. I feel that the essential
meaning of this poetry is concerned with the most
primary things: life, death, love, the smell of the earth,
the sounds of the wind and the sea. These „ur-
concepts‟ are embodied in a language which is
primitive and stark, but which is capable of infinitely
subtle nuance. In a lecture entitled Theory and
Function of the ‘Duende’, Lorca has, in fact, identified
the essential characteristic of his own poetry. Duende
(untranslatable, but roughly: passion, élan, bravura in
its deepest, most artistic sense) is for Lorca „all that
has dark sounds…. This „mysterious power that
everyone feels but that no philosopher has explained‟
is in fact the spirit of the earth…. All one knows is that
it burns the blood like powdered glass, that it
exhausts, that it rejects all the sweet geometry one
has learned.
“It is sometimes of interests to a composer to recall
the original impulse—the „creative germ‟—of a
compositional project. In the case of Ancient Voices I
felt this impulse to b the climactic final words of the
last song: „..and I will go very far…to ask Christ the
Lord to give me back my ancient soul of a child.‟”

4. “¿De dónde vienes?”
Text by Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)
¿De dónde vienes, amor, mi niño? [soprano] Where are you from, Love, my child?
De la cresta del duro frío. [boy soprano] From the hard frozen mountain.
¿Qué necesitas, amor mi niño? [soprano] What do you need, Love, my child?
La tibia tela de tu vestido. [boy soprano] The warm cloth of your dress.
¡Que se agiten las ramas al so [soprano] Let the branches rustle in the sun
y salten las fuentes alrededor! and the fountains leap about!
En el patio ladra el perro, [boy soprano/spoken] In the courtyard the dog barks,
en los árboles canta el viento. in the trees the wind sings.
Los bueyes mugen al boyero The oxen low for the ox herder,
y la luna me riza los cabellos. END OF CYCLE 1 and the moon curls my hair.
¿Qué pides, niños, desde tan lejos? [soprano] What do you ask for, child, from afar?
Los blancos montes que hay en tu pecho. [boy soprano] The white mountains of your breast.
¡Que se agiten las ramas al so [soprano] Let the branches rustle in the sun
y salten las fuentes alrededor! and the fountains leap about!
Te diré, niño mio, que sí, [soprano/spoken] I will tell you, my child, yes,
tronchada y rota soy para ti. I am torn and broken for your sake.
¡Cómo me duele esta cintura How painful is this waist
donde tendrás primera cuna! END OF CYCLE 2 where you shall have your first cradle!
¿Cuando, mi niño, vas a venir? [soprano] When, my child, will you come?
Cuando tu carne huela a jazmín. [boy soprano] When your flesh smells of jasmine.
¡Que se agiten las ramas al so [soprano] Let the branches rustle in the sun
y salten las fuentes alrededor! END OF CYCLE 3 and the fountains leap about!