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Brooklyn Bridge, (Mayakovski)
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Song for Solo Baritone, Chorus, and Full Orchestra, poem by Vladimir Mayakovski. In Russian.
jazz classical instrumental vocal opera orchestra chamber ballet
Artist picture
Composer for large-scale performance work, ballet and opera. Have written music for classical theatrical productions of Shakespeare, ("The Tempest," "The Twelft
Loren Lieberman is a native of Denver, Colorado, now living on the West Coast in California, where he is best known for his work as an actor in Classical and Shakespearean Theatre. He has a degree from Sonoma State University in Theatre Arts, and has been an Honor's Music Composition Student at the College of Marin, Santa Rosa Junior College, and at Sonoma State University. He has won an award for composition from the Redwood Empire Music Association. He has recently completed an opera in Russian, based on the novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "Cancer Ward", (and of the same name), and is currently working on his fourth opera, based on the Classical Tragedy by Sophocles, "Oedipus the King," with a libretto in Ancient Greek. His interest in languages has shaped much of his artistic temperment, and he is self taught in Russian and Sanskrit, and has hopes to begin his next opera, Shakespeare's, "Romeo and Juliet," in Hindi.
Song Info
Genre
Classical • Opera
Charts
Peak #87
Peak in subgenre #6
Author
Vladimir Mayakovski/Loren Lieberman
Rights
adhikapokoya 2010
Uploaded
August 30, 2010
Track Files
MP3
MP3 7.1 MB • 112 kbps • 8:52
Story behind the song
The translation below was pulled from a site maintained by Alastair R. Noble. No credit is given to the translator. http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~noblea/russian.htm The poem in Russian can be found at my blog site at Myspace: http://myspace.com/adhikapokoya
Lyrics
Give, Coolidge, a shout of joy! I too will spare no words Blush at my praise Go red as our flag However united states of america you may be. As a crazed believer enters a church, retreats into a monastery cell, austere and plain so I, in graying evening haze humbly set foot on Brooklyn Bridge. As a conqueror presses into a city all shattered, on cannon with muzzles craning high as a giraffe so drunk with glory, eager to live I clamber, in pride, upon Brooklyn Bridge As a foolish painter plunges his eye, sharp and loving, into a museum madonna so I, from the near skies bestrewn with stars, gaze at New York through the Brooklyn Bridge New York, heavy and stifling till night, has forgotten its hardships and height; and only the household ghosts ascend in the lucid glow of its windows Here the elevateds drone softly. And only their gentle droning tells us: here trains are crawling and rattling like dishes being cleared into a cupboard While a shopkeeper fetched sugar from a mill that seemed to project out of the water -- the masts passing under the bridge looked no larger than pins. I am proud of just this mile of steel; upon it, my visions come to life, erect -- here's a fight for construction instead of style, an austere disposition of bolts and steel. If the end of the world comes and chaos smash our planet to bits, and what remains will be this bridge, rearing above the dust of destruction; then, as huge ancient lizards are rebuilt from bones finer then needles, to tower in museums, so, from this bridge, a geologist of the centuries will succeed in recreating our contemporary world. He will say - that paw of steel once joined the seas and the prairies; from this spot, Europe rushed to the West, scattering to the wind Indian feathers This rib reminds us of a machine -- just imagine, what would there be hands enough after planting a steel foot in Manhattan, to yank Brooklyn to oneself by the lip? By the cables of electric strands, I recognize the era succeeding the steam age - here men had ranted on radio Here men had ascended in planes. For some, life here had no worries; for others, it was a prolonged and hungry howl. From this spot, jobless men leapt headling into the Hudson Now my canvas is unobstructed as it stretches on cables of string to the feet of the stars. I see: here stood Mayakovsky, stood, composing verse, syllable by syllable. I stare as an Eskimo gapes at a train, I seize on it as a tick fastens to an ear. Brooklyn Bridge - yes...it's quite a thing.
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