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Why Fades a Dream?
 Classical/Song • 1998 • Lyricist: Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Instrumentation |
Piano, Soprano |
Scored for |
Duo |
Type of score |
Piano-vocal score |
Key |
B flat major |
Publisher |
Gary Nash |
Language |
English |
Difficulty |
Advanced |
Duration |
4'30 |
Renown African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar’s works have been set to music by many American composers. His poems, written in a late nineteenth, early twentieth century African-American dialect are strophic, have a consistent rhyme scheme and provide much imagery and lyricism, appearing as if they were written to be set to music.
Gary Powell Nash’s setting for Why Fades a Dream? features a through composed form where phrase lengths and structural proportions are derived from those displayed in the text. The melodic and motivic nucleus for this song originates from Nash listening to someone reciting the text, notating the occurring rhythmic patterns and composing melodies supported by these rhythms.
The melodies and motives in this composition stem from those that Nash used to set the phrase “Why fades a dream? An iridescent ray flecked in between the tryst of night and day. Why fades a dream?” which is the first half of the first stanza. This is most evident in the piano interludes as well as the vocal lines. This work displays a B-flat major modality and proceeds to E-flat major in the climax.
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