I’ve just come across an old recording from my undergraduate Senior Recital, which took place in 1989. Having also just recently spent a lot of time dealing with art songs (other people’s), I was particularly interested in listening to my setting for baritone of a passage from Romeo and Juliet.
Turns out to be a pleasant surprise. It’s certainly not flawless, but I’m as pleased with it as I was back in the day. Really, not bad for a 20-year-old with an attention span problem.
This is taken from Act 3, Scene 3, where Romeo learns that he is to be banished from Verona:
There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.— heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her;
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips.
But Romeo may not; he is banished:
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
They are free men, but I am banished.
There is a companion piece for soprano taken from Juliet’s famous “Come, night” speech. The two were performed together as Two Songs from Romeo and Juliet. I’m still proud of the Juliet song, but from a dramatic point of view it’s completely wrong, so I’m not as eager to crow about it here.
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