Octavo, The Dale Warland Singers Program ... - UC DRC Home

parade songs. In Ives' own words, the
song is written from a boy's point of
view and in the vernacular of the day.
He bends the rhythms and harmonies
of the simple tunes, while exploding
all the cliches of the style. The sentiment
is simple, the music is not.
- Alice Hanson
Stephen Foster (1828-1884)
The tenth of eleven children, Stephen
Foster was the son of well-to-do, politically
active parents near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Among American composers,
he was the first to make a
ltvtng from composing songs. While
his formal musical education is
unknown, he did play the violin and
flute and probably absorbed current
musical vogues from experience. This
program presents a cross section of
his styles.
"Open thy lattice" (1844), his first
published song, is an example of the
genteel serenade. Its 6/8 meter, lack of
refrain chorus and parallel third
motion, not to mention the allusions
in the text to water, clearly bow to the
barcarolle style popular in Europe at
the same time. "Oh Susanna" (1848)
and "Nelly Bly" (1850) are walkarounds
from the minstrel show. Set
in Black dialect with pentatonic,
repeating melodies and snappy banjolike
accompaniments, both songs
were wildly popular across America
and eventually in Europe. Their lively
tempo and instrumental preludes and
postludes suggest that dancing was
tied into their performance.
Also from the minstrel, but in a
more sentimental vein, were the
plantation ballads, of which "My Old
Kentucky Home" (1853) is a primary
example. It first was intended as a
response song to Stowe's blockbuster
novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
(1851). Accordingly, the text recalls
the idealized joys of plantation life
and the tribulations of the present.
The melody, however, borrows from
Anglo-Irish types. Also typical is the
choral refrain sung after each verse.
Today the piece is the state song of
Kentucky. - Alice Hanson
26
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
In 1936, George Gershwin went to
Hollywood to write a series of film
scores tnvolving Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers. Although he found the
Hollywood experience favorable in
many ways, he evidently was not too
happy with the procedure of cutting
musical material along with the final
film editing, especially when this
meant eliminating one or two of his
numbers without his approval. He
was also a little bored with the singing
duo of Rogers and Astaire as the only
voices available for the numbers, so
he decided to write a few choral pieces
for the musical "Damsels in Distress"
(which incidentally ended up with
Joan Fontaine in the lead and not
Ginger Rogers). He wrote a letter to a
friend which gives an interesting insight
to the entire matter. This letter which is
quoted from Edward Jarblonski's and
Lawrence D. Stewart's book "The
Gershwin Years" reads as follows:
"The picture does not take advantage
of the songs as well as it should.
They literally throw one or two songs
away without any kind of a plug. This
is mainly due to the structure of the
story which does not include any
other singers than Fred and Ginger
and the amount of singing one can
stand of these two is quite limited. In
our next picture, "Damsels in Distress,"
we have protected ourselves in
that we have a madrigal group of singers
and have written two English type
ballads for background music so the
audience will get a chance to hear
some singing besides the crooning of
the stars ... "
Because the film itself is set in England,
Gershwin obviously tried to create
an English flavor, lying
somewhere between the madrigal and
a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus, but of
course, with the inevitable Gershwin
touch, the result is both unique and
charming. These settings are not
arrangements, but Gershwin's own
settings for chorus and piano.