Music and Texts of GARY BACHLUND
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Summer Stars - (2010)
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" ]
Carl Sandburg
The text is taken from Sandburg's collection, Smoke and Steel (1920).
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.
The last section slows, as the "strumming" becomes more "lazy," in a simple tonic-subdominant-tonic final cadence.
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.
