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Lächerliche Kleinigkeiten - (2007)
Andreas Scheidegger
for tenor and piano
i. Ich bin aus Bern [ 2 pages, circa 40" ]
Ich bin aus Bern,
Ich sing so gern,
Ich weiss nicht was,
Aber es macht spaß!
ii. I bin Tenor [ 2 pages, circa 30" ]
I bin Tenor, oje oje...
Mei Stimm is aus, i geh, i geh...[ 4 pages, circa 1' 10" ]
Andreas Scheidegger
After asking for a short resume from Andreas for some time, he complained in the dressing room during a performance that he could not write a decent resume; I have since adapted that which I found independently. He had however sent me what became the second lyric in an email, and then that evening scrawled a short rhyme as his resume to include with my song for him, Septembermorgen. After that performance and his quick witted humor committed to paper, I quickly sketched these two "ridiculous trivialities" for the sheer fun of it.
On an envelope containing an article on hornist Franz Strauss given to me, Andreas wrote quickly his rhyme, "I come from Bern, / I sing happily, / I know not what, / but it's fun!" Set as a whimsical waltz, it repeats a shortening of the phrase, "I know not," after the humor about tenors being stupid. (Did you hear about the tenor that was so very stupid, other tenors actually noticed?)
Written in a Swiss dialect, Andreas sent me this two line "resume." It is now a song lyric though no fault of his. Set in a duple meter, the hemiola of three within the duple makes the accompaniment joyous and effervescent. These two short settings should simply be fun to sing. "I am a tenor, oh gosh! / My voice gives out! I go!"
The score for the Lächeliche Kleinigkeiten is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer, who bought the rights to these fine rhymes from the poet for ten cents while sitting at the bar of the Theater Aachen canteen. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.
