Music and Texts of GARY BACHLUND
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On "Angelina Baker" - (2018)
for piano
This melody, collected by pioneering musicologist John A. Lomax (1867-1948), differs from the song of the same name as written by Stephen Foster in 1850. Lomax authored a memoir, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, which mentions that early in his university education such tunes were dismissed as "cheap and unworthy," melodies were collected as "field recordings" preserving a whole culture for the future. This adaptation of the fiddle tune can be played as a canon, but fitting it into a light-hearted essay for piano, including a fughetta as a center section testifies that "cheap and unworthy" in someone opinion is most worthy in another's.
The song lyrics are amusing, telling of this Angelina - in Foster's lyric, "Angeline the baker, her age is forty-three / I bought her candy by the peck, and she won't marry me. / Her father is the miller, they call him Uncle Sam. / I never will forget her, unless I take a dram." An alternative lyric sometimes found sings of "Angelina Baker, prettiest girl alive / She says that she’s twenty three, but I know she’s forty five."
4 pages, circa 3' 30" - an MP3 demo is here:
The score 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. Click on the graphic below for this piano score.
