John Alden Carpenter: The Sleep that Flits on Baby’s Eyes

16 03 2009

the sleep

"does anybody know from where it comes?"

I was listening to an interview on MPR Mid-morning in which psychology researcher Dacher Keltner, discussing communal structures, mentioned that “babies ensure their own care” by being cute and helpless. And if you’ve ever seen a sleeping baby, you can’t help but smile and say, “AWWWwwww.”  Carpenter captures that sense in music paired with Tagore’s magical/mystical text.

Carpenter is a minor figure in American art song, but his handful of songs are well-crafted, and a pleasure both to hear and to sing. This particular song comes from his cycle of six songs, Gitanjali.





Richard Hageman: Do not go, my love

9 03 2009
I fear, lest I lose you while I am sleeping

"I fear, lest I lose you while I am sleeping"

The feeling of not wanting to fall asleep because you’d miss being conscious in the arms of your beloved, that’s what this song is about. Hageman captures the fear, the sadness of potential loss, the dreaminess.

I wanted to link a full performance by an established professional and hesitated to link only to a YouTube video of a young singer, especially since there are other professional recordings available on CD (John Aler, Thomas Hampson, to name a few). Mr. Bershatsky does an admirable job, though, and is the best I could find.