Page 7 - Summer Program_06-2019

The text of “Dem dunkeln Schoβ der Heilgen Erde” is drawn from Friedrich Schiller’s
poem “The Song of the Bell” and speaks, as does Schiller’s poem, to the human capacity
for greatness of being, often failing but nonetheless possessing unending potential for
fruition. The piece may have been written as early as the 1860s or 1870s but was never
performed, finally to be published much later, in 1927.

Dem dunkeln Schoss der heiligen Erde To the dark womb of the sacred earth the
vertraut der Sämann seine Saat und hofft, sower entrusts the seeds,
dass sie entkeimen werde zum Segen nach hoping that they will sprout forth into
des Himmels Rat. a blessing in accordance with heaven’s
counsel.
Noch köstlicheren Samen bergen wir Grieving, we shelter even more precious
trauernd in der Erde Schoss seed in the earth’s womb
und hoffen, dass er aus den Särgen and trust it shall blossom from the coffins
erblühen soll zu schönerm Los. to find a better fate.

- Friedrich Schiller

The Blue Bird, (Op. 119, No. 3) Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 – 1924)
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Anglo-Irish composer, conductor, and teacher. Born
in Dublin, he studied at Queens College, Cambridge, as an organ scholar, and composed a
number of works for the organ. While still an undergraduate, he was appointed organist
of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1882, at the age of 29, he became one of the founding
members of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his
life. Stanford was a prolific composer of symphonies, concertos, and operas, but his best-
known compositions are choral works for church performance.

“The Blue Bird”, with words by Mary E. Coleridge (1861-1907—novelist, poet and great-
grandniece of the famous Samuel Coleridge), is Stanford’s most celebrated part-song.

The lake lay blue below the hill, The sky above was blue at last,
O’re it, as I looked there flew The sky beneath me blue in blue,
Across the waters, cold and still, A moment, ere the bird had passed,
A bird whose wings were palest blue. It caught his image, as he flew.

- Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, from Fancy’s
Following, pub. T. B. Mosher (1900)
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