Outdoor Recital
Michael Hofmann, baritone
Paula Vitolo, piano
August 29, 2020 • 7 pm
PROGRAM
Valentin’s aria – “Avant de quitter ces lieux”
(from Faust, 1859)
O sainte médaille,
Qui me vient de ma soeur,
Au jour de la bataille,
Pour écarter la mort,
Reste sur mon coeur.Avant de quitter ces lieux,
Sol natal de mes aïeux
A toi, seigneur et Roi des cieux
Ma sœur je confie,
Daigne de tout danger
Toujours, toujours la protéger
Cette sœur si cherie!
Délivré d’une triste pensée
J’irai chercher la gloire, la gloire au seins des ennemis,
Le premier, le plus brave au fort de la mêlée,
J’irai combattre pour mon pays.
Et si vers lui, Dieu me rappelle,
Je veillerai sur toi fidèle,
O Marguerite!
O, holy medal
Which comes to me from my sister,
On the day of battle,
To guard against death,
Stay on my heart.
Before I leave this town,
My forefathers’ native place,
To you, Lord and King of Heaven,
Do I entrust my sister.
I beg you to defend her
From every peril,
My beloved sister.
Freed from this harrowing thought,
I shall seek glory in the enemy’s ranks,
The first, the bravest, in the thick of the fray,
I shall go and fight for my country.
And if God should call me to his side,
I shall faithfully watch over you,
O Marguerite.
Charles Gounod
Libretto by Jules Barbier
Silent Noon
(from The House of Life, 1903)
Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,—
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:—
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love.
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Poem by Dante Gabriel Rosetti
Summer Schemes
(from Earth and Air and Rain, 1936)
When friendly summer calls again,
Calls again
Her little fifers to these hills,
We'll go—we two—to that arched fane
Of leafage where they prime their bills
Before they start to flood the plain
With quavers, minims, shakes, and trills.
"—We'll go," I sing; but who shall say
What may not chance before that day!
And we shall see the waters spring,
Waters spring
From chinks the scrubby copses crown;
And we shall trace their oncreeping
To where the cascade tumbles down
And sends the bobbing growths aswing,
And ferns not quite but almost drown.
"—We shall," I say; but who may sing
Of what another moon will bring!
Gerald Finzi
Poem by Thomas Hardy
Whither Must I Wander
(from Songs of Travel, 1904)
Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door -
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.
Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.
Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moorfowl,
Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees and flowers;
Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,
Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours;
Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood -
Fair shine the day on the house with open door;
Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney -
But I go for ever and come again no more.
Vaughan Williams
Poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Op. 39 Liederkreis
Selections
Robert Schumann
Poems by Joseph Eichendorff
1. In der Fremde
Aus der Heimat hinter den Blitzen roth
Da kommen die Wolken her,
Aber Vater und Mutter sind lange tot,
Es kennt mich dort keiner mehr.Wie bald, ach wie bald kommt die stille Zeit,
Da ruhe ich auch, und über mir
Rauscht die schöne Waldeinsamkeit,
Und keiner kennt mich mehr hier.
In foreign parts
From there beyond the lightning flashes,
clouds come from my homeland.
Father and mother are long since dead,
and no one there knows me anymore.
How soon, oh how soon will come that quiet time
when I too shall rest! And over me
in lovely solitude, the woods will rustle,
and no one here will know me any more.
3. Waldesgespräch
Es ist schon spät, es ist schon kalt,
Was reit’st du einsam durch den Wald?
Der Wald ist lang, du bist allein,
Du schöne Braut! Ich führ’ dich heim!–“Gross ist der Männer Trug und List,
Vor Schmerz mein Herz gebrochen ist,
Wohl irrt das Waldhorn her und hin,
O flieh! Du weisst nicht wer ich bin.”–So reich geschmückt ist Ross und Weib,
So wunderschön das junge Leib,
Jetzt kenn ich dich– Gott steh mir bei!
Du bist die Hexe Lorelei.–“Du kennst mich wohl– vom hohen Stein
Schaut still mein Schloss tief in den Rhein.
Es ist schon spät, es ist schon kalt,
Kommst nimmermehr aus diesem Wald.”
Dialogue in the woods
Already it is late, already cold –
why do you ride alone through the woods?
The way through the woods is long, you are alone.
You lovely bride, I will carry you home!
“Great is the guile and cunning of men,
my heart is broken with grief.
The straying horn sounds here and there.
O fly! You know not who I am!”
In fine array are horse and bride,
her young form of wonderous beauty;
I know you now – may God protect me!
You are the siren, Lorelei!
“You do indeed know me – from a high rock
my castle looks still and deep into the Rhine.
Already it is late, already cold –
nevermore will you leave these woods!”
5. Mondnacht
Es war, als hätt der Himmel
Die Erde still geküsst,
Dass sie im Blütenschimmer
Von ihm nun träumen müsst.Die Luft ging durch die Felder,
Die Ähren wogten sacht,
Es rauschten leis die Wälder,
So sternklar war die Nacht.Und meine Seele spannte
Weit ihre Flügel aus,
Flog durch die stillen Lande,
Als flöge sie nach Haus.
Moonlit night
It was as if heaven
had softly kissed the earth,
and earth in blossoming splendor
could only dream of heaven.
A breeze passing over the fields
gently swayed the ears of corn.
The woods rustled softly,
and the night was bright with stars.
And my soul spread wide
its wings, and flew
over the silent land,
as if it were flying home.