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Track Listing

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)
Dr. Benjamin Blozan, piano
1. Aurore
2. Le secret
3. En sourdine
4. Claire de lune

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1845–1924)
Emily Urbanek, piano
1. Lilacs - Op. 21, No. 5
2. How Fair This Spot - Op. 21, No. 7
3. I Wait for You - Op. 14, No. 1
4. Summer Nights - Op. 14, No. 5

Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Dr. Benjamin Blozan, piano
1. Morgen
2. Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten
3. Ständchen
4. Die Nacht

Emily Urbanek, piano
1. Will There Really Be a Morning?
Music by Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956)
Poetry by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

2. On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever)
Music by Burton Lane (1912–1997)
Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)

3. Night and Day
Cole Porter (1891–1964)

4. Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
Billy Joel (b. 1949)

FAURÉ FRENCH SET:

Aurore:
The stars fly away from the gardens of night
 like golden bees attracted by invisible honey;
 and dawn in the distance, stretching her clear canvas,
 weaves with silver threads the blue cloak of the sky.
 
 My desires fly off at morning's approach
 out of the dream-drunk garden of my heart
 like a wafting swarm summoned to the red-tinged horizon
 by a chant that is plaintive, eternal and far.
 
 They fly to your feet, stars expelled from on high,
 exiled from the golden sky in which your beauty blossoms;
 and, seeking uncharted roads to travel to where you are,
 they mingle their dying light with the awakening day.

Le secret:
Would that the morn were unaware
Of the name I told to the night,
And that in the dawn breeze, silently,
It would vanish like a tear.
Would that the day might proclaim it,
The love I hid from the morn,
And poised above my open heart,
Like a grain of incense kindle it.
Would that the sunset might forget,
The secret I told to the day,
And would carry it and my love away
In the folds of its faded robe!

En Sourdine:
Calm in the twilight
Cast by loft boughs,
Let us steep our love
In this deep quiet.
Let us mingle our souls, our hearts
And our enraptured senses
With the hazy languor
Of arbutus and pine.
Half-close your eyes,
Fold your arms across your breast,
And from your heart now lulled to rest
Banish forever all intent.
Let us both succumb
To the gentle and lulling breeze
That comes to ruffle at your feet
The waves of russet grass.
And when, solemnly, evening
Falls from the black oaks,
That voice of our despair,
The nightingale shall sing.

Clair de lune:
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Bewitched by masquers and bergamaskers,
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises.
Singing as they go in a minor key
Of conquering love and life’s favours,
They do not seem to believe in their fortune
And their song mingles with the light of the moon,
The calm light of the moon, sad and fair,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in their rapture,
Tall and svelte amid marble statues.

RACHMANINOV RUSSIAN SET:

Lilacs:
In the morning, at daybreak,
over the dewy grass,
I will go to breathe the crisp dawn;
and in the fragrant shade,
where the lilac crowds,
I will go to seek my happiness...

In life, only one happiness
it was fated for me to discover,
and that happiness lives in the lilacs;
in the green boughs,
in the fragrant bunches,
my poor happiness blossoms...

How nice it is here:
All is well here...
Look, in the distance
The river glows like a fire;
The meadows are like a colourful carpet,
And there is the whiteness of clouds.
There is nobody here.
All is quiet…
Here I am alone with God.
And the flowers, and the old pine,
And you, my dream…

I wait for you:
I wait for you! The sun has set
night's dark covers
are ready to descend
and hide us.

I wait for you! With a fragrant mist,
night suffused the sleeping world
and the past day has bid
farewell to earth.

I wait for you! Tormented and in love,
I am counting each moment.
Full of anguish and impatience
I wait for you!

Summer Nights:
These lovely summer nights,
Lit by the bright light of the moon,
Provoke vague fears
And awaken desires of love.

The immense sorrows brought about
By a cheerless life are forgotten;
And regions of blessed delight
Are revealed with mysterious power...

And powerless to resist, lovers open up
Their hearts to each other,
In these lovely summer nights,
Lit by the bright light of the moon.

STRAUSS GERMAN SET:

Morning:
And tomorrow the sun will shine again
And on the path that I shall take,
It will unite us, happy ones, again,
Amid this same sun-breathing earth ...
And to the shore, broad, blue-waved,
We shall quietly and slowly descend,
Speechless we shall gaze into each other’s eyes,
And the speechless silence of bliss shall fall on us ...

Wie sollten wir geheim:
How could we keep it secret,
This bliss with which we’re filled?
No, into its deepest recesses
Our hearts must be revealed to all!
When two souls have fallen in love,
Nature’s filled with exultation,
And daylight lingers on wood and meadow
In longer hours of rapture.
Even the oak tree’s rotten trunk,
That has survived a thousand years,
Sends fresh flaming green to its crown
And rustles with the thrill of youth.
The buds, seeing the lovers’ bliss,
Flower more brightly and fragrantly,
And the brooks babble more sweetly,
And May gleams and blooms more lavishly.

Standchen:
Open up, open up! but softly, my child,
So that no one’s roused from slumber!
The brook hardly murmurs, the breeze hardly moves
A leaf on the bushes and hedges;
Gently, my love, so nothing shall stir,
Gently with your hand as you lift the latch!
With steps as light as the steps of elves,
As they hop their way over flowers,
Flit out into the moonlit night,
Slip out to me in the garden!
The flowers are fragrant in sleep
By the rippling brook, only love is awake.
Sit down! Dusk falls mysteriously here
Beneath the linden trees.
The nightingale above us
Shall dream of our kisses
And the rose, when it wakes at dawn,
Shall glow from our night’s rapture.

Die Nacht:
Night steps from the woods,
Slips softly from the trees,
Gazes about her in a wide arc,
Now beware!
All the lights of this world,
All the flowers, all the colours
She extinguishes and steals the sheaves
From the field.
She takes all that is fair,
Takes the silver from the stream,
Takes from the cathedral’s copper roof
The gold.
The bush stands plundered:
Draw closer, soul to soul,
Ah the night, I fear, will steal
You too from me.

ENGLISH SET:

Will There Really Be a Morning
Emily Dickinson poem, Ricky Ian Gordon)
Will there really be a "Morning"?
Is there such a thing as "Day"?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Men from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called "Morning" lies!

On a Clear Day:
On a clear day Rise and 1ook around you
And you'll see who you are
On a clear day
How it will astound you
That the glow of your being
Outshines every star You'll feel part of every mountain sea and shore
You can hear
From far and near
A word you've never, never heard before...
And on a clear day...On a clear day...
You can see forever...
And ever...
And ever...
And ever more. . .

Night and Day (Cole Porter)
Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom
When the jungle shadows fall
Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
as it stands against the wall.
Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops
when the summer shower is through.
So a voice within me keeps repeating you, you, you.
Night and day
You are the one
Only you beneath the moon
and under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter darling
where you are, I think of you.
Night and day.
Night and day
why is it so that
this longing for you follows wherever I go
In the roaring traffic's boom In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you
Night and day
Day and night
under the hide of me
There's an oh, such a hungry
yearning burning inside of me
And it's torment won't be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night
night and day.