Elam Sprenkle's Birches (1991)
This beautiful music by Elam Ray Sprenkle as performed in Columbia, Maryland is dedicated to our long-time friend and benefactor,
Brenda Bell
About his work, Elam Sprenkle said, "I put myself in the right mode, I get ideas. Once I have a musical idea, it doesn't vanish. I work it out from beginning to end as scraps in my head and on the piano. Then I sit down and in one burst, three or four hours a day, I write it. That's the burdensome part. I put 'Birches' down in September and October of 1991. It's the best one I've done in awhile, the tightest."
Sprenkle has said he thinks, in American arts and letters, a running thread is the very direct, straightforward speech. Poets like Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson remind him of what Auden said, "Take common words and say uncommon things."
Sprenkle has said he thinks, in American arts and letters, a running thread is the very direct, straightforward speech. Poets like Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson remind him of what Auden said, "Take common words and say uncommon things."
Birches
BY ELAM SPRENKLE
(Duration: 22:26)
To listen to this 1991 Performance
by the
Columbia Pro Cantare,
Frances Dawson, Director
with
James Allison, piano
and the
Annapolis Brass Quintet
Robert Suggs, trumpet
David Cran, trumpet
Sharon Tiebert, horn
Wayne Wells, trombone
Robert Posten, bass trombone
Tap > Below
(There may be a slight pause before sound begins.)
BY ELAM SPRENKLE
(Duration: 22:26)
To listen to this 1991 Performance
by the
Columbia Pro Cantare,
Frances Dawson, Director
with
James Allison, piano
and the
Annapolis Brass Quintet
Robert Suggs, trumpet
David Cran, trumpet
Sharon Tiebert, horn
Wayne Wells, trombone
Robert Posten, bass trombone
Tap > Below
(There may be a slight pause before sound begins.)
Text: Robert Frost's Birches (1917)
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Birches
Robert Frost - 1874-1963 When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. From The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. ___________ Copyright: 1916, 1923, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1947, 1949, © 1969 by Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Copyright 1936, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1953, 1954, © 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1970 by Leslie Frost Ballantine. |
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One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
"In three words,
I can sum up everything I've learned about life:
it goes on."
~ Robert Frost ~
I can sum up everything I've learned about life:
it goes on."
~ Robert Frost ~
Annapolis Brass Quintet's
Farewell Concert
1993
Introductory Remarks by
JOHN BELL
President of
BRASS MARYLAND
[ ABQ 501(c) (3) Non-Profit Support Organization ]
For a Text of John's Remarks
Tap HERE
Final two works performed:
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH'S
LITTLE FUGUE
&
(as an off-stage encore)
ELAM SPRENKLE'S
CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY
Tap > Below
(There may be a slight pause before sound begins.)
Farewell Concert
1993
Introductory Remarks by
JOHN BELL
President of
BRASS MARYLAND
[ ABQ 501(c) (3) Non-Profit Support Organization ]
For a Text of John's Remarks
Tap HERE
Final two works performed:
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH'S
LITTLE FUGUE
&
(as an off-stage encore)
ELAM SPRENKLE'S
CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY
Tap > Below
(There may be a slight pause before sound begins.)
