"A birthday" [Juliana Hall]

"A birthday" [Juliana Hall]

First line of lyrics: My heart is like a singing bird

Part of: "Christina's World"

Hall, Juliana; music (American, born 1958)

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

2016 [composition]; 2017 [publication]

Boston: E.C. Schirmer Music Co.

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

solo: soprano

instrumentation: piano

initial sharps/flats: no sharps or flats

initial time signature: 4/4

origin: United States

female composer

English

Rossetti poem(s): "A Birthday"

Place in the larger work: The first song of five in the song cycle called "Christina's World," settings of Christina Rossetti poems. The songs include 1. "A birthday"; 2. "Who has seen the wind?"; 3. "Amor mundi"; 4. "When I am dead, my dearest"; 5. "Up-hill."

Composition history: Composed for soprano Gwen Coleman Detwiler, of the Cincinnati College-Conservatory’s voice faculty (Hall). On her website, Juliana Hall writes that "'the five songs of “Christina’s World,' on poems by Christina Rossetti, loosely follow a narrative arc beginning with the joyful emotions of true love, and continuing with darker observations about the nature of being alive and of the questions of life and death, the tension of which is resolved at the end of the cycle with a positive sense that as one approaches the end of this life, all will be well and find a place of welcome and rest" (Hall).

Tempo markings: quarter note = 60-66

Performance instructions: "A Quiet Joy"

Performance history: Performed on April 18, 2017 at Wyoming Presbyterian Church (Hall) by soprano Gwen Coleman Detwiler and Marie-France Lefebvre on piano.

Dedication: "for Gwen Coleman Detwiler"

Format 1: musical score

9 pages (pp. 3-11); complete song cycle performance time 18 minutes

Reference: Ezust, Emily. The LiederNet Archive. http://www.lieder.net/lieder/index.html

Other data reference(s): Hall, Juliana. "CHRISTINA’S WORLD." Julianahall.com, https://www.julianahall.com/christinas-world/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2019.

Cataloguer: Sarah Pennington, University of Ottawa

Musical score: Yale Music Library, Connecticut

This score is copyright protected. A score can be consulted here: "Christina's World." E.C. Schirmer Music Company, https://www.canticledistributing.com/catalog/product/view/sku/8566*. Accessed 1 Apr. 2019.

Record: CRM-birthday-hall

"© Copyright 2017 by E.C. Schirmer Music Company, Inc., a division of ECS Publishing Group. www.ecspublishing.com All rights reserved."

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