"A birthday" [Robert Livingston Aldridge]

"A birthday" [Robert Livingston Aldridge]

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

Aldridge, Robert Livingston; music (American, born 1954)

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

2004 [composition]; 2011 [publication]

New York: Edition Peters

genre: song

solo: high voice

instrumentation: piano

initial sharps/flats: two flats

initial time signature: 4/4

origin: United States

male composer

English

Rossetti poem(s): "A Birthday"

Composition history: Aldridge attempted to compose each of the songs in his collection "LoveSong" in one day, "striving for a simple, immediate and visceral connection between music and text."

Tempo markings: "Gospel"; quarter note = 60

Performance instructions: Aldridge instructs the text from the second stanza to be sung "more animated, but not accelerating."

Performance history: First performed as part of the song collection "LoveSongs" April 2005 at Peak Performances in Montclair, New Jersey by tenor Stephen Oosting and pianist Robert Spillman.

Dedication: "to my wife, Paula Stark"

Notes: The fifth song of sixteen in the song collection "LoveSongs" which includes 1. "My Love in Her Attire" (Anonymous); 1. "Reluctance" (Robert Frost); 3. "When We Two Parted" (Lord Byron); 4. "Young and Old" (Charles Kingsley); 5. "A Birthday" (Christina Rossetti); 6. "Jenny Kissed Me" (Leigh Hunt); 7. "Why Is The Rose So Pale" (Heinrich Heine"); 8. "Gone" (Carl Sandburg); 9. "She Comes Not' (Herbert Trench); 10. "Song" (Christina Rossetti); 11. "Love Despised" (Anonymous); 12. "Beauty and Love" (Andrew Young); 13. "Alms" (Edna St. Vincent Millay); 14. "Wild Nights" (Emily Dickenson); 15. "Of Pearls and Stars" (Heinrich Heine); 16. "Saga Love" (Bee Rawlinson). This song collection can be performed as a cycle, individually, or excerpted in groups.

Format 1: musical score

6 pages (pp. 35-40)

Other data reference(s): Record for "LoveSongs. Volume I : high voice : fifteen songs for voice and piano." University of Toronto Libraries, https://search.library.utoronto.ca/details?8319195&uuid=973e273d-f7b4-4174-a9ad-a1210bc1be41. Accessed 4 Mar. 2019.

Cataloguer: Sarah Pennington, University of Ottawa

musical score: Aldridge, Robert Livingston. "Song." LoveSongs. Volume I: fifteen songs for voice and piano: high voice, Edition Peters, 2011, pp. 35-40. University of Texas Libraries, Austin.

Record: CRM-birthday-aldridge

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