Song stories of the American Indian: Thurlow Lieurance, composer-pianist and Edna Lieurance, soprano-interpreter

              Song Stories of the American Indian
By

THURLOW LIEURANCE, Composer-Pianist
EDNA LIEURANCE, Soprano-Interpreter



AFTERNOON PROGRAM

1.
CANOE SONG.
A Winnebago melody is inserted and this melody is a love song to be used in saying Farewell.

2.
DYING MOON FLOWER.
NOTE—The text was adapted by the author from a real romance and happening.  Moon Flower was a maiden from the Tewa Pueblo Indians.  She was dying.  All the tribe forsook her except her lover, who sang his love song, repeating words of courage and comfort.  When one is dying and hears the ghost's call, the tribe believes it is wrong to administer earthly aid, and so the dying is placed in the death shelter to await the end.  The melody is a real love song recorded in 1912 by the author.

3.
LULLABYE.  O'ER THE INDIAN CRADLE.
Melody from the Sioux.

4.
BY THE WATERS OF MINNETONKA.
Many persons know the legend of Minnetonka—how the two lovers of the Sun and Moon clans of the Sioux Indians, loving against tribal law, fled to escape torture, and let themslves sink together into the waters of the lonely Northern lake.  The silver ripples, it is told, mourn above them, and the winds bear the cry afar.  But in the song they will arise from the depths of the lake for you; you will hear the steady and regular beat of their paddles, and see the diamond spray drip off in the moonlight as they pass, once again, in their ghost-canoe.  A violin typifying the wind, if you choose, echoes the soft harmonies of the accompaniment, which rocks to and fro on harp-chords, between the major key and its relative minor, in and out of that singular domain musicians know as the added sixth chord and its derivatives.

5.
THE BIRD AND THE BABE.
A modern lullabye.  Not Indian.

6.
IN MIRRORED WATERS.



EVENING PROGRAM

1.
WILD BIRD.
A fragment of Cheyenne flute calls woven into a song of consolation.

2.
WHERE CEDARS LIFT.
This main melody is from the Chippewas and the peom was translated from a legend by Chas.  Roos, viz:

A Bluebird wakes
The sleeping hills
And calls the dawn,
The stealing dawn.
A Lark's sweet song
Proclaims the day;
The shadows will fade—
The long night is gone.
The singing waters life
Their silvery spray
And willows bend
And sway.  And sway.
Where cedars lift
Dark crowns of green,
And Birches grow,
White Birches grow.
A gray Wood Dove
His love mate calls—
My heart recalls
Afar away—A long ago.

3.
BY WEEPING WATERS.
A mourning song from the Chippewas.

4.
LULLABYE.
From the Taos Puebloes.

5.
MY COLLIE BOY.
From songs from the Yellowstone.

6.
HYMN TO THE SUN GOD.
Introducing a ceremony from the Fire Dance.


NOTE—All songs on program are harmonizations and compositions of Thurlow Lieurance.  Where Cedars Rise and The Bird and The Babe are in press and will be on the market by October 1st.