Hold Fast to Dreams (2023)
PURCHASE SCORE
HOLD FAST TO DREAMS
mezzo-soprano and guitar
Texts by langston hughes
Premiere: Feb 2023
Program Note:
Hold Fast to Dreams employs poetry by Langston Hughes, visiting the era in the 1920s when black communities found ways to amplify their cultural heritage and artistry while still struggling with an American society that left social and civil barriers in place. The cycle begins with the foreboding “Sea Calm” before launching into Aunt Sue’s stories of a summer night, that never came out of any book at all. The rhythmic and captivating “Lenox Avenue: Midnight” comes next, with its jazz rhythms and laughing gods. The 4-song cycle ends with hope, and with the promise of holding fast to dreams.
Songs
I. Sea Calm (1926)
II. Aunt Sue’s Stories (1926)
III. Lenox Avenue: Midnight (1926)
IV. Dreams (1923)
Texts: by Langston Hughes (1901-1967)
I. sea calm
How still,
How strangely still,
The water is today.
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.
II. aunt sue’s stories
Aunt Sue has a head full of stories.
Aunt Sue has a whole heart full of stories.
Summer nights on the front porch
Aunt Sue cuddles a brown-faced boy to her bosom,
And tells him stories.
Black Slaves
working in the hot sun,
And black slaves
Walking in the dewy night,
And black slaves
Singing sorrow songs on the banks of a mighty river
Mingle themselves softly
In the flow of old Aunt Sue’s voice,
Mingle themselves softly
In the dark shadows that cross and recross
Aunt Sue’s stories.
And the dark-faced child, listening,
Knows that Aunt Sue’s stories are real stories.
He knows that Aunt Sue
Never got her stories out of any book at all,
But that they came
Right out of her own life.
And the dark-faced child is quiet
Of a summer night
Listening to Aunt Sue’s stories.
III. lenox avenue: midnight
The rhythm of life
Is a jazz rhythm,
Honey.
The gods are laughing at us.
The broken heart of love,
The weary, weary heart of pain, —
Overtones,
Undertones,
To the rumble of street cars,
To the swish of rain.
Lenox Avenue,
Honey.
Midnight,
And the gods are laughing at us.
IV. dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.