{"id":3649,"date":"2023-05-09T17:43:19","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T17:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/?post_type=product&p=3649"},"modified":"2025-02-14T14:51:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T19:51:29","slug":"children-of-the-night","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/product\/children-of-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Children of the Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

Children of the Night
\n7 Poems of E.A. Robinson for medium voice and piano<\/h2>\n

2020
\n18\u2032 duration
\nText: Edwin Arlington Robinson<\/a>, from The Children of the Night,<\/em> 1897
\nPremiere: February 10, 2022 by Clara Osowski, mezzo and Sonja Thompson, piano<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. Dear Friends<\/li>\n
  2. The Torrent<\/li>\n
  3. Reuben Bright<\/li>\n
  4. The Dark Hills<\/li>\n
  5. John Evereldown<\/li>\n
  6. The Pilot<\/li>\n
  7. L\u2019Envoi<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    Program Note<\/h3>\n
    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n

    \"portrait<\/p>\n

    E.A. Robinson by Lilla Cabot Perry<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869\u20131935) is known today for short poems personifying characters like Richard Cory and Miniver Cheevy, poems studied by every school child, but he worked hard for several decades before being recognized. Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s advocacy helped, and acclaim followed. Robinson\u2019s Collected Poems<\/em> (1921) won the first Pulitzer ever awarded to poetry, and he received three Pulitzer Prizes in seven years.<\/p>\n

    Robinson was born on December 22, 1869 in Head Tide, Maine, and his invented Tilbury Town is the New England setting for what W. R. Robinson has called \u201cthe repressive, utilitarian social climate customarily designated as the Puritan ethic.\u201d While not all the songs refer to the town explicitly, its residents include people like the delicate butcher Bright and somewhat less sensitive Evereldown. Robinson\u2019s world is populated with such flawed characters pursuing dubious ends, like the speaker of \u201cThe Torrent.\u201d But the poet rejected the idea that he was a pessimist. \u201cThe world is not a prison house,\u201d he wrote, \u201cbut a kind of spiritual kindergarten, where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Unlike his contemporaries who explored free verse, Robinson preferred laconic, everyday speech and traditional forms. One of his favorite is the iambic, sonnet-like structure exemplified in four of the poems presented here. Robert Frost declared: \u201cHis theme was unhappiness itself, but his skill was as happy as it was playful. There is that comforting thought for those who suffered to see him suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    Children of the Night<\/em> was composed in the early days of the 2020 pandemic for Clara Osowski<\/a>, 2020. It . The work was premiered by Clara Osowski and Sonja Thompson on February 10, 2022 at Landmark Center in a Schubert Club Courtroom Concert, St. Paul, Minn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [dflip id=\"4062\" type=\"thumb\" ]<\/span><\/p>\n[audio mp3=\"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Children-of-the-Night_complete.mp3\"][\/audio]\n

    Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano
    \nSonja Thompson, piano<\/p>\n

    Texts<\/h3>\n

    Dear Friends<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Dear friends, reproach me not for what I do,
    \nNor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say
    \nThat I am wearing half my life away
    \nFor bubble-work that only fools pursue.
    \nAnd if my bubbles be too small for you,
    \nBlow bigger then your own: the games we play
    \nTo fill the frittered minutes of a day,
    \nGood glasses are to read the spirit through.<\/p>\n

    And whoso reads may get him some shrewd skill;
    \nAnd some unprofitable scorn resign,
    \nTo praise the very thing that he deplores;
    \nSo, friends (dear friends), remember, if you will,
    \nThe shame I win for singing is all mine,
    \nThe gold I miss for dreaming is all yours.<\/p>\n

    The Torrent<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I found a torrent falling in a glen
    \nWhere the sun\u2019s light shone silvered and leaf-split;
    \nThe boom, the foam, and the mad flash of it
    \nAll made a magic symphony; but when
    \nI thought upon the coming of hard men
    \nTo cut those patriarchal trees away,
    \nAnd turn to gold the silver of that spray,
    \nI shuddered. Yet a gladness now and then
    \nDid wake me to myself till I was glad
    \nIn earnest, and was welcoming the time
    \nFor screaming saws to sound above the chime
    \nOf idle waters, and for me to know
    \nThe jealous visionings that I had had
    \nWere steps to the great place where trees and torrents go.<\/p>\n

    Reuben Bright<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Because he was a butcher and thereby
    \nDid earn an honest living (and did right),
    \nI would not have you think that Reuben Bright
    \nWas any more a brute than you or I;
    \nFor when they told him that his wife must die,
    \nHe stared at them, and shook with grief and fright,
    \nAnd cried like a great baby half that night,
    \nAnd made the women cry to see him cry.<\/p>\n

    And after she was dead, and he had paid
    \nThe singers and the sexton and the rest,
    \nHe packed a lot of things that she had made
    \nMost mournfully away in an old chest
    \nOf hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughs
    \nIn with them, and tore down the slaughter-house.<\/p>\n

    The Dark Hills<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Dark hills at evening in the west,
    \nWhere sunset hovers like a sound
    \nOf golden horns that sang to rest
    \nOld bones of warriors under ground,
    \nFar now from all the bannered ways
    \nWhere flash the legions of the sun,
    \nYou fade\u2014as if the last of days
    \nWere fading, and all wars were done.<\/p>\n

    John Evereldown<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \u201cWhere are you going to-night, to-night,\u2014
    \nWhere are you going, John Evereldown?
    \nThere\u2019s never the sign of a star in sight,
    \nNor a lamp that\u2019s nearer than Tilbury Town.
    \nWhy do you stare as a dead man might?
    \nWhere are you pointing away from the light?
    \nAnd where are you going to-night, to-night,\u2014
    \nWhere are you going, John Evereldown?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cRight through the forest, where none can see,
    \nThere\u2019s where I\u2019m going, to Tilbury Town.
    \nThe men are asleep,\u2014 or awake, may be \u2014
    \nBut the women are calling John Evereldown.
    \nEver and ever they call for me,
    \nAnd while they call can a man be free?
    \nSo right through the forest, where none can see,
    \nThere\u2019s where I\u2019m going, to Tilbury Town.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cBut why are you going so late, so late,\u2014
    \nWhy are you going, John Evereldown?
    \nThough the road be smooth and the path be straight,
    \nThere are two long leagues to Tilbury Town.
    \nCome in by the fire, old man, and wait!
    \nWhy do you chatter out there by the gate?
    \nAnd why are you going so late, so late,\u2014
    \nWhy are you going, John Evereldown?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cI follow the women wherever they call,\u2014
    \nThat\u2019s why I\u2019m going to Tilbury Town.
    \nGod knows if I pray to be done with it all,
    \nBut God is no friend to John Evereldown.
    \nSo the clouds may come and the rain may fall,
    \nThe shadows may creep and the dead men crawl, \u2014
    \nBut I follow the women wherever they call,
    \nAnd that\u2019s why I\u2019m going to Tilbury Town<\/p>\n

    The Pilot<\/strong><\/p>\n

    From the Past and Unavailing
    \nOut of cloudland we are steering:
    \nAfter groping, after fearing,
    \nInto starlight we come trailing,
    \nAnd we find the stars are true.
    \nStill, O comrade, what of you?
    \nYou are gone, but we are sailing,
    \nAnd the old ways are all new.<\/p>\n

    For the Lost and Unreturning
    \nWe have drifted, we have waited;
    \nUncommanded and unrated,
    \nWe have tossed and wandered, yearning
    \nFor a charm that comes no more
    \nFrom the old lights by the shore:
    \nWe have shamed ourselves in learning
    \nWhat you knew so long before.<\/p>\n

    For the Breed of the Far-going
    \nWho are strangers, and all brothers,
    \nMay forget no more than others
    \nWho looked seaward with eyes flowing.
    \nBut are brothers to bewail
    \nOne who fought so foul a gale?
    \nYou have won beyond our knowing,
    \nYou are gone, but yet we sail.<\/p>\n

    L\u2019Envoi<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Now in a thought, now in a shadowed word,
    \nNow in a voice that thrills eternity,
    \nEver there comes an onward phrase to me
    \nOf some transcendent music I have heard;
    \nNo piteous thing by soft hands dulcimered,
    \nNo trumpet crash of blood-sick victory,
    \nBut a glad strain of some still symphony
    \nThat no proud mortal touch has ever stirred.<\/p>\n

    There is no music in the world like this,
    \nNo character wherewith to set it down,
    \nNo kind of instrument to make it sing.
    \nNo kind of instrument? Ah, yes, there is!
    \nAnd after time and place are overthrown,
    \nGod\u2019s touch will keep its one chord quivering.<\/p>\n

    Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson, Public domain. I, II, III, V, VII from The Children of the Night<\/em>, 1897. VI from The Town Down the River<\/em>, 1910. IV from The Three Taverns<\/em>, 1920<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3672,"template":"","meta":{"_crdt_document":""},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[65,42,66],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3649","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-david-evan-thomas","7":"product_cat-individual-songs","8":"product_cat-medium-voice","10":"first","11":"instock","12":"purchasable","13":"product-type-variable"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/3649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northstarmusicllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=3649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}