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Friday, October 9, 2015

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2015

QUOTE:
"Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by
  forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down."
AUTHOR: Hector Berlioz
MEANING OF THE QUOTE:
"Artistic inspiration is fleeting
(passing quickly) and unexpected."







COMPOSER:
ANTONIN DVORAK



Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Two Mothers, 1851
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT ME
OP. 55, NO. 4
From: Seven Gypsy Songs
Paul Robeson, Vocals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2pt8re5oYA&feature=related
http://musicofyesterday.com/sheet-music-s/song-mother-taught/
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT ME
OP. 55, NO. 4
From: Seven Gypsy Songs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhqtZqFz4AQ&feature=related
George Dunlop Leslie: Home, Sweet Home
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT MEOP. 55, NO. 4
From: Seven Gypsy Songs
Richard Crooks, Vocals
James Abbott McNeill Whistler: At the Piano
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT ME
OP. 55, NO. 4
Brigham Young University Women's Chorus
Frederic Leighton: The Music Lesson

Dvorak wrote the song cycle, Gypsy Songs
(Gypsy Melodies), in January, 1880 at the
request of the leading tenor at Vienna's Hofoper
(Vienna Court Opera; precursor to the Staatsoper),
Opera House in Vienna c 1890
Prague born,
Gustav Walter
to write a new vocal work
especially for him. Walter
had long admired Dvorak's
songs and frequently presented
Dvorak's songs at his recitals.
As text material for the songs, Dvorak
chose seven poems from the first part
of the collection of Poems by the
Czech poet Adolf Heyduk,
Adolf Heyduk (1835-1923)
a professor at Písek (fifty miles south of Prague).
Písek
that he had published in 1859 entitled
Gypsy Melodies, celebrating the freedom
of Roma (Gypsy) life.
Pierre Auguste Renoir:
Italian Girl (Roma)
with Tambourine, 1881
GYPSIES, ROMA, TRAVELLERS:
to portray gypsy life as romantic, em-
phasizing their love for song and music.
Mucha: Gypsy Girl
Despite a negative response from the press,
Gypsy Melodies, partly due to the fashionable
appeal at that time for romantically
idealized gypsy motifs
Richard Lipps: Gypsy Dance
(Slovakian Gypsies came from a mountainous land
Carpathian Mountains, Slovakia
then considered by the more westernized
Bohemians to be wilder and more
exotic than their own),
Alfred J. Muinnings: Gypsy Caravan at Ringland Hills
became extremely popular among
readers and was later published in
several editions. These poems portray notonly the
uninhibited freedom of gypsy life, the
bond between man and nature, but also, by
implication, the Czech people's bid to liberate
the Czech nation from Habsburg rule.
Pierre Renoir: Guitar Lessons
In deference to the singer, and to the
commercial sense of his Berlin-based
publisher Simrock, Dvorak set the poems not
in their original Czech but in German, using a
translation prepared by the poet Heyduk him-
self in such a way that, in declamatory terms,
the German version kept as close as possible
to the Czech original. The songs were publish-
ed soon afterwards in 1880 and were premier-
ed at Walter's recital in Vienna on February
4,1881 becoming an immediate success. Be-
cause the songs were only published with a
German text the Czech press was highly crit-
ical. Simrock soon brought out a Czech
edition of the text with an added English
translation by Natalie Macfarren.
Francis Day: The Piano Lesson, 1895
Within the set of Dvorak's seven "Gypsy Songs" the
most famous and beloved song, with its both sad and
optimistic memorable melody, is song number
four titled "Songs My Mother Taught Me."
Walter-Dendy Sadler: Home Sweet Home

SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME
Lyrics by Alfred Heyduk
Translation by Natalie Macfarren

Songs my mother taught me,
In the days long vanished;
Jean-François Garneray: La leçon de Piano
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banished.
Harry Brooker: The Recital
Now I teach my children,
Each melodious measure.
Osmund Cain: The Rehearsal, 1946
Oft the tears are flowing,
Oft they flow from my memory’s treasure.
Karl Harald Alfred Broge: The First Music Lesson
Although this piece, Songs My Mother Taught Me, was
originally written for piano and voice, it was later
transcribed for violin and piano (published in 1914)
by the famous violinist, Fritz Kreisler,
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
who's performance of the song, which he
played frequently, helped make it famous.
Arthur Hughes: Home Quartet
(Mrs. Vernon Lushington and Her Daughters)
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT ME
OP. 55, NO. 4
From: Seven Gypsy Songs
Fritz Kreisler, Arranger/Violin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlktfcLNAJ0&feature=related
Arthur Hughes: Of Love and Beauty
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT ME
OP. 55, NO. 4
From: Seven Gypsy Songs
Itzhak Perlman, Violin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDGYNFXbKV0
George Goodwin Kilburne: The Recital, 1924

Cope Charles West: The Music Lesson, 1869
To create a purely instrumental piece
the vocal part (or melody) has often been
transcribed for various instruments.
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT ME
OP. 55, NO. 4
From: Seven Gypsy Songs
Yo Yo Ma, Cello
This song, with a wonderful melody and
strong emotional impact, comprises two
stanzas, a prelude, interlude and postlude.
The theme itself consists of two eight-bar
periods (the second stanza features an ex-
tended closing section), with an unusual
rhythmical structure: the vocal line is
written in 2/4 time, while the piano ac-
companiment is in 6/8 time. According
to the writer Alec Robertson, in his
study of the composer,
Dvorak's settings of the Gypsy Songs
"...reached his highest pinnacle as a song-writer.
Everything is in place here."
Marguerite Gerard:
The Piano Lesson, 1780

About fifteen years after Dvorak,
the American composer
Charles Ives,

an ocean away in
New England, created his
own musical setting of this poem.
CHARLES IVES
SONGS MY MOTHER
TAUGHT ME
Jan DeGaetani, Mezzo-Soprano
Gilbert Kalish, Piano
http://timothyjuddviolin.com/2014/05/songs-my-mother-taught-me/
William A. Breakspeare: The Reluctant Pianist
SEVEN GYPSY SONGS OP. 55
Complete
1. My Song of Love Rings Through the Dusk
Má píseň zas mi láskou zní / Mein Lied ertönt, ein Liebespsalm
2. Hey, Ring Out, My Triangle
Aj! Kterak trojhranec můj přerozkošně zvoní / Ei, wie mein Triangel wunderherrlich läutet
3. All Round About the Woods are Still
A les je tichý kolem kol / Rings ist der Wald so stumm und still
4. Songs My Mother Taught Me
Když mne stará matka zpívat, zpívat učívala / Als die alte Mutter
5. Come and Join the Danci
Struna naladěna, hochu, toč se v kole / Reingestimmt die Saiten
6. The Gypsy Songman
Široké rukávy a široké gatě / In dem weiten, breiten, luft'gen Leinenkleide
7. Give a Hawk a Fine Cage
Dejte klec jestřábu ze zlata ryzého / Horstet hoch der Habicht auf den Felsenhöhen

Charles West Cope
Karl Harald Alfred Broge: The Piano Lesson
Maude Goodman: By Particular Desire
Tamara de Lempicka:
The Grandmother
at