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Programme Note

Text:
E.Y. "Yip" Harburg

Premiere:
10 October 2007
Thomas Hampson, baritone
Craig Rutenberg, piano
Manhattan School of Music
New York, NY

The composer writes about the text of the choral version of One Sweet Morning:

In searching for a text, I came across E. Y. (Yip) Harburg's Rhymes for the Irreverent: two small volumes of poems by the lyricist of the film "The Wizard of Oz," the musical Brigadoon, and many other timeless works. Harburg was a very political poet. He was most often very funny, but occasionally wrote poems of transcendental beauty like "One Sweet Morning."

This anti-war poem looks forward to "one sweet morning" when, "out of the flags and the bones buried under the clover," "spring will bloom"..."peace will come."

— John Corigliano

on NPR's "Deceptive Cadence"

   Listen to John Corigliano discuss One Sweet Morning

Related Works:
   One Sweet Morning (for voice and orchestra)
   One Sweet Morning (for female voice and piano)
   One Sweet Morning (for male voice and piano)
   One Sweet Morning (for chorus and piano)