"Up-Hill" [Ned Rorem]

"Up-Hill" [Ned Rorem]

First line of lyrics: Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

Part of: "The Nantucket Songs"

Rorem, Ned; music (American, born 1923)

Rossetti, Christina Georgina; text (English, 1830-1894)

1981 [publication]

New York: Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

genre: art song (lied)|song cycle|song

solo: voice

instrumentation: piano

initial sharps/flats: four flats

initial time signature: 3/4

origin: United States

male composer

English

Rossetti poem(s): "Up-Hill"

Place in the larger work: The fifth song of ten in the song cycle called "Nantucket Songs" which includes 1. "From Whence Cometh Song?" (Theodore Roethke); 2. "The Dance" (William Carlos Williams); 3. "Nantucket" (William Carlos Williams); 4. "Go, Lovely Rose" (Edmund Waller); 5. "Up-Hill" (Christina Rossetti); 6. "Mother, I Cannot Mind my Wheel" (Walter Savage Landor); 7. "Fear of Death" (John Ashbery); 8. "Thoughts of a Young Girl" (John Ashbery); 9. "Ferry Me Across the Water" (Christina Rossetti); 10. "The Dancer" (Edmund Waller).

Composition history: A note on the score states that "the cycle was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. It was composed between November, 1978 and May, 1979 on the island of Nantucket, hence the title. An apt subtitle might be 'Popular Songs', insofar as "Popular" means "entertaining" as opposed to "classically" indirect. Indeed, these songs -- merry or complex or strange though their texts may seem -- aim away from the head and toward the diaphragm. They are, as collegians say, emotional rather than intellectual, and need not to be understood to be enjoyed."

Tempo markings: quarter note = c.72

Performance instructions: "The questions must be nervous and hastening. The answers, as though by another voice, are cool and held back."

Performance history: First public and broadcast performance was by soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson with Ned Rorem at the piano, at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, October 30, 1979.

Recordings: Rorem, Ned. Ned Rorem: The Nantucket Songs and Other Songs. Performance of the Nantucket Songs by Phyllis Bryn-Julson, soprano, Ned Rorem, piano as it was first broadcasted at the Library of Congress, Composers Recordings, Inc.1993; CD, Anthology of Recorded Music, Inc., 2007. New World Records, http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=17439. (Rorem)

Format 1: musical score

3 pages (pp. 14-16); complete song cycle performance time 18 minutes

Other data reference(s): Rorem, Ned. Liner notes. Ned Rorem: The Nantucket Songs and Other Songs. Anthology of Recorded Music, Inc., 2007. New World Records, http://www.newworldrecords.org/album.cgi?rm=view&album_id=17439.

Cataloguer: Sarah Pennington, University of Ottawa

musical score: Carleton University Library, Ottawa

Record: CRM-uphill-rorem

File(s): CRM-uphill-rorem-first-four-bars.jpg; CRM-uphill-rorem-contents.jpg

"This score is protected by copyright. All rights reserved by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc."

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