Friday, April 15, 2016

Dawn, Destined Dusk


Dedicated to my Beloved Mother
Rosann Lynette Harris Rosso




"Mama"
Connie Francis - Soprano



"Mama"
Luciano Parvarotti - Tenor



"For Mama"
Connie Francis - Soprano
Umberto Giordano - Opera Andrea Chenier
"La Mamma Morta" - "They Killed My Mother"
Maria Callas - Soprano


They have killed my mother
at the door of my room
She died and saved me.
Later, at dead of night,
I was with Bersi,
when suddenly
a bright glow flickers
and lights were ahead of me
the dark street!
I looked -
My childhood home was on fire!
I was alone!
surrounded by nothingness!
Hunger and misery
deprivation, danger!
I fell ill,
and Bersi, so good and pure
made a market of her beauty
for my sake -
I bring misfortune to all who care for me!
It was then, in my grief,
that love came to me.
A voice full of harmony says,
"You must live, I am life itself!
Your heaven is in my eyes!
You are not alone.
I shall collect all your tears
I will walk with you and support you!
Smile and hope! I am Love!
Are you surrounded by blood and mire?
I am Divine! I am Oblivion!
I am the God who saves the World
I descend from Heaven and make this Earth
A paradise! Ah!
I am love, love, love."
And the angel approaches with a kiss,
and in that kiss is death -
The dying body is my body.
So take it.
I have already died like that!


 Leoncavallo - "Vesti la Giubba"
Enrico Caruso



To act, with my heart saddened with sorrow.
I know not what I'm saying or what I'm doing.
Yet I must face it.
Courage, my heart!
You are not a man;
you're but a jester!

On with the motley,
the paint and the powder.
The people pay you and want their laugh,
you know.
If Harlequin your Columbine has stolen,
laugh, Punchinello! The world will cry 'Bravo!'
Go hide with laughter
your tears and your sorrow,
sing and be merry, playing your part.
Laugh, Punchinello,
for the love that is ended.
Laugh for the sorrow
that is eating your heart.



Franz Schubert - "Der Erlkonig"
Poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Baritone
Gunther Weisebbirg - Klavier


Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst's Grand Caprice
on Franz Schubert's "Der Erlkonig", Opus 26
"Le roi des aulnes"
Hilary Hahn - Violin

Louis (Ludwig) Spohr - "Der Erlkonig"
Baritone, Violin, and Klavier, Opus 154  
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Baritone
Hartmut Holl - Piano
Dmitry Sitkovetsky - Violin



Rabindranath Tagore 
"Achhe Dukkho, Achhe Mrityu"
"There is Misery, There is Bereavement"
Sung by Lopamudra Mitra




Dawn, Destined Dusk

Sharifah C. Rosso


Composed after the transitions of Mother, 
Uncle John (John Kent Harris),
and other dear Friends


In glancing past,

Arjuna left his trace of purity in my soul;

But now, it seems not so noble;

Innocence has dissolved through tears.


And, as it tries to lift its lighted path again,

I still look down, and back into memories' eye,

To view the empty caricature,

The span of almost one-half's lifetime.


My once dawn-filled heart, 

Is wailing within dusk's thrashing winds.

(The crystalline drop of dew,

Has merged within the salt-scented sea air).


I only see the fogged-dampened ocean's end,

(Which will, also, one day absorb me);

Oh, when can I rejoin my fated friends?

When may I embrace Mother once again?


My body has become a vacant vehicle;

My emotions clogged within the golden tube,

Of one life's exhausting pipeline.


My chest heaves from grief-coughed phlegm,

Flooded like carburetors,

Bereft of my loved ones called on.


When will mourning sun set,

And give rise to calm ocean's twilight sun-lit sets?

Patience sings through my mind, 

But sorrow still fills my shadowed visions-dimmed depths,.


While yet another dawn merges into dusk, 

and the moon awaits its new morning,

Soul watches as the oceans roar upon the shore,

and evening tide comes no more. 


"Kahil Gibran - "On Death"



Richard Georg Strauss - Four Last Songs
Hermann Hesse - Text
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
George Szell - Conductor
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf - Soprano
1. "Fruhling" - "Spring"
2. "September"
3. "Belm Schlafengehen" - "Going to Sleep"
4. "Im Abendrot" - "At Sunset"


Wikipedia "Four Last Songs" by Richard Strauss


Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 3
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein - Conductor
Christa Ludwig - Contralto Solo
Vienna State Opera Chorus
Vienna Boys Choir
1973 Performance


Movement 1
"Kraftig. Entschieden."
"Pan awakes. Summer Marches In."
(Unknown Artists)

Movement 2
"Tempo di menuetto"
"What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me,"

Movement 3
"Scherzando"
"What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me"


Movement 4
"Sehr langsam - Misterioso"
"What Man Tells Me"


Movement 5
"Lustig im Tempo und keck im Ausdruck"
"What the Angels Tell Me"


Movement 6
"Langsam, Ruhevoll, Empfunden."
"What Love Tells Me."

Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 3
Movements 4 and 5
Marilyn Horne, Mezzo-Soprano
Women of the Chicago Symphony Chorus - Margaret Hills, Director
Glen Ellyn Children's Choir - Doreen Rao, Director
Chicago Symphony Orchestra - James Levine, Conductor



Richard Georg Strauss - A Tone Poem 
"Tod und Verklarung", Opus 24
"Death and Transfiguration"
1. Largo (The sick man, near death)
2. Allegro molto agitato 
(The battle between life and death offers no respite to the man)
3. Meno Mosso (The dying man's life passes before him)
4. Moderato (The sought-after transfiguration)
Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra
Leopold Stokowsky - Conductor


Wikipedia "Death and Transfiguration" by Richard Strauss

Verdi - "Requiem Missa"
"Ingemisco"
Zuben Mehta - Conductor
Franco Corelli - Tenor



Alfred Malotte - "The Lord's Prayer"
English Chamber Orchestra
Carl Davis, Arranger - Conductor
Marilyn Horne, Mezzo-Soprano

"The Last Rose of Summer"
Sir John Stevenson - Composer
Poem by Thomas Moore
Amelita Galli-Curci - Soprano

Guiseppe Verdi - Othello Opera
"Ave Maria"
Maria Callas - Soprano


Bach-Gounod - "Ave Maria"
Franco Corelli - Tenor

MsGardenRose