Mountain Songs for flute and guitar

Mountain Songs

Score and Parts included

Composer: Robert Beaser (1954)

Publisher: Schott

Instrumentation: Flute and Guitar

A modern American composer, this piece was commissioned by Paula Robison and Eliot Fisk, and was nominated for the 1986 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition.  It is a cyle of eight songs based largely on American folk music.  Most of the tunes, as reflected by their titles, are lyric ballads from the southern mountains of Appalachia with the exception of Cindy (a minstrel fiddle song) and Hush You Bye (a popular lullaby from the deep South).  Quicksilver, which ends the cycle, is a wholly original song written in collaboration with the American poet Daniel Mark Epstein.  While the cyle is based on folk material, each song is original and through-composed.  The new melodies, dialogues, harmonies and architecture spring, sui generis, from the traditional strophic tunes.  The eight pieces are:  Barbara Allen; The House Carpenter; He's Gone Away; Hush You Bye; Cindy; Fair and Tender Ladies, The Cuckoo and Quicksilver.