On the Underground, Set No. 2
(1994) — The Strange and the Exotic
Duration: 5'
for unaccompanied SATB choir
Texts: Robert Herrick, Edwin Morgan, Anon 17th century
Commissioned by Ithaca College School of Music

World Premiere:  29 October 1994, Ithaca, New York
Ithaca College School choir
Larry Doebler, conductor

Publisher:  Novello & Co Ltd

Composer's Note:

There is one unexpected pleasure taking the London Underground (and, more recently, also the New York City subway): one's eye may alight on a poem placed amongst the pervasive and numbing advertisements, and, for a moment, the imagination takes wing.

The poems selected for this work are all to be found in 100 Poems on the Underground. The first by Robert Herrick describes the dream world, the setting where the "wondrous sights" of the anonymous 17th-century poem can be found. Fortunately the subway piranhas of Edwin Morgan's contemporary poem exist only in the imagination. However this poem, commissioned for the inauguration of Glasgow's refurbished underground, so alarmed the transport executive that it was never used!

Recording:

On the Underground. Set #2: The Strange and the Exotic
New York Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, conductor
Bridge records: Bridge 9161

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