Album for the Elderly

(a song cycle for soprano or tenor soloist and piano)

poetry by William Yeats, William Wordsworth, Siefried Sassoon and Robert Frost

Album for the Elderly was premiered by the Erato Ensemble in Vancouver on January 27th, 2007

singers: William George, Catherine Laub and Kresha Faber


1) Miles to Go Before I Sleep; Audio file
2) When You are Old; Audio file
3) Child at the Window; Audio file
4) Brown Penny; Audio file
5) Rainbow in the Sky; Audio file
6) When I Was a Child; Audio file


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Album for the Elderly lyrics

Miles to Go Before I Sleep  - Robert Frost  - (Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

 

 Whose woods these are I think I know.

 His house is in the village, though;

 He will not see me stopping here

 To watch his woods fill up with snow.

 

 My little horse must think it queer

 To stop without a farmhouse near

 Between the woods and frozen lake

 The darkest evening of the year.

 

 He gives his harness bells a shake

 To ask if there's some mistake.

 The only other sound's the sweep

 Of easy wind and downy flake.

 

 The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

 But I have promises to keep,

 And miles to go before I sleep,

 And miles to go before I sleep.

 

 

When You Are Old and Grey - William Yeats

 

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

 

Child at the Window - Siegfried Sassoon

 

Remember this, when childhood's far away:

The sunlight of a showery first spring day;

You from your house-top window laughing down,

And I, returned with whip-cracks from a ride,

On the great lawn below you, playing the clown.

Time blots our gladness out. Let this with love abide...

 

The brave March day; and you, not four years old,

Up in your nursery world - all heaven for me.

Remember this - the happiness I hold -

In far off springs I shall not live to see;

The world one map of wastening war unrolled,

And you, unconscious of it, setting my spririt free.

 

For you must learn, beyond bewildering years,

How little things beloved and held are best.

The windows of the world are blurred with tears,

And troubles come like cloud-banks from the west.

Remember this, some afternoon in spring,

When your own child looks down and makes your sad heart sing.

 

 

Brown Penny - William Yeats

 

I whispered, "I am too young,"

 And then, "I am old enough;"

 Wherefore I threw a penny

 To find out if I might love.

 

 "Go and love, go and love, young man,

 If the lady be young and fair."

 Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

 I am looped in the loops of her hair.

 

 O love is the crooked thing,

 There is nobody wise enough

 To find out all that is in it,

 For he would be thinking of love.

 

 Till the stars had run away

 And the shadows eaten the moon.

 Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,

 One cannot begin it too soon.

 

 

The Rainbow - William Wordsworth

 

My heart leaps up when I behold  

A rainbow in the sky:  

So was it when my life began;  

So is it now I am a man;  

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!  

The Child is father of the Man;  

I could wish my days to be  

Bound each to each by natural piety.

 

 

When I Was a Child - I Corinthians 13: 11, 12

 

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I felt like a child, I thought like a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.

 

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.

Album for the Elderly - notes from the composer

 

The poems selected for this song cycle speak about the beauty and fragility of life. My dear mother has Alzheimer’s and, while dad continues to love and care for her, she seems to be slowly fading away. In 1989 I almost died of viral encephalitis. Being confronted by our mortality helps us to cherish each day with all its never-ending stream of small miracles.

 

Paul Simon, as a young polemic musician, was so perceptive when he wrote songs like Old Friends, Dangling Conversation and Hazy Shade of Winter. I loved these songs, as a teen-ager, so contemplating old age is nothing new for me. The song - My Father - by Judy Collins is dear to me.
Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, “I have no pleasure in them”. This verse from Ecclesiastes became my motto while studying at UBC during the early 1970’s.

 

Album for the Elderly is a setting of six classic poems. Miles to Go Before I Sleep is Robert Frost’s evocative way of saying “I have so many things to do before I die”. When You Are Old and nodding by the fire – William Yeats says that memories of loving relationships will be of great comfort. A mother has fun being silly on the front lawn, while her child watches and giggles from the housetop window, and later asks her child to never forget that simple happy moment (Siegfried Sassoon’s Child at the Window). In Brown Penny, by Yeats, an elderly person advises a young man to take a chance on romantic love. Just as the rainbow was a symbol of life and hope to Noah, it should remind us to keeping thinking youthfully as we grow older (William Wordsworth’s Rainbow in the Sky). Finally, When I Was a Child completes the song cycle, with a verse from 1 Corinthians, in the style of a benediction. Someday the things of earth will pass away and we will understand life’s wonderful mysteries.

 

Larry Nickel