Robinsongs
Oboe Edition
Recording from Feb. 18, 2014 concert with the Robinsons
(Joseph, oboe; Mary Kay, piano; Rebecca, mezzo-soprano).
See score
for lyrics
video (YouTube)
The
score comes in two versions, both letter-size; one with four systems
per page, which is suitable for printing on paper, and one for
electronic music readers with three systems per page.
Score
(4 systems) PDF Cover Score (e-reader) Cover
Vocal
and Oboe parts (f&b)
I. Some
Hallucinations (lyrics by Lewis Carroll)
A Perfectly Sane Tempo
[5:32] MP3 recording
II. The
Purist
(lyrics by
Ogden Nash)
Allegro academia
[3:32] MP3 recording
III. You Are Old, Father William (lyrics by Lewis Carroll)
Guano ma non troppo [6:13] MP3 recording
Flute and Clarinet Edition
Vocal, Flute, and Clarinet
parts (f&b)
Joseph and Mary Kay Robinson (no relation) came to a concert in 2006 featuring some of my music performed by Eric Pritchard at Duke University. Joe had a long career as principle oboist with the New York Philharmonic, and Mary Kay has performed extensively as a violinist. They asked me to write a trio for oboe, violin, and piano, which resulted in Aditya Hridayam. After they performed this at Duke with Thomas Warburton, I realized how lucky I was to work with musicians of this caliber. In February 2012, Mary Kay was one of the musicians performing my Clarinet Sextet for clarinet and strings, which was a wonderful performance.
In 2011, Joe and Mary Kay asked me to write a piece they could perform with their
aspiring diva daughter Becky, with Mary Kay playing piano. I wrestled with
ideas for lyrics for many months, but found this to be an exceptionally
difficult assignment. After finishing Violations for viol consort (or
string ensembles) on February 19, 2012, it was time to sit down to do Robinsongs,
a set of songs for, well, the Robinsons. After delays and false starts with
other lyrics, I managed to start scribbling Lewis Carroll’s Some
Hallucinations on April 30, but progress was quite difficult. After that
came Ogden Nash’s The Purist. (I’ve made a good-faith effort to find the
holder of the copyright—but then, my music is so far from profitable that I
don’t suppose royalties will be an issue.) Finally after much struggle and an
uncommonly slow season of composition, came another Lewis Carroll poem, You
Are Old, Father William, finished on the ominous date of September 11.
In August 2015 I made a new version of Robinsongs
for mezzo, flute, clarinet,
and piano, at the suggestion of Marianne Breneman, clarinetist and
member of
Conundrum, a chamber music group of soprano, flute, clarinet, and
piano. In October 2022, I converted the legal-size format to
letter-size, and for the oboe version, made a special score for
electronic music readers.
Accidentals hold through the measure
and not beyond, and do not refer to other octaves. Sometimes I include courtesy
accidentals to avoid confusion. Notes retain their value through meter changes.
Some Hallucinations
The
Purist
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."
You Are Old, Father William
Joseph
Robinson is one of the last oboists in
America to study
with the legendary Marcel Tabuteau, Joseph Robinson has been
one of the
outstanding orchestral musicians of his generation,
serving as Principal
Oboe of the New York Philharmonic for 27 years from June 1978
until September
2005. Known especially for his lyricism and phrasing, he
has performed
concerti, orchestral, and chamber works in concert halls
around the world
to international critical acclaim.
Mr. Robinson
has had
a distinguished teaching career, serving for more
than 20 years
as head of Oboe Studies at the Manhattan School of Music,
where he helped
establish the first Master of Orchestral Studies degree in
America and from
which he received the Presidential Medal for Meritorious Faculty
Service in
2005. He has taught at the University of North
Carolina School of
the Arts, the University of Maryland, Duke University
and at Lynn
University's Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida.
His many
students occupy important positions all over the world.
Today, Mr. Robinson
resides in Blaine,
Washington with his wife, violinist Mary Kay Robinson. They are
parents of
three remarkable daughters — executive Katie, doctor Jody and
diva Becky.
Mary
Kay Robinson, violinist, is a 1968 graduate of the Juilliard School,
where she studied
with Dorothy DeLay and Ivan Galamian. She studied chamber music
with Felix
Galimir, Donald Weilerstein, Josef Gingold and members of the
Guarneri String
Quartet. She furthered her education with studies with Glenn Dicterow,
Gregory Fulkerson and Gerald
Beal. Her
first job after graduation
was as violin instructor at the University of Tennessee, in her
hometown of
Knoxville, where she filled in for her former teacher, William
Starr, who was
on sabbatical in Japan. She was a member of the University of
Tennessee String
Quartet and later held a similar position in the University of
Maryland String
Quartet.
She has
toured with Solisti New York and spent
many summers playing with the OK Mozart Festival, Grand Teton
Music Festival,
and Bellingham Festival of Music. In 2008 she taught at Duke
University as well
as maintaining a private studio. Also that year, she performed
Bill Robinson’s Sonata
for Solo Violin #4 at Brevard,
NC. She performed on Bill Robinson’s 2012 concert at Duke. Bill
has composed
two pieces for her to play with her husband oboist Joseph
Robinson.