Thom Ritter George

SIX AMERICAN FOLK SONGS, CN 341 (1990)
 

                               PROGRAM NOTES
 

Thom Ritter George's SIX AMERICAN FOLK SONGS for flute and piano was composed August 1-10, 1990, in Pocatello, Idaho.  The score is dedicated to his wife Patricia, a prominent flutist and teacher, in celebration of the couple's 25th wedding anniversary.  Although the music draws its themes and spirit from well known American folk songs, the work can be best understood as an original composition since George has transformed each song into a character piece standing on its own as a piece of absolute music.

The first piece, Johnson Boys, is happy, irreverent music.  The original song text suggests that the Johnson boys were always in some kind of trouble: making fools of themselves courting girls, loosing their dogs when hunting, and gambling away the family car.

Rocking the Cradle is a sad song of disillusionment.  The singer laments that he married a pretty girl who prefers parties and the company of neighbors, leaving him home "...rocking the cradle and the child not his own." The song is from Ireland and, like many American folk songs, was brought across the Atlantic to become one of our own.  The music has an episodic nature which unfolds in the manner of a ballad.

The third piece, Cape Cod Girls, is a sea song from the era of 19th Century American merchant shipping.  Here the sailors' singing recalls the breezy, easy charm of New England women: "O Cape Cod girls they have no combs, Heave away, heave away!; They comb their hair with codfish bones, Heave away, heave away."

Black Is The Color was a popular love song both in America and the British Isles.  The best known version of the text tells of a maiden who has lost her sailor love, drown at sea.  A haunting melancholia pervades both the song and its present treatment for flute and piano.

The text of the sixth song, Whistle, Daughter, Whistle, recalls an old superstition that whistling could bring magical assistance to resolve difficulties.  A daughter wishes to marry, but her mother is opposed to the idea. By whistling, the daughter overcomes her mother's objections and summons the man of her dreams.

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(TRGcm:1997.04.13)