Snow Man for Mezzo-soprano and Chimes
I hesitate to post audio files of vocal pieces here since I have to use choral ahs for the vocals, thus imposing yet another layer between the audio file and what an actual performance would be. But such files posted by myself and others in the past have sometimes attracted some worthwhile comments, so I thought I would post this effort, which maybe is a simple enough arrangement that it will be easier than usual to imagine a performance.
An mp3 audio file as a demo, using choral ahs for vocals even though the vocal is supposed to be a single voice, is posted on this site here: Snow ManMS4.mp3
A pdf score with copyright watermark is available here. If anyone wants a score without the watermark, please PM me or see my permissions page, link below.
Comments welcome.
The lyrics:
Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
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Copyright 2023 by Jon Corelis. For performance permission, please see my permissions page.
Image: Photo of Wallace Stevens 1948
Text from Poetry magazine 1921
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