Sunday Classics snapshots: "My day in the hills has come to an end, I know"

My day in the hills
has come to an end, I know.
A star has come out
to tell me it's time to go.
But deep in the dark green shadows
are voices that urge me to stay.
So I pause and I wait and I listen
for one more sound,
for one more lovely thing
that the hills might say.

by Ken

You know what today's musical snapshot is, I'm sure. Or just possibly maybe not. It wasn't till yesterday that I discovered that people all over the world who are intimately familiar with the source may never have heard these beautiful lines.

Need a hint? Here's another haunting musical setup, one that we've already heard (back in January 2011), that's kin to the above. (In my head I frequently get their respective musical destinations mooshed up.)

When I think of Tom, I think about a night
when the earth smelled of summer
and the sky was streaked with white,
and the soft mist of England was sleeping on a hill.
I remember this, and I always will.

There are new lovers now on the same silent hill,
looking on the same blue sea.
And I know Tom and I are a part of them all --
and they're all a part of Tom and me. . . .

Valerie Masterson, vocal; National Symphony Orchestra, John Owen Edwards, cond. Jay, recorded July 1994

THIS, OF COURSE, IS --

Preview: "Small House of Uncle Thomas"

King Simon of Legree, in "Small House of Uncle Thomas"

by Ken

Late in Act I of Rodgers and Hammesterin's The King and I, the King of Siam informs the new governess for his many children, Anna, that a British diplomatic delegation is coming to Bangkok, and he wishes her to help prepare a reception.

For the gala event, which takes place early in Act II, Tuptim (the young Burmese girl who has been given by her king as a present to the King of Siam) prepares a version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a stylized ballet called Small House of Uncle Thomas -- a fairly audacious choice to present to an autocratic king. The ballet had never been included in a King and I recording until the 1964 album based on the Music Theater of Lincoln Center production, which was of course overseen by the company's president and producing director, Richard Rodgers.

RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN: The King and I

Act I, "March of the Siamese Children"


Act II, Ballet, "Small House of Uncle Thomas"

Lee Venora (s), Tuptim; cast of the 1964 Music Theater of Lincoln Center production, Franz Allers, cond. RCA-BMG, recorded July 12, 1964


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

In case you haven't guessed, more of The King and I, focusing on the Anna of the 1964 Lincoln Center production.

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