6 Songs for Soprano and Piano
on poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, and Edna St. Vincent Millay
Publisher
E. C. Schirmer Music Company
Catalog Number
8593
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E. C. Schirmer Music Company
J. W. Pepper
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Description
“Night Dances” shines a light on what night brings, from the sounds of a cricket singing to the image of a spider sewing a web, exploring the sounds and sensations of nightmare and insomnia, luxuriating in a lullaby bringing peace to a baby amid a storm at sea, and a final plea for music, that magic melody that soothes the soul, bringing with it rest and the peace of dreams.
Texts
1 – The cricket sang (Emily Dickinson)
2 – Some Things Are Dark (Edna St. Vincent Millay)
3 – Song (Emily Brontë)
4 – Sleep, mourner, sleep! (Emily Brontë)
5 – A Spider sewed at Night (Emily Dickinson)
6 – Sonnet (Elizabeth Bishop)
Year of Composition
1987
Duration
13 minutes
Commission
Schubert Club
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Dedication
Michael Dennis Browne and Lisa McLean
First Performance
December 8, 1987
McKnight Theatre
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Margo Garrett, piano
Listen
Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Margo Garrett, piano
The Cricket sang
Some Things Are Dark
Song
Sleep, mourner, sleep!
A Spider sewed at Night
Sonnet