FABLES FOR A PRINCE

FABLES FOR A PRINCE
6 Songs for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Tenor, Baritone, and Piano
on Fables of Jean de La Fontaine

Publisher
E. C. Schirmer Music Company

Catalog Number
8591

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E. C. Schirmer Music Company
J. W. Pepper
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Description
FABLES FOR A PRINCE evokes images of aristocratic life in days past, when a young prince would be taught his lessons always with an appreciation of him one day becoming the king. Both animals and humans enact small tales – fables – designed to show the young prince the difference between good and bad, and the reasoning in favor of behavior that is right over that which is wrong, so that his sense of fairness and justice may develop as he grows into his proper role as king and protector of his people.

Text
1 – To His Royal Highness the Dauphin
2 – The Fox and the Crow
3 – The Hen that Laid the Golden Eggs
4 – The Horse and the Ass
5 – The Physicians
6 – Epilogue

Vocal Range : Soprano
B 3  :  A-flat 5

Duration
16′ 00″

Vocal Tessitura : Soprano
E 4  :  C 5

Vocal Range : Mezzo-Soprano
G 3  :  F-sharp 5

Vocal Tessitura : Mezzo-Soprano
C 4  :  C 5

Vocal Range : Tenor
C-sharp 4  :  G 5

Vocal Tessitura : Tenor
G 4  :  E 5

Vocal Range : Baritone
A 2  :  E 4

Vocal Tessitura : Baritone
E 3  :  C-sharp 4

Commission
Turnpike Camerata
New York, NY

First Performance
January 12, 1991
Turnpike Camerata Series
Rutgers Presbyterian Church
New York, New York

Year of Composition
1990

First Performers
Catherine Tyrrell, soprano
Joy Hermalyn, mezzo-soprano
Daniel Egan, tenor
Richard Stout, baritone
Karen Lerner, piano

Reviews
“These delightful songs by prolific American composer Juliana Hall are settings of texts by Fontaine, a seventeenth century writer of free verse fables and literary criticism. Each of the six songs employs all four singers in their telling of various pithy and ironic stories…The tessitura for each solo voice is solidly mid-range, with the part writing for voices and piano largely homophonic. Fables is not a vehicle for bravura performances by each soloist, but is really a set of moral stories told together by the quartet.”

– Kathleen Roland-Silverstein, NATS Journal of Singing