Fern Hill (1960)
version for mezzo soprano, chorus, and orchestra
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see also:
1965 version with full orchestra,
1999 version with chamber orchestra,
and
A Dylan Thomas Trilogy
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First performed on April 24, 1976 Berenice Bramson, soprano, Cathedral Choral Society and National Symphony under Paul Callaway, National Cathedral, Washington, DC
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rent score and parts from
G. Schirmer Inc
order vocal score from
www.musicdispatch.com
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Scored for
2fl, 2ob, 2cl, 2bn, 4hns, 2tpts, 2 tbs, timp., 3 perc., pno, hrp, stgs
Duration
16 minutes
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Recording
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The Kansas City Chorale and the Fern Hill Orchestra; Charles Bruffy, conductor
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Nimbus 5449 (1995)
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I first encountered Dylan Thomas’ work in 1959, my last undergraduate year at Columbia College. It was a revelation. Both the sound and structures of Thomas’s words were astonishingly musical. Not by accident, either: “What the words meant was of secondary importance; what matters was the sound of them...these words were as the notes of bells, the sounds of musical instruments," he wrote in his Poetic Manifesto of 1951. I was irresistibly drawn to translate his music into mine.
One poem captivated me: Fern Hill, about the poet’s “young and easy" summers at his family’s farm of the same name. I wanted to write this work as a gift for my high-school music teacher, Mrs. Bella Tillis, who first encouraged my musical ambitions. She introduced Fern Hill with piano accompanying her (and, once, my) school choir.
Fern Hill is a blithe poem, yet touched by darkness; time finally holds the poet “green and dying," but the poem itself, formally just an ABA song extended into a wide arch, sings joyously of youth and its keen perceptions. I set it for mezzo-soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra, aiming to match the forthright lyricism of the text. (The direction “with simplicity" is everywhere in the printed score.)
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— John Corigliano