Subtitled "Four Vivariations", Irving Fine's McCord's Menagerie, are settings of humorous poems by David McCord. With the bumbling "loo's" accompanying the tenor melody, Fine's setting of Vultur Gryphus implies a harmless creature. Instead of the movie western's ominous bird associated with death, Fine's animal seems too lazy and stupid to get his own food! Jerboa, classified as the genus jaculus jaculus, is as active and scary in Fine's world as Vultur Gryphus is laid back and friendly. Fine agrees with those to whom a darting (the translation of the Latin jaculus) small rodent is sinister and creepy, attributes he conveys through abrupt entrances and minor tonality. In Mole McCord compares the over-soul of man, a Unitarian concept put forth by Ralph Waldo Emerson, with the limited capacities of the mole. In Clam, Fine and McCord give in to their silliest selves. McCord observes how man the diner and clam the dinner (in chowder no less) both evolved from the same ancestor; man is saved from the clam's fate, according to McCord, by his own initiative and work ethic. Fine has a lot of fun with the sounds suggesting insouciance, which explains why the clam never got ahead! Lots of fun here. |
