That Lonesome Whistle for High Voice and Piano
Lawrence Kramer
About this work:
A cycles of three songs to original texts. The "lonesome whistle" of the title refers to certain childhood memories of listening, in bed late at night, to train whistles sounding across the Pennsylvania countryside, where my great aunt had a house. The house lay barely a minute's walk from a railroad crossing by a general store, which I haunted by day and which by night became the imaginary listening post for fantasies whose chief value for me today is not their content--I have no idea what they were--but the sense of distance, tinged with both melancholy and discovery, that came along with the lonesome whistles that evoked them. I wrote the texts to this cycle to give the music the substance of this reminiscence.
Year composed: 2009
Duration: 11:00:40
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with Keyboard
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 High Voice