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- SOUND CLIPS PAGE -

 

Each song or excerpt title below is a link.  Simply click on the title and you should be able to listen to the sound clip.

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Puccini:  TOSCA

[from a live performance]


1. "Bramo"  [32 seconds]

A very short excerpt from Baron Scarpia's monologue which opens Act 2.  "I pursue the thing desired, sate myself with it, and throwing it away, I direct myself toward a new prey.  God created different beauties; different wines - I want to savor as much as I can of this Divine work!"


2. "Quanto [2 minutes, 28 seconds]

A somewhat longer excerpt from later in that same Act.  Tosca asks Baron Scarpia how much [money] he would take in exchange for her lover's freedom.  Scarpia laughs and explains that it is not money he requires from a beautiful woman...


 


Dubois:  SEVEN LAST WORD OF CHRIST

[from a live performance in 2008]


1. "God, My Father"  [4 minutes, 33 seconds]

This is a fairly long excerpt (which might take a bit of time to download) from the fifth movement of Théodore Dubois' "The Seven Last Words of Christ" - from a performance in March of 2008 in Orlando.


 


Wolf:  MÖRIKE LIEDER

[recorded live with John Wustman]


1. Denk’ es, o Seele!  [3 minutes]

"Consider, o Soul!"

A little fir-tree grows, who knows where, in the wood; a rosebush, who can tell, in which garden?

They are selected already [consider, o soul] to take root and grow on your grave.

Two young black horses graze on the pasture, they return back to town with cheerful leaps.

They will go step by step with your corpse; perhaps even before on their hooves their shoe becomes loose, which I see sparkling.


2. Frage und Antwort  [2 minute, 11 seconds]

"Question and Answer"

Do you ask me from whence came this fearsome love into my heart, and why I accepted from her the bitter sting shortly afterward?

Tell me, why with ghostly swiftness does the wind bear up wings, and from whence does the sweet spring obtains the hidden water?

Forbid, for me, on his travels the wind at full speed!
Halt with your magic twig the sweet spring's flow!


3. Lebe wohl  [2 minutes, 31 seconds]

"Farewell"

Farewell! You feel not what this means - this word of pain; with a confident face you said it, and with a light heart.

Farewell! Ah! A thousand times I have spoken the word in anticipation of this moment - and with unquenchable agony, have broken my own heart with it!


4. Der Tambour  [2 minutes, 22 seconds]

"The Drummer Boy"

If my mother could work magic, she would go off with the regiment to France. She would go everywhere with them and be a camp follower selling supplies.

In camp, at midnight, when there is no one up except the watch, and everybody is snoring, horses and men; that's when I would sit in front of my drum. The drum would turn into a bowl with warm sauerkraut in it - the drumsticks, knife and fork, a long sausage - that would be my saber. My shako would be a good mug that I would fill with burgundy. And because I would not have a light the moon would shine into my tent - even if it was shining in French I would still be reminded of my love.

Oh dear, oh dear! That's brought the fun to an end.

If only my mother could work magic...


5. Der Feuerreiter  [5 minutes, 5 seconds]

"The Fire-Rider"


Do you see at the window there again, that red cap? Something must be the matter for it is going up and down. And what a sudden mob is now by the bridge near the field! Hark! the fire-bell is shrilling: beyond the hill, there's a fire in the mill!

Look, there he goes, galloping furiously through the gate - it's the fire-rider on his horse, a bony nag, looking like a fire-
ladder! Across the fields, through the smoke and heat he plunges, and he's already reached his goal! Over there the bells are pealing, beyond the hill, there's a fire in the mill!

You who so often smelled fire from a mile off, and with a fragment of the holy cross maliciously conjured the blaze - woe! from the rafters there grins the Enemy of Man in hellish light. May God have mercy on your soul! Beyond the hill, he is raging in the mill!

Not an hour had passed before the mill was reduced to rubble; but the bold rider from that hour was never seen again. People and wagons in crowds turn toward home away from all the horror; and the bell stops ringing: beyond the hill, it's burning!

Later a miller found a skeleton together with the cap upright against the wall of the cellar sitting on the mare of bone: Fire-rider, how coolly you ride now to your grave! Hush! there it falls to ashes. Rest well, down there in the mill!



Watch for more sound clips in the future...


 

 



 

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