1997

Mama Never Forgets Her Birds

for SATB chorus and piano

Read the Text

Premiere

15 November 1997

Sarah Lawrence Chorus | George Tsontakis, director | Chester Biscardi, piano

Copland in Song: A Benefit for the Copland Heritage Association for Cortlandt
Reisinger Concert Hall, Sarah Lawrence College
Bronxville, NY

Work Details

Duration:

ca. 1½ minutes

Publisher:

Biscardi Music Press
(Available on Request)

Text:

By Emily Dickinson (“Mama never forgets her birds”)

Dedication:

Dedicated to the Memory of Aaron Copland and to The Copland Heritage Association of Cortlandt (“The Copland House”)

Arrangement Note:

Arranged for SATB and piano from The Gift of Life, for soprano and piano (1990-1993).

Text

Mama never forgets her birds,
Though in another tree —
She looks down just as often
And just as tenderly
As when her little mortal nest
With cunning care she wove —
If either of her “sparrows fall,”
She “notices,” above.

ca. 1860

Emily Dickinson poetry is used by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1985, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.