Epitaph of Two Piping-Bullfinches... (from Epigrams, Epitaphs) – Carol Barnett

Composer: Carol Barnett

Text by:  Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford (1717-1797)

Instrumentation: SATB, 4-hand piano

Duration: c 3:00]

Date Written:  1987

Composer’s note: Epigrams, Epitaphs was commissioned in 1986 by the Grand Rapids [MN] Area Community Chorus, which wanted a new work for a program that also included the Liebeslieder Waltzes. This was the impetus for the four-hand piano accompaniment as well as the inspiration for the fourth song, stylistically an homage to Brahms. Looking for texts, I found Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son” and fell in love with it. This poem sets the tone for the entire work; all of the texts deal in some way with death (of beauty, of the poet, of two dickey-birds), thus the occasional use of the piano as a great tolling bell. The first three poems are also brief enough to be epigrams, hence the title.

Of the five movements, “Epitaph on Two Piping-Bullfinches of Lady Ossory’s, Buried under a Rose-Bush in her Garden” is the most obvious parody of the Brahmsian style, in keeping with the mock
solemnity of the epitaph itself.

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text

Epitaph on Two Piping-Bullfinches of Lady Ossory’s, Buried under a Rose-Bush in her Garden
All flesh is grass, and so are feathers too:
Finches must die, as well as I and you.
Beneath a damask rose, in good old age,
Here lies the tenant of a noble cage.
For forty moons he charmed his lady’s ear,
And piped obedient oft as she drew near,
Though now stretched out upon a clay-cold bier.
But when the last shrill flageolet shall sound,
And raise all dickybirds from holy ground,
His little corpse again its wings shall plume,
And sing eternally the self-same tune,
From everlasting night to everlasting noon.
On the Other Bull-finch, Buried in the Same Place
Beneath the same bush rests his brother—
What serves for one will serve for t’other.
Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford (1717-1797)