Songs for Leontyne

Song Cycle by Lee Hoiby (1926 - 2011)

1. The doe  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Through the snow
 [ ... ]

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2. Evening  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
Evening, when the measure skips a beat
And then another, one by one, and all
To a seething minor swiftly modulate.
Bare night is best.
Bare earth is best.
Bare, bare,
Except for our own houses, huddled low
Beneath the arches and their spangled air,
Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire,
Where the voice that is in us makes a true response,
Where the voice that is great within us rises up,
As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.

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3. Autumn
 (Sung text)

Language: English 
The leaves are falling, falling down
 [ ... ]

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4. Winter song  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
The browns, the olives, and the yellows died,
And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed
Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide,
And when the land lay pale for them, pale-snowed,
Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed.

From off your face, into the winds of winter,
The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing;
But they shall gleam with spiritual glinter,
When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing,
And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going.

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "Chant d'hiver", copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

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5. In the wand of the wind  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
This was the day the trees turned silver
 [ ... ]

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6. The serpent  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
There was a Serpent who had to sing
 [ ... ]

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Total word count: 511