The compositions shown on this page represent only the compositions of Roland Leich that have been published to date by Vienna Woods Music Company. Certain titles are highlighted as links that can enable the downloading of a sample page in Adobe Acrobat format. The Adobe Acrobat reader can be obtained from the Adobe web site.
To contact Vienna Woods Music Company, E-mail is received at tleich@viennawoodsmusic.com
This string quartet won the Bearns Prize, administered by Columbia University, in 1937. An excerpt from a letter from the composer written to his father shortly after finishing work on the quartet:
"With me the most troublesome thing about writing a piece is to find 3 or 4 or maybe 5 or 6 notes to start with. Then progress might be slow, but at least there's something definite to go on. For instance the quartet I wrote last year kept me busy over a period of 6 months following up the possibilities suggested by six notes, which are nothing remarkable in themselves, but suddenly seemed to take on some meaning."
Variations on "Brightest and Best" was arranged from the familiar Epiphany hymn tune "Morning Star", written by James Harding in 1892. This setting for mixed voices (SATB) and strings (can be performed with a keyboard and an obbligato flute or violin) was made for the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh in 1966 and 1968 and was performed by the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh accompanied by the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and
lend us thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our
infant Redeemer is laid.
Cold on His cradle the dewdrops are shining,
Low lies His head with the
beasts of the stall;
Angels adore Him in slumber reclining,
Maker and
Monarch and Savior of all.
Shall we not yield Him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom and off'rings
divine,
Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the
forest and gold from the mine?
Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
Vainly with gifts would His favor
secure;
Richer by far is the heart's adoration,
Dearer to God are the
prayers of the poor.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness and
lend us thine aid;
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our
infant Redeemer is laid.
"Eden of Love" is a motet based on a hymn from Southern Harmony, a 19th century collection of "shape-note" hymn tunes sung in the Bible-belt. The setting was written in 1962 for the South Hills High School Choir in Pittsburgh.
How sweet to reflect on those joys that await me,
In yon blissful region,
the haven of rest.
Where glorified spirits with welcome shall greet
me,
And lead me to mansions prepared for the blest!
Encircled in light,
and with glory enshrouded,
My happiness perfect, my mind's sky
unclouded,
I'll bathe in the ocean of pleasure unbounded,
And range with
delight thro' the Eden of Love.
While angelic legions, with harps tuned celestial,
Harmoniously join in
the concert of praise,
The saints, as they flock from the regions
terrestrial,
In loud hallelujahs their voices will raise:
Then songs to
the Lamb shall reecho through heaven,
My soul will respond to Immanuel be
given
All glory, all honour, all might and dominion,
Who brought us thro'
grace to the Eden of Love.
Then hail, blessed state! Hail ye songsters of glory,
Ye harpers of bliss,
soon I'll meet you above,
And join your full choir in rehearsing the
story,
"Salvation from sorrow, through God's wondrous love."
Though
prison'd in earth, yet by anticipation
Already my soul feels a sweet
prelibation
Of joys that await me, when freed from probation:
My heart's
now in heaven, the Eden of Love.
Roland Leich’s arrangement of El-a-noy (1963), an American pioneer folksong, was first performed by the Carnegie Chorus (Carnegie Mellon University) in November 1965.
Way down upon the Wabash,
Sich land was never known,
If Adam had passed over it,
The soil he'd surely own;
He'd think it was the garden,
He'd pay'd it when a boy,
And straight pronounce it Eden
In the State of El-a-noy.
Then move your fam'ly westward,
Good health you will enjoy,
And rise to wealth and honor
In the State of El-a-noy!
'Twas here the Queen of Sheba came
With Solomon of old,
With a donkey load of spices,
Pomegranates and fine gold;
And when she saw this lovely land
Her heart was fill'd with joy,
Straightway she said: "I'd like to be
A queen in El-a-noy."
She's bounded by the Wabash,
The Ohio and the Lakes;
She's crawfish in the swampy lands,
The milksick and the shakes;
But these are slight diversions
And take not from the joy
Of living in this garden land,
The State of El-a-noy.
For Mixed Voices (SATB) and Piano
Roland Leich’s arrangement of Exhilaration was completed in 1962, one of three hymns (along with Eden of Love and The Shepherd’s Star) from Southern Harmony. It was written for the Fifth Avenue High School Choir in Pittsburgh, which premiered it on May 8, 1962.
Oh! may I worthy prove to see
The saints in full prosperity:
Then my troubles will be over.
I never shall forget the day
When all my sins were washed away:
And then my troubles will be over,
Will be over, and rejoicing,
And then my troubles will be over.
To see the bride, the glitt'ring bride,
Close seated by her Savior's side:
Then my troubles will be over.
Oh! what immortal joys I'll know,
When up to God's great Heav'n I go:
Then my troubles will be over.
"Harken, O God, Unto My Cry" was arranged from the Bay Psalm Book. This setting for mixed voices (SATBB) was made for the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh in 1977.
Harken, O God, unto my cry,
Unto my pray'r attend.
When my heart is
oppress'd,
I'll cry to Thee from the earth's end.
Within Thy Holy Temple
I forever will abide;
Within the covert of Thy
wings
I'll seek my self to hide.
So then I will unto Thy name
Sing praise perpetually,
That I the vows
which I have made
May pay continually.
Roland Leich's setting of this H. W. Longfellow poem was originally written as a solo song in 1940, when the composer was on the faculty of Dartmouth College.
Mister Finney had a turnip
And it grew and it grew;
And it grew behind
the barn
And that turnip did no harm.
There it grew and it grew;
Till it could grow no taller;
Then his
daughter Lizzie picked it
And put it in the cellar.
There it lay and it lay
Till if began to rot;
And his daughter Susie
took it
And put it in the pot.
And they boiled it and boiled it
As long as they were able;
And then
his daughters took it
And put it on the table.
Mister Finney and his wife
They sat down to sup;
And they ate and they
ate
And they ate that turnip up.
Roland Leich's Sanctus was written in 1929, when the composer was just 18 years old. It was dedicated to Leo Sowerby, one of the composer's first composition teachers and was first performed at Sowerby's church (St. James Cathedral (Episcopal) in Chicago) on Christmas Day, 1929. Sowerby wrote the following to the composer: "First, I want to tell you about your 'Sanctus'. My choir sang it Christmas Day, according to schedule, and they really sang it beautifully. It makes a splendid effect vocally, and after the singers get used to one or two syncopations, it isn't difficult; though, like anything else, it wants knowing for quite a time before an actual performance, so that the singers can make it sound as though it were a part of themselves. They all liked it very much, and (take it as a compliment or otherwise) some of them thought I had written it under an assumed name. I didn't tell them who the composer was until Christmas Day, and they were amazed to learn how young the composer was. I haven't done anything, as yet, about having it published, as I definitely wanted your assent before sending it anywhere." The composer revised the Sanctus in 1990.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts:
Heaven and earth are full of Thy
glory.
Glory be to Thee, O Lord Most High, Amen.
Roland Leich's Seal Lullaby was originally written as a solo song in 1932, when the composer was a student at Curtis. The song was originally published by G. Schirmer in 1943. It was sung by Sam Barber in the early 1930's when he was pursuing a career as a singer. The text is from the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.
On November 23, 1932, Roland Leich wrote the following to his father: " Last Thursday I had an excellent lesson with Maestro Scalero. I did a setting of 'Seal Lullaby,' a little poem from Kipling's "Jungle Book" which I and some of my friends like so much that we thought Scalero would rip it to pieces, but strangely enough he was very much pleased with it. It has a rather swaying accompaniment to suggest dark green water and the tune is very simple and easy going." In April 1933, he won the Carl F. Lauber Music Award, open to all Philadelphia music students, with "Seal Lullaby" and a setting of Heine's "Greeting." In 1935, Sam Barber sang the "Seal Lullaby" over WJZ.
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters
that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee
flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark
overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.
"The Oxen" is based on Thomas Hardy's famous poem from 1915. This setting, written in 1965, was the last composition revised by the composer prior to his death in October 1995. The setting will soon be available from Vienna Woods Music Company arranged for strings.
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock,
'Now they are all on their
knees'
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside
ease.
We pictured the meek, mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy
pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling
then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone
said on Christmas Eve,
'Come; see the oxen kneel,
In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know'
I
should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
"The Shepherd's Star" is based on a hymn from Southern Harmony, a 19th century collection of "shape-note" hymn tunes sung in the Bible-belt. The author of the original tune and text was not identified. This arrangement was written for and first performed by the Westinghouse High School choir in Pittsburgh in 1962. "The Shepherd's Star" was recorded by the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh in 1965 and was released on Love Came Down at Christmas. The setting is also available from Vienna Woods Music Company arranged for strings and piano.
Hail the blest morn! see the great Mediator
Down from the regions of glory
descend!
Shepherds, go worship The Babe in the manger,
Lo! for His guard,
all the angels attend.
Cold on His cradle, the dew drops are shining;
Low lies His bed with the
beasts of the stall;
Angels adore Him, in slumbers reclining,
Wisemen and
shepherds before Him do fall.
Say, shall we yield Him, in costly devotion,
Odours of Eden, and off'rings
divine,
Gems from the mountains, and pearls from the ocean,
Myrrh from the
forest, and gold from the mine?
Star of the morning, thy brightness, declining,
Shortly must fade when
the sun doth arise:
Beaming refulgent, His glory eternal
Shines on the
children of love in the skies.
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Recording of Roland Leich's Organ Music
The composer provided the following note regarding these
pieces:
"These little pieces date back more than a half-century to when I was a
student of Rosario Scalero, a stern disciplinarian, at the Curtis Institute of
Music. The assignment was to write chorale preludes in the style of Bach and
Brahms. (The very last composition of each master was a chorale prelude dealing,
respectively, with arrival in Heaven and departure from Earth.) In general
Scalero approved of my efforts, but he objected to "O du Liebe" as too Wagnerian
in its use of "unprepared" dissonance. Among a few kind friends who found hints
of something personal in these academic exercises was my fellow student, the
late Nino Rota, who rose to fame with his music for such films as Romeo and
Juliet and The Godfather."
The eighth prelude was originally titled "Wer weiss wie nahe mir mein
Ende." The other seven preludes were revised in 1959 and 1983. The 1983 revision
was dedicated to Victor
Hill, a former student, who teaches Mathematics at Williams College. As a
note of interest, several of these chorale preludes were premiered (performed by
Paul Robinson) at a student concert at Curtis in 1932 where Sam Barber's
Dover Beach was premiered.
The pieces in this collection came from a variety of sources. The Chorale Prelude on "Jesus, Lover Of My Soul" was written for a memorial service for the composer's Uncle Chester and Aunt Jean. The Fanfare was written as "Fanfare on the Name Andrew Carnegie" for brass band and was commissioned by the River City Brass Band of Pittsburgh. "Now, Lord, Before You We Come" was commissioned by First Presbyterian Church of Evansville, Indiana for the dedication of their new Fisk organ. The chorale upon which the composition was based was also written for that occasion and is included in the collection. The Fugue was written while the composer was a student at the Curtis Institute of Music. The "Pastorale" was dedicated to a friend while the composer taught at Dartmouth and the theme was derived from her initials. It was originally written for piano, but has been used quite effectively on the organ.
The pieces in this collection came from a variety of sources. Nimrod, taken from one of Roland Leich's favorite pieces by his favorite composer, was arranged for the composer's son Tom. The Elegy for Strings and the Meditation from The Light of Life were both commissioned by Victor Hill, a former student. Come, Sweet Death was arranged for the funeral of Marcella Leich, Roland Leich's mother. March of the Polish Pilgrims and Chorale of St. Anthony were arranged for use as wedding marches. The Buxtehude Fanfare was arranged for a processional for St. Stephen's Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh.
Roland Leich wrote about 40 small pieces for the piano. This collection
was written for his daughter Alice when she was nine years old. Among his other
compositions were 200 songs, including settings of 47 Emily Dickinson poems, 40
A. A. Milne poems, 34 Sara Henderson Hay poems, 10 A. E. Housman poems, and 18
poems based on the Pickpocket Songs by Edna Becker.
Roland Leich wrote about 40 small pieces for the piano. This collection was transcribed from songs based on poems from the Pickpocket Songs by Edna Becker. Among his other compositions were 200 songs, including settings of 47 Emily Dickinson poems, 40 A. A. Milne poems, 34 Sara Henderson Hay poems, 10 A. E. Housman poems, and 18 poems based on the Pickpocket Songs by Edna Becker.
Roland Leich wrote about 40 small pieces for the piano. This collection was transcribed from songs based on poems from the Pickpocket Songs by Edna Becker. Among his other compositions were 200 songs, including settings of 47 Emily Dickinson poems, 40 A. A. Milne poems, 34 Sara Henderson Hay poems, 10 A. E. Housman poems, and 18 poems based on the Pickpocket Songs by Edna Becker.
Roland Leich wrote about 40 small pieces for the piano. This collection contains a number of early works, composed from 1923 through 1931.
Roland Leich wrote about 40 small pieces for the piano. This collection contains a number of early works, composed from 1923 through 1931. Capri won first prize at the Indiana Literary Field Day at Culver, Indiana in 1927. Several Evansville, Indiana papers ran short articles about the 1927 competition: "The title of ‘most promising musical composer in Indiana’ goes to Roland J. Leich, 16, senior student at Central High School, who Saturday was awarded first prize for the best piano composition at the third annual Indiana Literary Field day celebration at the Culver Military Academy at Culver, Indiana. With the title went a prize of $50 to the youthful composer.... All the other contestants in his group were college students, most of whom had had considerable experience in that sort of work." Fantasy Number 2 was written while a student of Felix Borowski and won first prize at the Indiana Literary Field Day at Culver, Indiana in 1928. Regarding this Fantasy, he wrote to his parents in 1928: "The only trouble about this Fantasy is that although it is very pianistic, it contains technical difficulties that have made even very experienced pianists shake in their boots. In other words, the piece is too hard for me. I think I can work it up to give it a good interpretation, even if not such a good execution though."
Roland Leich wrote about 40 small pieces for the piano. This collection contains several early works, composed between 1922 and 1938. The Scherzo and Variations were written while a student at Curtis. The text for the Robert Burns poem used in the Schumann song upon which the variations are based is:
Out over the Forth, I look to the North;
But what is the north and its Highlands to me?
The south nor the east give ease to my breast,
The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea.
But I look to the west when I go to rest,
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;
For far in the west lives he I love best,
The man that is dear to my baby and me.
Birthday Greeting for Mother has a Mi-La motif running through it, in honor of his mother, Marcella Leich. Pastorale was written for a friend while he taught at Dartmouth. Lamento was based on an early attempt at writing an opera.
The following notes were provided by the composer:
"The proclivity to set words to music can best be described as a natural affinity. Although I began by studying cello and piano, not voice, I gradually became engrossed with setting texts for solo voice and choral groups. It was through meeting in 1939 the late Ernst Bacon, whom I greatly admired, that I first became aware of Emily Dickinson. As a young instructor at Dartmouth I started setting Emily Dickinson in 1940, thanks to a student, the late John T. Maffett, who knew that I enjoyed songwriting. He brought a volume of Emily Dickinson's poems, fifteen of which I set during the spring of 1940. During the next 25 years I did 47 settings from her 1775 poems. Since then I have done constant editing and polishing. Here's hoping they are at last ready.
"Emily Dickinson is regarded as a great Woman poet and great American poet. Beyond such limiting categories she stands in her own right simply as a Great Poet. Born in 1830 in Amherst, MA, she died there in 1886. That she became a recluse from the age of 30 has generated various legends, theories, attempts at psychiatric analysis, etc. Biographical studies abound.
"Although Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century New Englander, there is very little of the topical or regional in her poetry. Her themes are universal, as designated by her first editors (1890): Life, Love, Nature, Time and Eternity. Very few of her poems were published during her lifetime. Publication, begun in 1890, was completed in 1960.
"Many composers have set Emily Dickinson poems in various styles, from the traditional (including mine) to the avant-garde. Recently Gordon Getty, an oil millionaire, wrote 32 Emily Dickinson songs, performed at Harvard's Houghton Library by a soprano dressed in white.
"In attempting to set words to music I try to be as spontaneous as possible. There is little to say, technically, about my settings. During the 25 years of their gestation some changes of style did occur. I like to feel that the ideal setting of a given text 'already exists' and that one tries to capture it (as with Michelangelo and sculpture).
"In only three of my 47 Emily Dickinson settings is there repetition of one or two words, a practice I usually avoid, except for a special effect. Tennyson complained: 'These song writers make me say twice what I have said only once.'
"A friend of Emily Dickinson, Kate Anthon, claimed to have heard Emily Dickinson at the piano accompanying herself while singing her own settings of her poems. Too bad there were no tape recorders in those days!"
The 47 Emily Dickinson songs are published in six volumes by Vienna Woods Music Company.
A Japanese haiku is a 17-syllable poem about a scene or a thing that has moved the poet. I have taken my individual poems about the seasons a step further. In addition to a scene, I have added a pensive mood, both intended to convey a thought about death. The first haiku asks what life tells us about dying. The second tells us that we mourn the young man who died in battle, whereas the third implies that death comes to us all. The final one points out that life naturally ends in death, just as the moon wanes and the year ends.
Dorothy Goodfellow
Among my early fond memories is a series of tiny blue paper-backs sold at Woolworth's for five cents each. One of them was How I Wrote The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe. Only recently I learned that the proper title of this essay on how Poe composed (put together) his famous poem is The Philosophy of Composition.
Usually I favor letting music "speak for itself." But the process of setting to music, as a song cycle with piano or string quartet, the four Seasonal Haiku by Dorothy Goodfellow, a fellow faculty retiree at Carnegie Mellon University, was perhaps unusual enough to warrant a bit of explication.
Since a haiku normally comprises 17 syllables, I decided to set each syllable to a different musical pitch chosen from a chromatic scale (middle C up a tenth to E). This scale generated, quite spontaneously, the melody of each haiku, in the third and fourth of which the range (fortunately) extends upward to accommodate respectively 21 and 18 syllables. Intervalically, but not rhythmically, the fourth haiku is the retrograde of the first. Providing an instrumental background for four wisps of unaccompanied melody came, by a stroke of good luck, when I discovered that the first haiku's "tune" could run throughout the entire song cycle as a quasi-theme and variations. The only extraneous element is a bit of Taps in the second haiku, Memorial Day. Although rather free, the tonality suggests G minor. As a former pupil of Webern, I have made, in this little work, my closest approach as yet to serialism. But my lessons with Webern were confined to the analysis of Beethoven!
Roland Leich
Dorothy Goodfellow was born in the Adirondacks and received her early education in a one-room district school, at a small private school in the same area, and at Ticonderoga High School. After college at the New York University (Albany), she taught four years in public high schools. She and her husband attended graduate school at Harvard and both were long-time members of the English Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Her poetry has appeared in The Saturday Review, Poetry World, The Phi Kappa Phi magazine, The Villager, and Cathedral Poets Poets I & II (University of Pittsburgh Press). Her professional articles have appeared in The English Journal, the Carnegie Series in English, and Pilgrimage to Italy, 1976. She divides her year between Pittsburgh and her home hill in the Adirondack region where she spent her early life, which she described in Growing Up Wild. During the war years she served as editor of the Office of Production, Research, and Development. She is currently a member of the Council of the Pittsburgh Bibliophiles and has had articles on Willa Cather in its newsletter.
Roland Leich wrote about 200 songs in total. The songs in this collection were his last significant composition, written in 1994. Among the composer's other songs are settings of 47 Emily Dickinson poems, 40 A. A. Milne poems, 34 Sara Henderson Hay poems, 10 A. E. Housman poems, and 18 poems based on the Pickpocket Songs by Edna Becker.
Roland Leich wrote about 200 songs in total. The songs in this collection were written in 1941 at the time the composer was leaving the faculty at Dartmouth and commencing graduate study at the Eastman School of Music. A Child's Garden of Verses was first published in 1885. Among the composer's other songs are settings of 47 Emily Dickinson poems, 40 A. A. Milne poems, 34 Sara Henderson Hay poems, 10 A. E. Housman poems, and 18 poems based on the Pickpocket Songs by Edna Becker.
To contact Vienna Woods Music Company, E-mail is received at tleich@viennawoodsmusic.com
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Date last modified: 10/5/07
Created by: tleich@viennawoodsmusic.com