Canto del pregonero
Three Poems by Rafael Alberti

for soprano and percussion (2020)

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Duration: 6 minutes

Libretto: Spanish

Poems by Rafael Alberti

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Movements:
1. Si mi voz muriera

2. La paloma

3. Pregón

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Program Note:
This set of art songs was written during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Stay-at-home orders came in from around the world and around the country. With the cancellation of concerts and performances, there was a surge of artists performing on social media and focusing on web-content as an outlet for creativity. I was disappointed with the cancellation of numerous performances and was looking for my own musical outlets when I stumbled on a request for "tiny works" for unaccompanied soprano from Stephanie Lamprea. I reached out and proposed some poems by Rafael Alberti but self-accompanied on percussion found around the house. Stephanie loved the idea, and Canto del pregonero evolved slowly through April and May 2020.

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Recording:
Unaccompanied: Tiny Works for Quarantine, Volume 3

Stephanie Lamprea, soprano & percussion

June 13, 2020

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English Translations:

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1. If my voice dies

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If my voice dies on land

Carry it down to the sea

And leave it there on the shore.

 

Carry it down to the sea

And name it captain

Of a white man-of-war.

 

Oh my voice, decorated

With signs of a sailor:

 

Over my heart an anchor

And over the anchor a star

And over the star the wind

And over the wind a sail!

 

2. The Dove

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The dove was wrong.

She was mistaken.

 

To travel north, she flew south,

Thinking the wheat was water.

She was mistaken.

 

Thinking the sea was sky;

That the night, the morrow.

She was mistaken.

 

That the stars, dew;

That the heat, snowfall.

She was mistaken.

 

That your skirt was your blouse;

That your heart, your home.

She was mistaken.

 

(She fell asleep on the shore,

You, at the tip of a branch.)

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3. The Cry

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I sell clouds of color,

Ellipses, reddened

To temper the heat!

 

I sell purple cirrus,

And pink, the dawns,

The golden sunsets!

 

The yellow star

Caught in the green branches

Of the celestial peach tree!

 

I sell the snow, the flame,

And the song of the crier!