Songs from Lewis Carroll
baritone and piano | 28’ | 2021
Full song cycle published by North Star Music
IV. “Jabberwocky” published in New Voices in Art Song 2023 by North Star Music
Part I performed on November 17, 2021 at conTemplum's SoundPrints II concert
Rock Hall Auditorium, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Part II performed on April 6, 2022 at conTemplum's SoundPrints IV concert
Rock Hall Auditorium, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Andrew Shaw, baritone
Alex Glass, piano
Songs from Lewis Carroll is a dramatic song cycle based on poems from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. This cycle is set within the larger narrative of the poem “The Walrus and The Carpenter,” realized as a spoken drama that provides the cycle’s backdrop. The other poems form the cycle’s seven songs, which are organized in a way that reinforces the narrative arc of the whole work.
Part I comprises four of the seven songs: “How Doth the Little Crocodile,” a sordid and slimy ode to the malicious creature; “The Lobster Quadrille,” a spirited patter aria oozing with superfluous romanticism; “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat,” a sardonic parody that mimics the flying bat with repetitive piano gestures; and “Jabberwocky,” a lighthearted and nonsensical adventure that was the inspiration for the full cycle.
Part II comprises the other three songs: the baroque-aria inspired "You are Old, Father William", the sordid twelve-tone "Turtle Soup", and the deconstructed Broadway-style "'Tis the Voice of the Lobster". Musical interludes featuring text from "The Walrus and the Carpenter" come between the songs, and a matching prologue and epilogue complete the cycle.
