I Was There

DANIELPOUR, Richard b. 1956. Songs of Solitude (Yeats Songs) for Baritone Soloist and Orchestra. Autograph musical manuscript. 2001.
"Richard Danielpour has become one of the most sought-after composers of his generation - a composer whose distinctive American voice is part of a rich neo-Romantic heritage with influences from pivotal composers like Britten, Copland, Bernstein, and Barber. His works are solidly rooted in the soil of tradition, yet [sing] with an optimistic voice for today [they] speak to the heart as well as the mind." www.schirmer.com
"On a Monday morning about three years ago, Richard Danielpour arrived in the small Hudson River Valley town of Cortlandt Manor, New York, to begin an unusual kind of composer residency. He was to live by himself for several weeks in Copland House, the former home of Aaron Copland, and get some serious composing work done. Unlike other resident fellowships - at Tanglewood, say, or Yaddo, or the MacDowell Colony - this one offered no companionship with fellow artists, only hours of solitude and communion with the spirit of the late American master, whose favorite river views and simple furnishings had been lovingly preserved in the house. "Copland's house was like his music," Mr. Danielpour recalls. "Everything was plain, nothing was there but what was needed. He once said that the art of orchestration was taking things away." The date, that Monday, was September 10, 2001. "
"Mr. Danielpour had brought two projects with him to Copland House. The first was examining and correcting the galley proofs of An American Requiem, the large-scale work for chorus, soloists, and orchestra that had occupied him since the previous September. Then, as time permitted, he would tackle a new commission from the Philadelphia Orchestra for the baritone Thomas Hampson. He bad brought along two possible texts for the new work, each consisting of a selection of poems: one by the 14th-century Persian poet Rumi, and another by the 20th-century Irish writer William Butler Yeats. "
"An American Requiem, as the composer describes it, is "an examination of why we traverse borders in order to kill other people." In the course of interviewing U.S. veterans who had served in wars from World War II to Operation Desert Storm, he said, "I found that my respect for these men went through the roof, but I became all the more adamant about war as a form of insanity." All that may have seemed a faraway prospect on the morning of September 11, as the sun poured into the large windows of the Copland studio, and Mr. Danielpour spread his proofs our on the late composer's work desk. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., he phoned his publisher, G. Schirmer, whose offices are located in downtown Manhattan, and he learned of the airplane attacks on the World Trade Center. After talking to various Schirmer staff members for half an hour, and hearing the grief and fear in their voices, he found the house's television set and turned it on, in time to watch the twin towers fall. "
"Many of us who work in the arts remember the days and weeks after September 11 as a time of shock and temporary paralysis, when there seemed to be no words or images or notes that could express the new and terrible world we were living in. Mr. Danielpour's situation, as he looked at his completed American Requiem, was different. "In a way," he says of that dreadful morning, "I was already in it before it happened. We had never experienced this on our own soil. But I had been trying to ask 'Why war?' for a whole year. And I was alone there. Had I been with other people, I might not have been able to work." In 10 days, he finished editing the proofs of the Requiem. "
"The new work for Philadelphia and Mr. Hampson was next, and now the Yeats poems asserted their claim. Although the Irish poet often wrote about the bloody communal passions of his era, there is, Mr. Danielpour says, "a quality of aloneness in these poems. And this is the most isolated I've been when writing a piece." His first reading of Yeats's apocalyptic poem "The Second Coming" during his student days remained a vivid memory, and now he finally felt ready to attempt a musical setting of it. Furthermore, he says, "I had mentioned to 'Tom Hampson a couple of years before, that I would probably do Yeats for him." Far from paralyzed by events, Mr. Danielpour sketched all six movements of Songs of Solitude at Copland House by October 5. He completed the work during a MacDowell residency the following December and January - in record time, by his standards. "
"During the work's composition, Mr. Danielpour says, "I became aware that I was locking onto those stages of grief that [the psychiatrist Elisabeth] Kubler-Ross wrote about in On Death and Dying - anger, denial, resignation, and the rest. There isn't a literal correspondence, bar by bar, but the music deals with them all in some way." For example, the work's third movement, "Drinking Song" (a setting of Yeats's poem "Blood and the Moon") sounds, the composer says, "as if it were sung by someone who's had a few too many. Over that jazzy walking bass, you hear the rage inside the bitter joke." "
"According to Mr. Danielpour, Thomas Hampson's particular gifts have left their mark on this score. "I've always wanted to write something for him to sing completely a capella, without accompaniment, because he's so good at that. I almost did that in the fourth sung, 'These Are the Clouds,' where there's only that D-flat on the chime, sounding a knell, the way they do in Italy when somebody dies. And he has this remarkable voix mixe - very soft high notes, not quite falsetto, which I used in 'The Second Coming.'" The composer also credits Mr. Hampson, to whom this work is dedicated, for many helpful suggestions about the use of breathing for expression in a sung text."
"Richard Danielpour, who by his own description made his reputation with "layered and rich" orchestral scores, cites his encounter with Yeats's spare verse, Copland's economical style, and Mr. Hampson's artistry, as giving him a different, and he hopes deeper, perspective on composition. "An American Requiem and Songs of Solitude," he says, "were the last two works before I started my opera" - that is, Margaret Garner, composed to a libretto by Toni Morrison, and scheduled for premieres in 2005 and 2006 by the commissioning opera companies in Michigan, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. "Those pieces taught me that it's not what you put in the score, it's what you leave out." And so Songs of Solitude, a document of loss from a time of loss, may prove to be an artistic gain for both composer and listener. " David Wright ________________________________________

42 pp. Notated in pencil in two 64-page, 18-stave orchestral sketchbooks measuring 12" x 16-1/2", with markings in red and blue crayon.

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Wallace, Edgar,
Edgar Wallace (1875-1932), Schriftsteller. E. Manuskript mit U. O. O. u. D. [Berlin, 11. Dezember 1928]. 2 SS. auf 3 Bll. 4°. - Sehr eindringliche Reflexion über das eigene Schaffen, über Bühne und Film und Kunst im Allgemeinen und auch über Berlin, wo der Schriftsteller sich gerade aufhielt, um einer Aufführung seines Stücks "Der Zinker" beizuwohnen, das zur selben Zeit, eben am 11. Dezember, unter dem Titel "The sign of the Leopard" am Broadway seine Premiere feierte: "It is two o'clock in the morning and very cold. Does Berlin ever go to sleep? It is the most restless and yet the most restful city in the world. It has the hum of London but there are times when London is quiet and the streets are deserted but in Berlin the night revellers going home meet the early risers going to work ... there will be snow I think - I can smell it in the air. I suppose I should be wise and go to bed. But to leave a play that is three parts written is very difficult for me. Still I can get up early in the morning. I wonder how Der Zinker' will be received? The company is an excellent one, but it is curious to listen to your own play in a language which you cannot understand. And yet it is fascinating to listen to these rich German voices and watch the actors move and gesticulate ... It is eight o'clock in New York, the curtain is up on the premiere of Der Zinker' (they call it The Sign of the Leopard' there)[.] Will Carl Brandt telephone me from New York ... I wonder what sort of a girl is playing the principal role? Some German girls have a certain appealing beauty [...] What was the name of that girl I met yesterday? [...] I should like to be able to read what t[he] German correspondent wrote about my views on art. So many English people use the word art' when they mean aesthetic'. They tell me I am not an artist because I write about criminals. Other people are artists when they write about God and show him in plus fours [d. s. kurze Hosen, die zehn Zentimeter unters Knie reichen und im Allgemeinen zum Sport getragen werden]. I have my own views on the personal God but there are millions of people to whom he is something real and beautiful. Why wound the spirit of millions of good people? It is like desecrating the grave of a mans mother. But it may be good art. I don't know. I am bourgeoisie I suppose ... Half past two ... taxis and cars still rolling to and from the Brandenburger Tor. A restless friendly city. How hard everybody works and how serious they are ... They work hard on the stage and in the studios ... there were two or three English actors in the cinema-studio I visited this afternoon. They were sorry that the film was finishing ... Everybody had been so kind to them[.] My God they work hard!' said one but they work to schedule! You know exactly what you have to do and when you have to do it!' ... Bed is a nice place but that wedge shaped bolster under your head is an abomination ... What was the name of that young German actress? ... Very lovely ... I wonder how she would film? ... God in plus fours ... art has many expressions [...]". - Tls. mit winzigen Randläsuren, sonst sehr wohlerhalten, wenn auch etwas fleckig.

Edgar Wallace (1875-1932), Schriftsteller. E. Manuskript mit U. O. O. u. D. [Berlin, 11. Dezember 1928]. 2 SS. auf 3 Bll. 4°. - Sehr eindringliche Reflexion über das eigene Schaffen, über Bühne und Film und Kunst im Allgemeinen und auch über Berlin, wo der Schriftsteller sich gerade aufhielt, um einer Aufführung seines Stücks "Der Zinker" beizuwohnen, das zur selben Zeit, eben am 11. Dezember, unter dem Titel "The sign of the Leopard" am Broadway seine Premiere feierte: "It is two o'clock in the morning and very cold. Does Berlin ever go to sleep? It is the most restless and yet the most restful city in the world. It has the hum of London but there are times when London is quiet and the streets are deserted but in Berlin the night revellers going home meet the early risers going to work ... there will be snow I think - I can smell it in the air. I suppose I should be wise and go to bed. But to leave a play that is three parts written is very difficult for me. Still I can get up early in the morning. I wonder how Der Zinker' will be received? The company is an excellent one, but it is curious to listen to your own play in a language which you cannot understand. And yet it is fascinating to listen to these rich German voices and watch the actors move and gesticulate ... It is eight o'clock in New York, the curtain is up on the premiere of Der Zinker' (they call it The Sign of the Leopard' there)[.] Will Carl Brandt telephone me from New York ... I wonder what sort of a girl is playing the principal role? Some German girls have a certain appealing beauty [...] What was the name of that girl I met yesterday? [...] I should like to be able to read what t[he] German correspondent wrote about my views on art. So many English people use the word art' when they mean aesthetic'. They tell me I am not an artist because I write about criminals. Other people are artists when they write about God and show him in plus fours [d. s. kurze Hosen, die zehn Zentimeter unters Knie reichen und im Allgemeinen zum Sport getragen werden]. I have my own views on the personal God but there are millions of people to whom he is something real and beautiful. Why wound the spirit of millions of good people? It is like desecrating the grave of a mans mother. But it may be good art. I don't know. I am bourgeoisie I suppose ... Half past two ... taxis and cars still rolling to and from the Brandenburger Tor. A restless friendly city. How hard everybody works and how serious they are ... They work hard on the stage and in the studios ... there were two or three English actors in the cinema-studio I visited this afternoon. They were sorry that the film was finishing ... Everybody had been so kind to them[.] My God they work hard!' said one but they work to schedule! You know exactly what you have to do and when you have to do it!' ... Bed is a nice place but that wedge shaped bolster under your head is an abomination ... What was the name of that young German actress? ... Very lovely ... I wonder how she would film? ... God in plus fours ... art has many expressions [...]". - Tls. mit winzigen Randläsuren, sonst sehr wohlerhalten, wenn auch etwas fleckig.

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Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol, GRIN VERLAG, Januar 2009, Besorgungstitel - vorauss. Lieferzeit 3-5 Tage. ISBN: 3640227859
Klassiker aus dem Jahr 2008 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Literatur, Note: -, , - Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: First published in 1843 ... Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead Of course he did. How could it be otherwise Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind ...

NEUBUCH! 2. Aufl. 2009. 116 S. 210 mm 210 mm x 148 mm x 8 mm; Akademische Schriftenreihe, Bd. V119659

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Grizzard, Lewis: Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You: A Good Beer Joint Is Hard to Find and Other Facts of Life, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. Peachtree Publishers, Ltd 1979 ; fester Einband / hard cover; Schutzumschlag / dust cover; 1. Ed. ISBN: 0931948053
0931948053 Fine

This book is in collector's condition; it is tight, bright and clean. The original price is intact on the dust jacket, as required for collectibility. Lewis Grizzard. Grizzard was a Georgia native, who'd grown up in the small town of Moreland. He was quoted as saying repeatedly, "I am the only person from Moreland, Georgia who ever made the New York Times Bestseller List.I am the only person in Moreland, Georgia who ever HEARD of the NewYork Times Bestseller List." Born in Fort Benning, the author and his mother moved to Moreland while he was very young. The avid Bulldog fan later pulled off one of the great feats in syndicated newspaper history- that of publishing an almost entirely empty column. It was the day after his beloved alma mater had lost a match-up with rival Georgia Tech. Lewis wrote one sentence above several columns of stark white. The sentence read "Frankly, I don't want to talk about it." At 23, Grizzard became the youngest ever executive sports editor of the- then called Atlanta Journal, where he was hired by the legendary Jim Mintor. He went on from there to move to Chicago, where he longed to make his reputation as sports editor for the Chicago Sun Times; a southern boy to the core, Lewis liked to remark that he was held prisoner there. The bitter cold winters and longing for home led Lewis back to Atlanta and the paper where he got his start. His famous book If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground" was based on his experience in Chicago, which was a hit even there. Mintor later convinced him to start writing a column, which he did for almost 20 years. The 1980's and 1990's were his glory years, thanks to the success of his ever witty column. During this time, he gained both popularity and criticism by speaking his mind, while continuing to make people laugh. Off stage, however, there was the constant lurking danger, heart trouble. Lewis was plagued with a congenital heart defect, a faulty heart valve, which led to 3 open heart surgeries and a series of near death moments. The worst was the third operation in 1993, from which he never fully recovered. The whole story is contained in one of his finest works. "I Took A Lickin' and Kept On Tickin' (And Now I Believe in Miracles.)" Grizzard had actually been just shy of being pronounced dead when his heart just simply started beating again. The doctors called it a bon-a-fide miracle, which probably could be attributed to the massive outpouring of sympathy and concern from his many fans. The popular comedian, writer and author of countless books lived just short of year after that third surgery, dying at the age of 47. Half of his ashes were scattered over the 50 yard line at UGA's Sanford Stadium, home of his beloved Bulldogs. First Edition, Second Printing Fine Hard Cover in Dust Jacket; First Edition, Second Printing

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