All Rachmaninoff - Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

All Rachmaninoff
Edo de Waart, conductor
Joyce Yang, piano
Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, Lee Erickson, director
Twyla Robinson, soprano
Richard Croft, tenor
Hugh Russell, baritone
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
The Rock: Fantasy, Op. 7
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor for Piano and Orchestra , Op. 1
Vivace
Andante
Allegro vivace
Joyce Yang
intermission
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
The Bells, Op. 35
Allegro, ma non tanto
Lento
Presto
Lento lugubre
Twyla Robinson
Richard Croft
Hugh Russell
Milwaukee Symphony Chorus
Friday, March 1, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, March 2, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, March 3, 2013 at 2:30 PM
The length of the concert is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes. Please join us for a Talkback in the Anello Atrium
immediately following the Friday evening performance.
The MSO Steinway piano was made possible through a generous gift from Michael and Jeanne Schmitz.
This weekend's concerts are sponsored by the Richard & Ethel Herzfeld Foundation.

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GUEST ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
JOYCE YANG
Described as “the most gifted young pianist of her generation” with a “million-volt
stage presence,” pianist Joyce Yang captivates audiences across the globe with her
stunning virtuosity combined with heartfelt lyricism and interpretive sensitivity. At
just 26, she has established herself as one of the leading artists of her generation
through her innovative solo recitals and notable collaborations with the world’s top
orchestras. In 2010 she received an Avery Fisher Career Grant – one of classical
music’s most prestigious accolades.
Yang came to international attention in 2005 when she won the silver medal at the
12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The youngest contestant, she
took home two additional awards: the Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of
Chamber Music (with the Takàcs Quartet) and the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for Best Performance of
a New Work.
Since her spectacular debut, Yang has blossomed into an “astonishing artist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung),
and she continues to appear with orchestras around the world. She has performed with the New York
Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco
Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Houston Symphony and BBC Philharmonic – among many others,
working with such distinguished conductors as Edo de Waart, Lorin Maazel, James Conlon, Leonard
Slatkin, David Robertson and Bramwell Tovey. In recital, Yang has taken the stage at New York’s Lincoln
Center and the Metropolitan Museum; the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Chicago’s Symphony Hall;
and Zurich’s Tonhalle.
Joyce Yang appears in the film In the Heart of Music, a documentary about the 2005 Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition, and she is a frequent guest on American Public Media’s nationally
syndicated radio program Performance Today. Her debut disc, distributed by harmonia mundi usa,
contains live performances of works by Bach, Liszt, Scarlatti and the Australian composer Carl Vine. A
Steinway artist, she currently resides in New York City.
TWYLA ROBINSON
Twyla Robinson’s incisive musicianship, ravishing vocal beauty and dramatic
delivery have taken her to the leading concert halls and opera stages of
Europe and North America. She has performed with the London Symphony
Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Berlin Staatskapelle, The Cleveland
Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, among
others. She has worked with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach,
Alan Gilbert, Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Franz Welser-Möst, Donald
Runnicles, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Hans Graf and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Recent performances for Ms. Robinson include debuts with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,
Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. She also made her Opera Colorado
debut as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro last season. In the summer of 2010, she was seen in a
performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Jiří Bělohlávek at the opening night of the BBC Proms,
broadcast worldwide on BBC television. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with Robert Spano and the
Atlanta Symphony in performances of Leoš Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass and was heard in Zemlinsky’s Lyric
Symphony with Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony and with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and
the Rotterdam Philharmonic.
Upcoming performances for Ms. Robinson include Der Rosenkavalier with Cincinnati Opera in June
2013, Dvořák’s Te Deum with the Dallas Symphony in October 2013 and Verdi’s Requiem with Seattle
Symphony in November 2013.

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GUEST ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
RICHARD CROFT
American tenor Richard Croft is internationally renowned for his performances
with leading opera companies and orchestras around the world, including the
Metropolitan Opera, The Salzburg Festival, Opéra National de Paris, the Berlin
Staatsoper, Opera Zurich, Glyndebourne Festival, The Cleveland Orchestra,
Boston Symphony Orchestra and The New York Philharmonic. His clarion voice,
superlative musicianship and commanding stage presence allow him to pursue
a wide breadth of repertoire from Handel and Mozart to the music of today’s
composers.
Mr. Croft began the 2012.13 season in the title role of Idomeneo with the
Ravinia Festival of which the Chicago Tribune raved, "Friday's opening
performance was dominated by Croft's towering performance as Idomeneo. A deeply expressive singer
and a compelling stage presence, the American tenor caught the heroic, tragic dimension of his role. In
his big showpiece aria in the second act, ‘Fuor del mar,’ he made each embellishment speak volumes
about the terrible emotional conflicts raging within the king." Other operatic highlights included the title
role in La Clemenza di Tito with the Wiener Staatsoper conducted by Adam Fischer. Symphonic
engagements include the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s Ahab Symphony at the University of North
Texas, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Leipzig Gerwandhaus and the National Symphony Orchestra,
Händel’s Messiah with the Singapore Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with the Milwaukee
Symphony conducted by Edo de Waart.
During the 2011.12 season, Richard Croft reprised his critically acclaimed performance as M. K. Gandhi
in the Metropolitan Opera’s visually extravagant production of Philip Glass’s Satygraha, which was also
broadcasted live in high definition to movie theaters around the world. His concert calendar included
performances of Messiah with the Minnesota Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, Berlioz’s Te
Deum with the Dallas Symphony and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
and the Berliner Philharmoniker—both conducted by Herbert Blomstedt.
HUGH RUSSELL
Canadian baritone Hugh Russell continues to receive high praise for his
charisma, dramatic energy and vocal beauty. He is widely acclaimed for his
performances in the operas of Mozart and Rossini, and is regularly invited to
perform with symphony orchestras throughout North America. At the center of
his orchestral repertoire is Orff’s popular Carmina Burana, which Mr. Russell
has performed with The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los
Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Houston Symphony,
Pittsburgh Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Toronto Symphony and Vancouver
Symphony, among others.
In the 2012.13 season, Mr. Russell makes his debut with the Danish Radio
Symphony in performances of Carmina Burana with Rafael Frühbeck de
Burgos and for his debut with the Naples Philharmonic. Additional
performances include Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and his return to
Opera Theatre of St. Louis as General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance.
Mr. Russell has been seen at the New York City Opera, where he made his company debut singing the
title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia, as well as the Los Angeles Opera, where he sang Harlequin in Ariadne
auf Naxos conducted by Kent Nagano. He was both an Adler Fellow and a member of the Merola Opera
Program at San Francisco Opera, where he was heard in Ariadne auf Naxos and in Messiaen’s St
François d’Assise.

Notes by Roger Ruggeri © 2013
4
The Rock, Opus 7
Sergei Rachmaninoff
b. April 2, 1873; Novgorod
d. March 28, 1943; Beverly Hills, CA
Written during the summer of 1893, this “fantasia for orchestra” enjoyed its first performance on March 20,
1894 in Moscow, under the direction of Vasili Safonov. Dedicated to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the 18-minute
score uses three flutes (third doubling piccolo), two each of oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, two
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, two percussionists, harp and strings. The music is presented for
the first time on our series.
Rachmaninoff’s formative years were difficult, for despite his highly evident musical talents, his adolescence
was blighted by the death of his sister in a diphtheria outbreak, his father’s squandering of the family fortune
and the ultimate separation of his parents. It’s not difficult to imagine him gravitating toward the epic Slavic
melancholy that so often emerges from his music.
Among his earliest such evocations is his tone poem or “fantasia for orchestra,” with the Russian title Utyos, a
term which has been variously translated as “The Rock,” “The Crag” or “The Cliff.” Rachmaninoff appended
two lines from a poem by Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov: “The little golden cloud slept through the night /
Upon the chest of the giant crag.”
Also interesting is that five years later, Rachmaninoff sent a copy of this score to the revered Russian author
and physician Anton Chekhov with a note saying that it was the author’s story “Along the Way,” that formed a
programmatic basis for his tone poem.
In his Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music, Sergei Bertensson explains:
“Chekhov’s story is set in the travelers’ room of a roadside inn on Christmas Eve, with a blizzard
howling outside. Two travelers, traveling in opposite directions, are detained here: a gruff,
passionate, middle-aged failure (‘the giant crag’) and a delicate and lovely young woman (‘the golden
cloud’). He tells her of his life and beliefs, the emotion in his voice drowning the storm’s roar outside.
In the brightness of Christmas morning she is overcome with pity for him, but has to continue on her
way as he prepares himself for his next painful failure. To read the story as Rachmaninoff may have
read it makes us hear all the emotional musical imagery in it—the storm’s angry whistle penetrating
every crack, the bell sounds filtered through the driving snow, the ‘sweet, human music’ of weeping,
and the final picture that sounds as characteristic of Rachmaninoff as it does of Checkhov:
Snowflakes settled greedily on his hair, his beard, his shoulders…soon the imprint of the sleigh
runners vanished, and he himself, covered with snow, gradually assumed the appearance of a white
crag, but his eyes still sought something in the white clouds of the drifts.
…in The Crag he composed a vivid wordless drama.”
Composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov attended a Moscow musical gathering including both Tchaikovsky and
Rachmaninoff. He recalled: “At the close of the evening [Rachmaninoff] acquainted us with the newly
completed symphonic poem, The Crag… The poem pleased all very much, especially Peter Ilyich, who was
enthusiastic over its colorfulness. The performance of The Crag and our discussion of it must have diverted
Peter Ilyich, for his former good-hearted mood came back to him. Tchaikovsky was so pleased with it, in fact,
that he asked for it to play on his planned European tour this season.” (Unfortunately, Tchaikovsky died
before the tour began.)
continued

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Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 1
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Written in 1890-91, Rachmaninoff premiered the first movement as soloist in a Moscow Conservatory
student concert on March 17, 1892. There were subsequent revisions in 1917 and 1919; the present
performance utilizes the more familiar version of 1917. In this 27-minute work, the solo piano is joined by
pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, cymbals,
triangle and strings. It was most recently performed on this series in April 2006 with pianist Mikhail Rudy and
conductor Gilbert Varga.
Ranked among the greatest musicians of the early 20th-century, Rachmaninoff gained tremendous fame as a
composer, pianist and conductor. His pianistic abilities became legendary, but his late-Romantic
compositions were successful only with the general public. Musical experts tended to sneer at what they
considered to be his old-fashioned emotionalism. Speaking indirectly to these critics, Rachmaninoff once
said: “I try to make my music speak simply and directly that which is in my heart at the time I am composing.
If there is love there, or bitterness, or sadness, or religion, these moods become part of my music, and it
becomes either beautiful, or bitter, or sad, or religious. For composing music is as much a part of my living as
breathing and eating. I compose music because I must give expression to my feelings, just as I talk because I
must give utterance to my thoughts.”
Rachmaninoff was the son of a wealthy man who, by the time Sergei was nine, managed to deplete his
fortune. Despite the fact that his family was no longer wealthy, Rachmaninoff retained the manner and
bearing of a true aristocrat. As a student, he was unexceptional until he entered the Moscow Conservatory in
1885 and the tremendous scope of his talents emerged.
While still a Conservatory student, Rachmaninoff began to compose his first major work, the Piano Concerto
in F-sharp minor, in 1890. When he premiered the work as soloist on March 17, 1892, the audience
response was more polite than enthusiastic. Crushed by the failure of his First Symphony in 1897, the young
musician entered into a period of depression and apathy toward composition. Only after a series of
treatments by autosuggestion was he able, three years later, to compose his Second Concerto. It was not
until 1917 that he reconsidered the Concerto No. 1. Just before leaving Russia forever, he revised the work,
keeping the original materials, but reshaping structural and orchestration elements. Successful in its new
form, the revision of 1917 is the work that for many years has been known as the Piano Concerto No. 1.
I. Vivace, 4/4. After a few measures of orchestral fanfare, the soloist launches an impetuous series of
descending octaves. Presented by the violins, the first theme is soon taken up by the piano. A scherzando
transition prefaces the arrival of the contrasting second theme in the violins. Following development and
recapitulation, the orchestra sets the stage for an extremely demanding piano cadenza; a brief coda then
brings the movement to a close.
II. Andante, 4/4. A lovely horn solo begins this brief, contemplative movement. Throughout, the piano seems
to be ruminating in romantic solitude, while the orchestra provides respectfully muted comments.
III. Finale: Vivace, 9/8. A middle section, a sentimental interlude lyrically voiced by strings and piano,
contrasts the restlessly capricious mood of the final movement. The coda culminates in a series of rapid
exchanges between piano and orchestra, as the work sprints to its conclusion.
The Bells, Symphony for Orchestra, Chorus and Solo Voices, Opus 35
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Written in the first half of 1913, this work was premiered on November 30, 1913, in St. Petersburg’s
Maryinsky Theatre, under the composer’s direction. In addition to Soprano, Tenor and Baritone soloists and
continued

6
mixed chorus, this thirty-five minute work employs and orchestra of three flutes and piccolo, three oboes and
English horn, three clarinets and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon, six horns, three
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, five percussionists (bass drum, cymbals, suspended cymbal, snare
drum, tambourine, tam-tam, triangle, glockenspiel, bells), harp, celesta, upright piano (pianino), organ
(optional) and strings. Zdenek Macal led the most recent series performances of the work in March 1993.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is a particularly attractive figure to American artists, for, in addition to the
intrinsic value of his poems and short stories, he was the first American whose works had a profound
influence in Europe. The musical quality of Poe’s poetry gave it particular appeal to composers. Certainly one
of Poe’s most musical poems is The Bells, written in 1848, just one year before the hard-living poet’s death
(probably from encephalitis). Born of anguished genius, his poem magically evolves with word, rhythm, image
and sound from the silver bells of childhood to the graveside’s clanging iron knell.
Recalling the genesis of his 1913 choral symphony on this poem, Rachmaninoff said: “The inspiration for The
Bells came from an unusual source. I had already during the previous summer sketched a plan for a
symphony. Then, one day I received an anonymous letter from one of those people who constantly pursue
artists with their more or less welcome attentions. The sender begged me to read [Constantin] Balmont’s
wonderful [Russian] translation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, ‘The Bells,’ saying that the verses were ideally
suited for a musical setting and would particularly appeal to me. I read the enclosed verses, and decided at
once to use them for a choral symphony. The structure of the poem demanded a Symphony in four
movements. Since Tchaikovsky’s example [Symphony No. 6, “Pathetiqué”], the idea of a lugubrious and slow
finale, which seemed necessary, held nothing strange. This composition, on which I worked with feverish
ardor, is still the one I like best of all my works; after it comes my ‘Vesper Mass’—then there is a long gap
between it and the rest. But this is only by the way.”
In his biography of the composer, Rachmaninoff—The Man and His Music (Oxford University Press, NY, 1950),
John Culshaw writes:
Ironically, it was this work, more than any other, that caused the Soviet attack of 1931. Pravda, in
that year, published a bitter article describing the composer as “the former bard of the Russian
wholesale merchants and the bourgeoisie—a composer who was played out long ago and whose
music is that of an insignificant imitator and reactionary.” Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote the famous
text, is very gently treated in comparison with the unfortunate Balmont, who is called “half-idiotic,
decadent, and mystical.” Whether, in view of Rachmaninoff’s recent acquittal by the Soviet
authorities, The Bells is among those works now reinstated in the U.S.S.R. is unknown. In any case,
its lavish scoring has proved an obstacle to its regular performance anywhere.
Poe’s poem is far too well known to call for any lengthy comment, but it must be remembered that
Rachmaninoff’s music is based on Balmont’s version of the words, which differ considerably from the
original. The difference is interesting and revealing; the original is a masterly piece of imagination,
vivid, strong, and a fearfully objective as the bells whose spirit it seems to capture.… Balmont’s
version is more of a paraphrase taking for its basis only the superficial story and the birth-death
symbolism of Poe’s original. Where Poe is bitter and objective, Balmont is melodramatic and tending
toward subjectivity.
It says much for Rachmaninoff in that his setting reaches at times a degree of imagination worthy of
the original. The poem is clothed in music of remarkable power, and the setting is only a failure on
one point—it loses at once the urge, the unfailing progress of the original poem. The Bells as a poem
is short not in length but in the terrible, almost hysterical momentum with which it carries the reader
from the naïve opening to the cynical fatalism of the end. Balmont lost that momentum in a welter of
melodrama, and Rachmaninoff nearly, but not quite, restored it. He maintains the tension and
excitement by his use of the chorus, which for the larger part of the work is the most important
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factor, even when supporting the soloists, whose words it echoes with quiet, penetrating insistence.
It is fascinating that this work was largely composed while the composer and his family were on an extended
vacation in Rome; Rachmaninoff worked in the same apartment on the Piazza di Spagna that was once
occupied by Modest Tchaikovsky, and was often visited by his brother, the famed composer Peter Ilyich.
In four movements, corresponding to the four stanzas of Poe’s poem, The Bells begins with an Allegro ma non
tanto that features solo tenor. With soprano solo, the second movement is slow (Lento); the third is a large
scherzo (Presto) and the finale features solo baritone in another slow movement, Lento lugubre.
These performances will utilize Belmont’s Russian translation, for this is the way that Rachmaninoff originally
composed the work. When the composer conducted this work in Chicago in 1941, he requested that the
program contain Poe’s original poem; here, therefore, is that original poem:
The Bells
Edgar Allan Poe
I
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight,
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
The turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gust of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
continued

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Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavour
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking of the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
continued

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And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells—
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells,—
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
In order to perform the music in English, Fanny S. Copeland created this translation from Konstantin
Balmont’s Russian text:
I
Listen, hear the silver bells!
Silver bells!
Hear the sledges with the bells,
How they charm our weary senses with a sweetness that compels,
In the ringing and the singing that of deep oblivion tells.
Hear them calling, calling, calling,
Rippling sounds of laughter, falling
On the icy midnight air;
And a promise they declare,
That beyond Illusion’s cumber,
Births and lives beyond all number,
continued

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Waits an universal slumber—deep and sweet past all compare.
Hear the sledges with the bells,
Hear the silver-throated bells;
See, the stars bow down to hearken, what their melody foretells,
With a passion that compels,
And their dreaming is a gleaming that a perfumed air exhales,
And their thoughts are but a shining,
And a luminous divining
Of the singing and the ringing, that a dreamless peace foretells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of tender passion their melodious voice foretells!
Through the night their sound entrances,
Like a lover’s yearning glances,
That arise
On a wave of tuneful rapture to the moon within the skies.
From the sounding cells upwinging
Flash the tones of joyous singing
Rising, falling, brightly calling; from a thousand happy throats
Roll the glowing, golden notes,
And an amber twilight gloats
While the tender vow is whispered that great happiness foretells,
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells, the golden bells!
III
Hear them, hear the brazen bells,
Hear the loud alarum bells!
In their sobbing, in their throbbing what a tale of horror dwells!
How beseeching sounds their cry
‘Neath the naked midnight sky,
Through the darkness wildly pleading
In affright,
Now approaching, now receding
Rings their message through the night.
And so fierce is their dismay
And the terror they portray,
That the brazen domes are riven, and their tongues can only speak
In a tuneless, jangling wrangling as they shriek, and shriek, and shriek,
Till their frantic supplication
To the ruthless conflagration
Grows discordant, faint and weak.
But the fire sweeps on unheeding,
And in vain is all their pleading
With the flames!
From each window, roof and spire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
Every lambent tongue proclaims:
I shall soon,
Leaping higher, still aspire, till I reach the crescent moon;
continued

11
Else I die of my desire in aspiring to the moon!
O despair, despair, despair,
That so feebly ye compare
With the blazing, raging horror, and the panic, and the glare,
That ye cannot turn the flames,
As your unavailing clang and clamour mournfully proclaims.
And in hopeless resignation
Man must yield his habitation
To the warring desolation!
Yet we know
By the booming and the clanging,
By the roaring and the twanging,
How the danger falls and rises like the tides that ebb and flow.
And the progress of the danger every ear distinctly tells
By the sinking and the swelling in the clamour of the bells.
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells,
Mournful bells!
Bitter end to fruitless dreaming their stern monody foretells!
What a world of desolation in their iron utterance dwells!
And we tremble at our doom,
As we think upon the tomb,
Glad endeavour quenched for ever in the silence and the gloom.
With persistent iteration
They repeat their lamentation,
Till each muffled monotone
Seems a groan,
Heavy, moaning,
Their intoning,
Waxing sorrowful and deep,
Bears the message, that a brother passed away to endless sleep.
Those relentless voices rolling
Seem to take a joy in tolling
For the sinner and the just
That their eyes be sealed in slumber, and their hearts be turned to dust
Where they lie beneath a stone.
But the spirit of the belfry is a sombre fiend that dwells
In the shadow of the bells,
And he gibbers, and he yells,
As he knells, and knells, and knells,
Madly round the belfry reeling,
While the giant bells are pealing.
While the bells are fiercely thrilling,
Moaning forth the word of doom,
While those iron bells, unfeeling,
Through the void repeat the doom:
There is neither rest nor respite, save the quiet of the tomb!
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