Text: John Donne, “The Apparition.” Just because you never imagined it with a saxophone before this…right? This session was a good example of adapting the text to the chorus players at hand.
Saxophone, two voices:
Burlesque/musical version: saxophone, two voices, singing:
The Apparition
When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from me,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, feign’d vestal, in worse arms shall see :
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink,
And he, whose thou art then, being tired before,
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think
Thou call’st for more,
And, in false sleep, will from thee shrink :
And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie,
A verier ghost than I.
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee ; and since my love is spent,
I’d rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.
Recorded May 29, 2010, at 3032 St. Paul.
Collaborators: Dara Weinberg (vox, dir), Jesse Wharton (tenor saxophone), Gavin Whitt (vox)