Aaron Copland - Long Time Ago

Описание: Old American Songs, for voice & piano

Piano: Aaron Copland
Baritone: William Warfield

Photo: "Nan de Gallant, Eastport, Maine" by Lewis W. Hine, 1911
Library of Congress (Public Domain)

The text included in the video was written by Hine himself quite probably.
Beginning in 1907, Hine worked as a photographer for the "National Child Labor Committee", a committee lobbying against child labour.
He was also a freelance photographer for "The Survey", a leading social reform magazine.
For several decades he contributed, as a photographer, to denounce the perilous working conditions of men, women and children in modern industry.


This photo has been haunting me since I first saw it. The description made by Hine of Nan and her family's life is something very troubling.
Yet it is Hine's final statement ("Nan is already a spoiled child") what I consider the most troubling.
Whatever he meant with that horrendous euphemism ("spoiled") the word sounds like an irrevocable sentence...Spoiled, something that can not be mended, that has no cure, ruined for ever...
I hope this child was able to beat the odds

This video is a small homage to Nan de Gallant


Long time ago (ballad)

"On the lake where droop'd the willow
Long time ago,
Where the rock threw back the billow
Brighter than snow.
Dwelt a maid beloved and cherish'd
By high and low,
But with autumn leaf she perished
Long time ago.
Rock and tree and flowing water
Long time ago,
Bird and bee and blossom taught her
Love's spell to know.
While to my fond words she listen'd
Murmuring low,
Tenderly her blue eyes glisten'd
Long time ago".