Description
Kallman Creates Publications
SATB a cappella. Duration: 4’15”. Note: Score is in manuscript form.
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(Choral Arts Ensemble of Rochester, MN, Rick Kvam conducting)
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Please note that the score is in manuscript form.
Composer’s Notes
This was written on commission from the Honors Choirs of Southeast Minnesota (high school), an excellent group based in Rochester, Minnesota, founded and conducted at that time by Rick Kvam. He requested something uptempo and humorous to fit into their program, so I asked my wife to pen a story for the lyric. Her creation tells the tale of a young girl who tricks two would-be suitors. The complete text is printed below. The Honors Choir went to Europe with Miss Melinda Mittelmore on the program in July 1998 and won first prize in an international choral competition in Vienna.
Cyrano and Tyrano were two unlucky fellows.
One worked in the garden, the other at the bellows.
The cause of their misfortune was very widely known:
Miss Melinda Mittelmore they wanted for their own.
Poor Cyrano!
Poor Tyrano!
Miss Melinda Mittelmore they wanted for their own.
Melinda was a young one, a prim one, a shy one,
Miss Melinda Mittelmore was everybody’s dream.
Melinda was a quick one, a clever one, a sly one,
Melinda was a little more than what at first she seemed.
Cyrano held a hoe and dreamed away the hours,
Flattered all the maidens with verses and with flowers.
“Miss Mittelmore,” he winked, “Linger at the pond tonight.”
She said, “You carry roses, I will play the pipe.”
Tyrano, a burly lad, wrestled wood all day,
Commandeered the bellows, always got his way,
Ordered Melinda, “Be at the pond tonight.”
She said, “I’ll smell of roses, you play the pipe.”
Poor Cyrano!
Poor Tyrano!
Miss Melinda Mittelmore they wanted for their own.
Melinda went in darkness to the pond that night and looked:
Cyrano and Tyrano stood with their elbows hooked.
Just as the moon shed a telling beam of light,
Miss Melinda Mittelmore ran safely out of sight!
Melinda was a young one, a prim one, a shy one,
Miss Melinda Mittelmore was everybody’s dream.
Melinda was a quick one, a clever one, a sly one,
Melinda was a little more than what at first she seemed.
-Christine Kallman, copyright 1998
