Of Night and Dreams

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Of Night and Dreams Program Notes

Thank you for being here today! Reggie and I are beyond excited to share Of Night and Dreams with you. When I first moved to Fort Wayne last year, I had the joy of sharing a recital featuring a mix of my favorite genres—opera, jazz, musical theater, and boleros. So, when I found out I’d have the chance to curate another recital, I asked myself: What else do I love?…The very first thing that came to mind was sleep. (Ha!)

I love everything about sleep. It is a universal human experience, yet completely unique to each of us. While sleep is meant to be restful and restorative, that isn't always reality. We might lie awake replaying conversations from the day, staring at the ceiling and thinking of the past, the future, or nothing at all. But on those wonderful nights when the stars align and the pillow is perfectly cool, we may immediately fall asleep, drifting into soft dreams.

Today’s program explores that entire spectrum. We begin by setting the scene with songs celebrating the night sky, its stars, and the moon. Next is one of my favorite song cycles, All You Who Sleep Tonight, which sets 13 poems by Vikram Seth. These pieces capture quiet everyday moments, reflections on love, illness, faith, and loneliness. Each song feels like an internal conversation as we unravel our memories and try to answer existential questions (all before bed).

From there, the music moves into that blurred, in-between space: Are we awake, or are we dreaming? That subtle uncertainty builds into a vivid nightmare with Samuel Barber’s "I Hear an Army." Luckily, the chaos is brief. We wake up, center ourselves, and remember it was only a dream.

We close with songs that encourage us to hold fast to our dreams and to believe that they can become part of our reality. For me, being here sharing this music with you is already a dream come true. Thank you for being a part of it!

With gratitude,

Alejandra Sandoval-Montañez

Texts

Big Lady Moon

Poem by Kathleen Mary Easmon

I can see you up on high,
Big Lady Moon!
Sweetly shining in the sky,
Big Lady Moon!
Is it 'cos you’re glad I'm here?
Like to feel that I am near?
That you shine so bright and clear?
Big Lady Moon, Big Lady Moon!

Hark! I hear my nursie calling,
Big Lady Moon!
For she says the dew is falling,
Big Lady Moon!
So you see I'll have to go,
I hope you won’t be lonely though,
'Cos I love you ever so,
Big Lady Moon, Big Lady Moon!

O that it were so

Poem by Walter Savage Landor

It sometimes comes into my head
That we may dream, may dream
when we are dead,
But I am far from sure we do.
O that it were so,
O that it were so, then my rest
Would be, would be indeed among the blest,
I should for ever dream,
I should for ever dream of you.

Noche Criolla (Creole Night)

Poem by Maria Teresa Lara

Noche tibia y callada de Veracruz
cuento de pescadores que arrulla el mar.
Vibración de cocuyos que con su luz
bordan de lentejuelas la oscuridad
bordan de lentejuelas la oscuridad.

Noche tropical, lánguida y sensual
noche que se desmaya sobre la arena
mientras canta la playa su inútil pena.
Noche tropical, cielo de tisú
tienes la sombra de una mirada criolla
noche de Veracruz, noche de Veracruz.

Translation

A warm, hushed night in Veracruz
a fishermen's tale lulled by the sea.
The pulse of fireflies whose light
embroiders the darkness with sequins,
embroiders the darkness with sequins.

Tropical night, languid and sensual,
a night that faints upon the sands
while the beach sings of its useless sorrow.
Tropical night, sky of shimmering tissue,
you hold the shadow of a creole gaze
night of Veracruz, night of Veracruz.

Estrellita (Little Star)

Poem by Manuel M. Ponce

Estrellita del lejano cielo,
que miras mi dolor,
que sabes mi sufrir.
Baja y dime si me quiere un poco,
porque yo no puedo sin su amor vivir.

¡Tu eres estrella mi faro de amor!
Tu sabes que pronto he de morir.
Baja y dime si me quiere un poco,
porque yo no puedo sin su amor vivir.

Translation

Little star of the distant sky,
you see my pain,
you know my anguish.
Come down and tell me if he loves me a little,
because I cannot live without his love.

You are my star, my beacon of love!
You know that soon I shall die.
Come down and tell me if he loves me a little,
because I cannot live without his love.

Send me a dream (Intuition)

Poem by Emilie Frances Bauer

Send me a dream from the Dream Tree,
And then perhaps I may know
How the leaves of pale green,
Get their delicate sheen,
And the fragrant pink blossoms grow.

Send me a dream from the Dream Sea,
And then perhaps I may hear
Some sweet song in the shells
Of the mermaid who tells
Her secret in tones silver clear,
Silver clear.

Send me a dream from the Dream Cloud,
And then perhaps I may feel
Just a tear from the sky
As is passes me by,
Its grief in the earth to conceal.

Send me a dream from the Dream Star,
And then perhaps I may see
In the tremulous glow,
Both above and below,
The light that is shining for me

All you who sleep tonight (Song Cycle)

Poems by Vikram Seth

1. Condition

I have to speak
I must!...I should…I ought…
I tell you how I love you if I thought
The world would end tomorrow afternoon
But short of that…
Well, it might be too soon.

2. Telephone

I see you smile across the phone
And feel the moisture of your hair
And smell the musk of your cologne…
Hello? Is anybody there?

3. Across

Across these miles I wish you well
May nothing haunt your heart but sleep
May you not sense what I don’t tell.
May you not dream or doubt, or weep.

May what my pen this peaceless day
Writes on this page not reach your view
Till its deferred print let’s you say
It speaks to someone else than you.

4. Prandial Plaint

My love, I love your breasts.
I love your nose.
I love your accent
And I love your toes.
I am your slave.
One word, and I obey.
But please don’t slurp your coffee in that way.

5. Interpretation

Somewhere within your loving look I sense,
Without the least intention to deceive,
Without suspicion, without evidence,
Somewhere within your heart
The heart to leave.

6. Mistaken

I smiled at you because I thought that you
Were someone else;
you smiled back; and there grew
Between two strangers in a library
Something that seemed like love;
But you loved me
(If that's the word)
Because you thought that
I was other than I was.
And by and by
We found we'd been mistaken all the while
From that first glance,
that first mistaken smile.

7. God’s Love

God loves us all, I’m pleased to say
Or those who love him anyway
Or those who love him and are good
Or so they say.
Or so he should.

8. Dark Road

The road is dark, and home is far
Sleep now, sleep now
In the poor state you are.
Tonight be dreamless, and tomorrow
Wake free from fear, half free of sorrow.

9. Door

He dreams beyond exhaustion of a door
At which he knocked and entered
Years before,
But now no street or city comes to mind
Nor why he knocked,
nor what he came to find.

10. Night Watch

Awake for hours and staring at the ceiling
Through the unsettled stillness of the night
He grows possessed of the obsessive feeling
That dawn has come and gone and brought no light.

11. Voices

Voices in my head
Chanting, “Kisses. Bread. Prove yourself. Fight. Shove. Learn. Earn. Look for love,”
Drown a lesser voice
Silent now of choice:
“Breathe in peace, and be still,
for once, like me”

12. Soon

I shall die soon I know.
This thing is in my blood.
It will not let me go
It saps my cells for food
It soaks my nights in sweat
And breaks my days in pain
No hand or drug can treat
These limbs for love or gain.

Love was the strange first cause
That bred grief in its seed,
And gain knew its own laws:
To fix its place and breed.
He whom I love, thank God,
Won’t speak of hope or cure.
It would not do me good.
He sees that I am sure
He knows what I have read
And will not bring me lies
He sees that I am dead.
I read it in his eyes.

How am I to go on?
How will I bear this taste?
My throat caked in white spawn,
These hands that shake and waste.
Stay by my steel ward bed
And hold me where I lie
Love me when I am dead
And do not let me die.

13. All you who sleep tonight

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hands to left or right,
And emptiness above –
Know that you aren’t alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

Canción a la luna lunanca (Song of the moon of moons)

Poem by Fernán Silva Valdés

Al corral del horizonte
Va entrando la nochecita,
Está tan aquerenciada
Porque entra todos los días.

Así estoy aquerenciado
En el corral de tus brazos;
Y en el fuego de tus ojos
Estoy como encandilado.

Noche de luna lunanca
Noche de cielo estrellado;
Las horas tienen perfume
Y son los besos más largos.

Ha aparecido la luna
Sobre el gran claro del cielo
Abarcando todo el campo
Como un perfume a un pañuelo.

Así apareció una moza
En el tropel de mis días,
Ella para mi es la luna
Que abarca toda mi vida.

Translation

To the enclosure on the horizon
The night is appearing
And the night is so used to it
Because it appears every day.

So too am I used to being
Enclosed in your arms
And by the fire of your eyes
I am dazzled.

Night of this moon of moons,
Night of starry skies,
The hours have a perfume
And are the longest kisses.

The moon has appeared
Above the great clearing in the sky
Spreading over all the land,
Like perfume on a cloth.

In this way a woman appeared
In the tumult of my days,
To me she is the moon
That spreads over all my life.

Alfonsina y el mar (Alfonsina and the sea)

Poem by Félix Luna

Por la blanda arena que lame el mar
Su pequeña huella no vuelve más
Y un sendero solo de pena y silencio llegó
Hasta el agua profunda
Y un sendero solo de penas mudas llegó
Hasta la espuma.

Sabe Dios qué angustia te acompañó
Qué dolores viejos calló tu voz
Para recostarte arrullada
en el canto de las caracolas marinas
La canción que canta en el fondo
oscuro del mar; la caracola

Te vas Alfonsina con tu soledad
¿Qué poemas nuevos fuiste a buscar?
Una voz antigua de viento y de sal
Te requiebra el alma y te va llevando
Y te vas hacia allá como en sueños dormida
Alfonsina vestida de mar.

Translation

By the soft sand that the sea laps
Her small print will not return
One path alone of pain and silence reached
Even the deep water.
And one path alone of mute pains reached
Up to the foam.

God knows what anguish followed you
What old sorrows your voice silenced
To lie you down again, lulled by the song
Of the sea shells.
The song that the shell sings in the
dark depth of the sea.

You leave, Alfonsina, with your solitude.
What new poems were you seeking?
An old voice of wind and salt
Breaks your soul and takes it away,
And you go towards it, as if in dreams,
Asleep, Alfonsina, clothed by the sea.

I hear an army

Poem by James Joyce

I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging,
Foam about their knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the reins, with flutt’ring whips,
The charioteers.

They cry unto the night their battle name:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar
Their whirling laughter.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame, clanging, clanging upon the heart
As upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair: They come out of the sea
And run shouting by the shore.
My heart, have you no wisdom
Thus to despair?
My love, my love, my love,
Why have you left me alone?

All night under the moon

Poem by Wilfrid Gibson

All night under the moon
Plovers are flying
Over the dreaming meadows
Of silvery light,
Over the meadows of June
Calling and crying
Wand’ring voices of love
in the hush of the night.

All night under the moon
Love, though we’re lying
Quietly under the thatch,
In the dreaming light
Over the meadows of June
Together we’re flying
Wand’ring voices of love
in the high of the night.

The Dream Keeper

Poem by Langston Hughes

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers.
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too rough fingers
Of the world.

When You Wish Upon A Star

Poem by Ned Washington

When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are,
Anything your heart desires will come to you.
If your heart is in your dream,
No request is too extreme,
When you wish upon a star as dreamers do.

Al seguir tu sino volverán las horas que
hablarán de tiempos idos.

En un rayo de ilusión
Viene a ti la estrella azúl
Lo que pidas al soñar
Lo hará su luz.

Translation

As you follow your destiny, the hours that speak of times gone by will return.

On a ray of hope,
The blue star comes to you;
its light will grant whatever you wish for in your dreams.