"Preacher and the Bear" is a vaudeville/minstrel show song from the
mid-1800s
For the Dickens Fair, which is my first foray into "solo" performance in a
couple of decades, it is perfect - I learned this version off one of my
Dad's LPs when i was a kid (that's also how I learned Asleep in the Deep).
I'm frantically hunting for more drinking, humorous (or even bawdy) songs to
learn...
I think it is just my personality, but I love singing humorous songs - to
me, there is no point whatsoever in singing something depressing or boring.
IF I want that, I'll just work late.
And singing about love? Fergeddaboudit...Not a single woman I know wouldn't
fall on the floor rolling with laughter if I sang a love song to her.
(granted, this is the SF area, where things are different than the south and
midwest)
Or again, maybe it is just because I'm the one singing it.... "It's not how
well the elephant dances, but that he dances at all"
Paul S
-----Original Message-----
From: R.L.Frye@w... [mailto: To: vocalist-temporary@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [vocalist-temporary] Robin is singing silly songs?? I like
silly....
Robin wrote:
<SNIP> and a silly cycle by Liza Lehmann, with a Saint-
Saens bolero for an
encore.
and Paul wrote:
>Could you elaborate on these, Robin?? Silly songs are
always of interest to
me....
Yep - Liza Lehmann's settings of Hilaire Belloc's "Four
Cautionary Tales and a Moral". Charming Victorian
settings of four stories about naughty children and the
dire consequences of their naughtiness - two
mezzo/baritone duets, and one solo for each voice - and
a duet about an exemplary child to close. They're very
funny, and I think they will be hilarious if they're
done with great gravity. The only quarrel I have with
them is that both the voice and piano parts are set
quite low - the whole cycle could be transposed up a
minor third or so and would be considerably
less "growly", but maybe that's the sound she was after.
I was very happy to find them, as finding good duet rep
for a full lyric mezzo and a Verdi baritone is much more
difficult than you would think. To me, the voice
pairing is analogous to soprano/tenor pairing, and you
could drown in all the rep that's been written for that
combination. But apparently most composers don't see it
that way.
Paul also wrote:
>Last night I found the sheet music on the web to "The
Preacher and the
Bear"
You've got me on that one. Sounds like fun, though.
Don't you just wonder how we ever got along without the
web? Copernic and I can find ANYTHING. . .
Robin Lynne Frye
Mezzo-Soprano
Voice and Piano Teacher
New York, New York
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