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| Fallen with grace music by Rebekah Griffin Greene poetry by ted wagner |
Fallen with Grace: song cycle for baritone/tenor, violin, and piano, based on the poetry of Ted Wagner, 1996/97
Performance of songs 1-4: Michael Beauchamp, tenor, Loretta Notareschi, violin, Phillip Placenti, piano, 1998,
United University Church, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
1. Alone in a Wood
The creek trickles with sunlit luster Beside this stream, no greater peace
As trees tower into everlasting expanse The pen of God has colored space
Leaves whimper in delicate cluster Yet the grip of fear will not release
Birds and butterflies frolic and dance My coverings are out of place
This is a place dense with miracle Now I see why some would stay
Each second startled with sight and sound Shun the shelter of stone and steel
Deep in the wood it seems an oracle Perhaps a mix must be my way
of things to come, perfection found Until sublime has been revealed
2. The Poet's Garden
On a bright beamed Sunday
I took a stroll through the poet's garden
The grass finer cut than lawns of kings
and explored the flat stone
faces, and birds that sing
Colored petals
Disguising grey shapeless tablets
Helped me see the minds of mortals
But my mind is not the same
Across the valley beyond the poet's garden
I saw the vastness and beauty
Of the truth that holds me.
3. Our Love
A hurricane in a bottle
An airplane full throttle
Tied to a tree
Wanting to be free
Running against the wind
Gaining no ground
Like the sound of
Roaring thunder
Pounding waves
The tempest
On a phonograph
4. Empathy Lost
You will continue rotting there
'Till a web is spun round your heart
A lifetime to accomplish
its full decay, apathetic comfort
Yet a sword across your chest
or your child laid to rest
And you sit up, set fire to the cages
But you've seen it before
why the delayed response?
Disconnected disease
Only violence will cure us
As we lose our eyes
in the obsessive cesspool
of indulgence
5. Symmetry (Performance of "Symmetry" and "The Christ": Stephen Wagner, tenor, Leonora Wagner, violin,
Phillip Placenti, piano, 1997, University of Southern California)
There's a molded child sitting there
Coloring black with his scream
The one who took him by the hand
Has shot the day with his dreams We sigh and gasp and pass the blame
Their sin like a tree to a stone
Night falls on ghetto land Apocalypse comes, what's left is bones
Colored so grey with its screams For we have done all the same
No one to take you by the hand
Mountains, like hope, are the dream
6. The Christ
Could it be
The one who bleeds upon this tree
Is all of meaning wrapped tightly in flesh
Where yearnings of culture begin to mesh
The beacon light of history
Can one assess how difficult
to suffer through the past's tumult
and believe in one thing so clear
to burn the fog with an elusive spear
and pierce the hardened heart so lulled
Many many days gone by
Uncountable souls have heaved a cry
Pondered the mystery of a fallen state
I am one, yet I will wait
for the Master, though I wonder why
Performance of songs 1-4: Michael Beauchamp, tenor, Loretta Notareschi, violin, Phillip Placenti, piano, 1998,
United University Church, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
1. Alone in a Wood
The creek trickles with sunlit luster Beside this stream, no greater peace
As trees tower into everlasting expanse The pen of God has colored space
Leaves whimper in delicate cluster Yet the grip of fear will not release
Birds and butterflies frolic and dance My coverings are out of place
This is a place dense with miracle Now I see why some would stay
Each second startled with sight and sound Shun the shelter of stone and steel
Deep in the wood it seems an oracle Perhaps a mix must be my way
of things to come, perfection found Until sublime has been revealed
2. The Poet's Garden
On a bright beamed Sunday
I took a stroll through the poet's garden
The grass finer cut than lawns of kings
and explored the flat stone
faces, and birds that sing
Colored petals
Disguising grey shapeless tablets
Helped me see the minds of mortals
But my mind is not the same
Across the valley beyond the poet's garden
I saw the vastness and beauty
Of the truth that holds me.
3. Our Love
A hurricane in a bottle
An airplane full throttle
Tied to a tree
Wanting to be free
Running against the wind
Gaining no ground
Like the sound of
Roaring thunder
Pounding waves
The tempest
On a phonograph
4. Empathy Lost
You will continue rotting there
'Till a web is spun round your heart
A lifetime to accomplish
its full decay, apathetic comfort
Yet a sword across your chest
or your child laid to rest
And you sit up, set fire to the cages
But you've seen it before
why the delayed response?
Disconnected disease
Only violence will cure us
As we lose our eyes
in the obsessive cesspool
of indulgence
5. Symmetry (Performance of "Symmetry" and "The Christ": Stephen Wagner, tenor, Leonora Wagner, violin,
Phillip Placenti, piano, 1997, University of Southern California)
There's a molded child sitting there
Coloring black with his scream
The one who took him by the hand
Has shot the day with his dreams We sigh and gasp and pass the blame
Their sin like a tree to a stone
Night falls on ghetto land Apocalypse comes, what's left is bones
Colored so grey with its screams For we have done all the same
No one to take you by the hand
Mountains, like hope, are the dream
6. The Christ
Could it be
The one who bleeds upon this tree
Is all of meaning wrapped tightly in flesh
Where yearnings of culture begin to mesh
The beacon light of history
Can one assess how difficult
to suffer through the past's tumult
and believe in one thing so clear
to burn the fog with an elusive spear
and pierce the hardened heart so lulled
Many many days gone by
Uncountable souls have heaved a cry
Pondered the mystery of a fallen state
I am one, yet I will wait
for the Master, though I wonder why
This piece was commissioned by my dear friend Stephen Wagner. He really liked his brother Ted's poems, and since
his sister Leonora played violin and Steve sang, and Ted also displayed his artwork at the premiere, it was a really
neat celebration of family artistry.
his sister Leonora played violin and Steve sang, and Ted also displayed his artwork at the premiere, it was a really
neat celebration of family artistry.