STRANGE SONGS
Duration: 19
minutes
(1979--Sept. 9, 2010; March 19--April 19, 2012, Feb. 2016; March 2024)
Commissioned inscientibus, ex post facto, sub rosa by Stephen Reynolds and Susan Osborne, July 2020
This is a collection of four vocal
works; they are much expanded from
original chamber versions during the summer of 2010 and spring of 2012,
edited in 2016 and 2024. There are two versions; one for baritone,
SATBariB chorus, and orchestra, and the other for baritone, SATB
chorus, and piano quintet.
In 2004, as I was about to graduate with a BS in physics from NCSU, I wrote an odd little poem called I'm a Physicist and That's Just Fine. Not long after, I set it for baritone and piano. The arrangement here is much longer and more complex than the original song.
I attended a macrobiotic meeting in Boston in 1979 where there was to be an entertainment at the end given by attendees. I quickly wrote Little Miss Nonfat as a composition that anyone who could read music could perform; it was for spoken chorus in four parts. However, my search for performers was in vain. This orchestral version is far longer and more involved than the very simple original, which was under two minutes long.
Until February 2015, Strange Songs included Der Jammerwock, a setting of Robert Scott's 1872 translation of Jabberwocky into imaginary German. This is now withdrawn; perhaps someday I will try again.
Math Class: or, Does
the Zero Have Buddha-Nature™? started
off in 1982 as a companion spoken chorus piece to Little Miss
Nonfat, also in four parts, written after a year as a physics
and math major at
In the summer of 2003, I was doing physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and decided to write a satirical song about the decades of rejection I had suffered from musicians. Thus, I dedicated it to the many musicians who gave me so much material from 1984 through 2005 by turning down my music because it was too easy, too hard, too long, too brief, too classical, too popular, too modern, too old-fashioned, too secular, too religious, too fast, too slow, too serious, too humorous, they’re busy playing something else, or in short, because I wouldn’t give them money. Thankfully, since 2006 things are much better and I have found some wonderful performers.
Strange Songs as
completed in 2012 is for either full orchestra or two pianos (the vocal
score is performable), baritone and STABBariB chorus. Neither was
performed by 2024. I made this version for piano quintet, baritone, and
SATB chorus (one singer on a part) in preparation for a concert in
January 2025 marking my 70th birthday, and finally bring this music to
the stage and have a recording.
DeMar Neal, baritone, with Kent Lyman on the piano, performed the original song version of I'm a Physicist and
That's Just Fine at Carswell Auditorium, Meredith
College, Raleigh NC, on February 24, 2013. This song is much expanded in the Strange
Songs verson, with the addition of orchestra and chorus and more material. The recordings, and links to the video on
YouTube, are below. Music marked with an asterisk has not yet been performed.
Orchestral Version * STRANGE SONGS for Baritone, SATBariB Chorus, and Orchestra
PDF
Vocal Score (Voices and two pianos) Orchestral parts are letter size, f&b Chamber Version
* STRANGE SONGS for Baritone, SATB Chorus, and Piano Quintet
Chamber
string parts are in two forms; paper parts are letter size, f&b,
while for electronic music readers, all four string parts are together
and include reduced versions of the other parts.
PDF Chamber Parts (Electronic music readers)
_________________________________
With Calculated Abandon [6:10]
Allegro macroneurotica [5']
IV. What I Hear After Submitting A Score Vivace flagrante delicto [3']
*********************************************************** Original Versions
original version (2004) for Bass-Baritone and Piano (see Lyrics on "Physics" page)
With Calculated Abandon
video (YouTube)
MP3 WAV (CD quality) [3:41] __________________________________________ Two works for spoken chorus in four parts:
Little Miss Nonfat [1:20] (1979) Allegro macroneurotica MP3 WAV (from 1982)
Math Class: or, Does the Zero Have Buddha-Nature™? (1982) Allegro diploma MP3 WAV (from 1982)
Full Score, PDF (both pieces) with notes __________________________________________
(Franco Corelli as Canio in Pagliacci) |