What Shall I Sing Today?
Art Songs for Voice and Piano, Volume 1
Collection available for purchase at JW Pepper and Sheet Music Plus. See below for details.
1. What Shall I Sing Today?
2. The Lighthouse Ghost
3. The Delight of Tiny Things
4. Oh Wondrous, Oh Holy, Holy
5. Looking In
6. Icarus: In Love Again!
7. I Am
Title: What Shall I Sing Today?
Art Songs for Voice & Piano, Volume 1
Instrumentation: med/high voice, piano
Seven very singable new songs that range from lighthearted to profound by the composer and lyricist, Nancy Bachmann. Recordings of five songs in this volume are featured on the 2024 album "What Shall I Sing Today?"featuring soprano Ann Moss and pianist Ed Broms.
What Shall I Sing Today?
What shall I sing today, oh, what shall I sing today?
With my own prettily peripatetic, palpably panegyrical voice,
Oh, what shall I sing, oh, what shall I sing today?
Perceptive, I can be, persnickety at every opportunity.
Persuasive enough to get myself in trouble
Perambulating around the truth,
Then pouncing playfully in its puddled mud!
Oh, what shall I sing today?
The Lighthouse Ghost
oh….oh…
so cold, so dark
There’s a light over there,
Maybe warmth to share…
oh…oh…
I know this place…
The lighthouse where I awaited.. waited..
Just waiting for my handsome Tom,
Beflowered in my bridal gown,
And now I learn his ship went down,
All hands gone!
Oh, dearest Mother, let me be
And sisters, you must surely know
There is but one place I can go;
To meet my love down in the sea,
I struggle up the spiral stair
And lift the window’s rusty latch,
The casement splinters try to snatch
The bridal wreath from my hair!
I fly to you my dearest Tom!
My wedding gown for wings will serve
To shape my death fight’s graceful curve,
And break the sea’s deceitful calm!
oh….oh…
so cold, so dark
There’s a light over there,
Maybe warmth to share…
oh…oh…
I know this place…
The Delight of Tiny Things
I sing the delight of tiny things,
Those I can see and things I know;
The fluff of a feather on finch’s wings,
The myriad crystals in a flake of snow.
The tiny veins of a lemon leaf,
The cozy construction of cellulose cells,
The dewdrop tears of roses moved to grief
By the epic tale the cricket tells.
I sing the delight of tiny things,
Those I can see and things I know;
Pollen on bee’s foot, a honeycomb ring,
A seed deep in soil who decides to grow.
The earth just a speck spinning freely in space,
Our sun a mere twinkle in far off skies.
The laugh lines that sketch my dear one’s face,
The tiny flecks of gold in his loving eyes.
Looking In
The eye I see when I close my lids
looks knowingly into my mind’s heart,
my heart’s mind,
and sees you, curled up, soft as a puppy
waiting for me,
dreaming of love.
Icarus: In Love Again!
Ah, Sky,
Light,
Bright,
Golden glow!
Shimmer, glimmering path!
Facets refracting on crystal stairs,
I levitate on a sparkle!
Icarus,
I care for us!
Maybe this time
My wings won’t melt!
Art Songs for Voice & Piano, Volume 1