Two Joyce settings

The last two Barber
songs employ texts by James Joyce. The first is a setting of lines from Ulysses.
It is taken from Barber’s song-cycle Despite
and Still Op.41, written in 1968/9 and he marks it Like a rather fast tango in 2.  In the book Stephen Dedalus suggests a scene
to Leopold Bloom but it triggers off thoughts in Bloom’s mind of his father’s
suicide.

The final song sets
words from the Mookse and Gripes
section of Finnegan’s Wake. It was
written in 1947.  Barber uses a swirling
3/8 tempo to create the whimsical mood and when there is a reference to Tristis, Tristor  the music reflects Wagner’s Tristan.  In the very complex story of Finnegan’s Wake, the river  Anna
Livia Plurabelle, or the Liffey, has flown through Dublin and out to sea
where it rises as vapour, where it becomes 
the young Nuvoletta. She is wondering whether to return to earth as rain
, over the banisters as she puts it
in her monologue.  Both of these songs
again were premièred by Leontyne Price