Summer Stars

 

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.

 

Summer Stars