CCC WINTER CONCERT

RESCHEDULED: THURSDAY, JAN 18th 2024 7pm

Carlisle Community Chorus Program Notes Winter 2024 – by Joan Laxson

The Bird’s Courting Song, an Appalachian folk song, dates back to the seventeenth century. It
is a pourquois story, a fictional explanation as to why something is the way that it is. It was first
recorded and released by Burl Ives in 1941. In this particular arrangement by Cristi Cary Miller,
three birds and a bat, all share the woeful tales of their lost loves, and explain how they came to
be black, red, or blue, or with leather wings. The melody is set in Aeolian mode, the natural
minor scale, and adds to the melancholy mood of the text.

Blackbird, written in 1968 by Beatles member Paul McCartney, is often credited to John Lennon
as well, because of a mutual agreement between them. Although the song is about a blackbird,
its underlying meaning parallels the racial tensions in America at the time. In 2018, McCartney
further elaborated on the song’s meaning, explaining that “blackbird” should be interpreted as
“black girl.” He has also acknowledged his guitar accompaniment was inspired by Johann
Sebastian Bach’s Bourree in E Minor, written in 1708.

Die Nachtigall (The Nightingale), was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, based on a poem by the
German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They met when Felix was twelve years old, and
even though Goethe was much older, their friendship lasted until the time of Goethe’s death.
Mendelssohn is considered to be one of the finest composers of the Romantic period
(1750-1820). The Carlisle Chorus sings Die Nachtigall in its original German, which translates:
The nightingale had gone afar; Spring summons her back. She has learned nothing new; She
sings the old beloved songs.

Alouette, a French Canadian folk song, is likely recognizable to nearly every American who has
sung it in French as a round in elementary school or around a campfire. Many US Marines and
other Allied soldiers learned the song while serving in France during World War I and took it
home with them, passing it on to their children and grandchildren. An alouette is a horned lark
which the French colonists of Quebec considered a game bird. “Alouette” informs the gentle
lark that the singer will pluck its head, beak, eyes, wings and tail. Probably not what
non-French-speaking children were thinking as they sang! The song links to the North American
French fur trade. Canoes were used to transport trade goods in exchange for furs through large
trade routes consisting of interconnected lakes, rivers, and portages of present-day Canada and
the United States. The songs of the French fur trade were adapted to accompany the motion of
paddles dipped in unison. Singing helped to pass the time and made the work seem lighter.

Old Joe Clark is an American folk song, a mountain ballad that was popular among soldiers
from eastern Kentucky during World War I and afterwards. Its lyrics refer to a real person
named Joseph Clark, a Kentucky mountaineer who was born in 1839 and murdered in 1885. Joe
was a bit of a wild man and his friends, taking note of his exploits, started making rhymes out of
them and sang them to an old fiddle tune. There are about 90 stanzas of playful and sometimes
outlandish verses in various versions of the song. Tonight we are presenting a “G-rated version”
of far fewer verses.

Like a Singing Bird. The composer, Bob Chilcott, combined a melodic setting of Christina
Rossetti’s ‘A Birthday’ with Robert Burns’ ‘A Red, Red Rose’, sung to the tune of a traditional
Scottish ballad. Both themes are imbued with a sense of happiness and contentment with the
world, and the interplay between the melodies results in a truly stirring finish. Chilcott imagined
the piece to include two dancers, each representing one of the two different melodies that feature
in the song.

Earth Voices by Jerry Estes, was inspired by the Canadian poet Bliss Carman (1861-1929). This
set of three short songs is written in contrasting styles, and the poetry and music are filled with
delightful imagery. The Wind: I am the breath of being, the primal urge of things. I am the whirl
of stardust, and the splendid impulse that comes before the thought. The Rain: I keep the
rhythmic measure that marks the steps of time, and all my toil is fashioned with symmetry, and
rhyme! The Sun: tints the dawn with crimson and tinges the sea with blue. It paints the hills
with color and lights the star of evening to steer the traveler home.

Turn the World Around with words and music by Harry Belafonte and Robert Freedman
marked a return to Belafonte’s interpreting folk songs of other cultures. The title track became
the focus of one of the most acclaimed performances on the successful television series, The
Muppet Show, where Belafonte explained the artistic theme of the song before performing it with
specially designed puppets that resembled African tribal masks. “I discovered that song in
Africa. I was in a country called Guinea, and I went deep into the interior of the country. In a
little village, I met with a story-teller. That story-teller went way back into African
tradition—into African mythology. He began to tell a story about the fire—which means the
Sun—about the water, about the Earth. And he pointed out that all of these things put together
turn the world around. And that all of us are here for a very, very short time. And in that time that
we are here, there really isn’t any difference in any of us IF we take time out to understand each
other. And the question is, Do I know who you are? Do you know who I am? Do we care about
each other? Because, if we do, together we can turn the world around.”— Harry Belafonte on The
Muppet Show, 1979

Sources: Wikipedia. Various publishers’ notes describing the music.