Vocal Composition of the Day, Installment 13:
"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls"
for
Voice, Piano, and Maraca;
Text by E. E. Cummings (2022)
"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" is far and away the most irreverent piece of music in my oeuvre and, arguably, the most irreverent of all of E. E. Cumming's poems. While accurate, the year of composition does not reflect the fact that I had sketches for a version of this piece for spoken voice and chamber ensemble dating back to 1982–1984 when I was a masters degree composition student at The New England Conservatory of Music.
During that time, I completed all of the spoken vocal rhythms, and I started sketching the accompaniment, but only completed a couple of bars of music. I used the very same tone rows and vocal rhythms in my paired down version for voice, piano, and maraca in my 2022 completion of this dodecaphonic piece as I did in my sketches. The abrasive musical language I employ has always seemed to me to pair very well with the poem.
About the poem which follows, I left it undisturbed with one exception: when the vocalist reaches the word "Poles" referring to people from Poland, I allow the performer to insert the war-torn people of his or her choice. In the audio track I provide, a link for which follows after that, I substituted "Ukrainians". I know, four syllables, not one, which momentarily ignores my rhythmic notation, but I felt compelled to do so in 2022.
The poem follows. "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls", is in the Public Domain in the USA.
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
.... the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
Follow the next URL to view a high quality scrolling score music video for "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" on my YouTube channel which I created to encourage live performances in which I perform the part for spoken voice; the piano and maraca sounds are synthesized.
Follow the next URL to view a watermarked PDF score of "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" on my website.
Follow the next URL to here to listen to a synthesized rendition of "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" on my website.
As with my other Cummings vocal music setting, "Is there a flower (whom", "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" is available only from me on a licensing basis and only for performance in the USA, as I cannot sell it via my global music distributor, Sheet Music Plus, for obvious text copyright-related reasons. Contact me at stanley@stanleymhoffman.com for licensing information.
I hope you enjoy "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls". Thank you for your time and attention.
Stanley M. Hoffman, PhD
Link to my website: https://www.stanleymhoffman.com
Biography Published in Grove Music Online (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Oxford University Press)
The "Stanley M. Hoffman Special Collection" was established at The Berklee College of Music Library Archive in January 2025. It will take whatever time is necessary for the archive to catalog my collection and make it available to the public.
Website: https://archives.berklee.edu
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