I think there must be a place in the soul
all made of tunes, of tunes of long ago.
I hear the organ on the Main Street corner,
Aunt Sarah humming Gospels; summer evenings,
the village cornet band playing in the square.
The town’s Red, White and Blue,
all Red, White and Blue.
Now! Hear the songs!
I know not what are the words,
but they sing in my soul of the things our Fathers loved.
-- text by the composer
Donald Gramm, bass-baritone; Donald Hassard, piano. From their Town Hall recital of Feb. 24, 1976
Jan DeGaetani, mezzo-soprano; Gilbert Kalish, piano. Nonesuch, released 1976
Gerald Finley, bass-baritone; Julius Drake, piano. Hyperion, recorded in All Saints Church (Durham Road), East Finley, London, Nov. 10-12, 2004
by Ken
The idea this week is to finish up with our Ives detour, and to that end we start out with a song, actually a very special song, "The Things Our Fathers Loved," in three really lovely performances. (I had a not-so-lovely one I was going to throw out, but who needs that kind of tsuris on a hot summer day?)
WE'VE STILL GOT ONE MORE IVES SONG NOW . . .
And still more to come when we continue, like maybe tomorrow? What's more, with tomorrow one of the compositionally celebrated Ives "New England holidays," I thought we might take another shot at getting through the four-holiday Holidays Symphony.
But first, our second song --
