Summer Stars - (2010) ![](images/01_Little_Green_Dot.gif)
Carl Sandburg
for medium or high voice and piano
Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long-arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.
[ 2 pages, circa 2' 05" ]
![](images/Carl_Sandburg_3.jpg)
Carl Sandburg
The text is taken from Sandburg's collection, Smoke and Steel (1920).
![](images_3/Summer_Stars_range.gif)
The setting is gentle, its textures being four-note chords, often arpeggiated, lyrical with triplets nested within a triple meter. Rubato is suggested as the performers find it apt.
![](images_3/Summer_Stars_1.gif)
The last section slows, as the "strumming" becomes more "lazy," in a simple tonic-subdominant-tonic final cadence.
![](images_3/Summer_Stars_2.gif)
The score for Summer Stars 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-vocal score.
![](images/score.gif)
Summer Stars
![](images/01_home_page_2005.gif)