All Rights Reserved

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC" TEXT="#080000" background="13cfd5a3.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Aaron Alon"><U><B><IMG SRC="3a27d140.png" border=0 width="125" height="20" ALT="Homepage" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id163.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Breaking the Silence"><U>Breaking the Silence</U></A><B>   |   </B><B>All Rights Reserved</B><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id144.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dulce et Decorum Est"><U>Dulce et Decorum Est</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id104.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fairy Tales"><U>Fairy Tales</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id101.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hibakusha"><U>Hibakusha</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id81.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="A View to a Death"><U>A View to a Death</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Peter Pan Suite"><U>Peter Pan Suite</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Córdoba"><U>Córdoba</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Spell"><U>Spell</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Spring and Fall"><U>Spring and Fall</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fantasia for Piano"><U>Fantasia for Piano</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Silken Tent"><U>The Silken Tent</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#888888" TEXT="#080000" background="13dd2b03.jpg"> <div> <B><IMG SRC="6f815210.png" border=0 width="21" height="33" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <B>Order the Score:</B></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.lulu.com/content/1993447" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.lulu.com/content/1993447"><U><B><IMG SRC="7f271920.png" border=0 width="113" height="146" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I><IMG SRC="7ee1d380.png" border=0 width="285" height="56" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></I></div> <div> <B>INSTRUMENTATION</B>: High voice & Piano</div> <div> <B>DURATION</B>: Ca. 5½ minutes</div> <bR> <div> Composers who choose to work with texts routinely run into questions of rights and royalties.  Poets are now granted protection over their works for their lifespan and an additional seventy years, often leaving composers the option between setting poets in the public domain (those who died before 1923) or battling for rights, often with the poets' estates.  Some poets, like Robert Frost and T.S. Elliot, allegedly stopped allowing composers to set their works as music became increasingly modernist.  In response to this frustrating problem, this art song raises another possibility, the dreaded one when composers choose to write their own texts to avoid the problem entirely.  The piece does take advantage of one little loophole in the copyright law: parody is excluded from it.  As such, the piece includes quotes—some glaring, others hidden—from Reich and Bizet to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Rodgers.  And for those wishing to steal, as Stravinsky claims all great artists do, I remind you that this work is protected by United States copyright, <I>All Rights Reserved!</I></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> Listen to the Piece:</div> <div> <I><B> <embed src="HTMLobj-2116/All_Rights_Reserved-_Studio_Recording_2.mp3" autostart="false" width="145" height="70">  </B></I></div> <div> <A HREF="#about_the_recording" TITLE="All Rights Reserved"><U><I>About the Recording</I></U></A></div> <div> <I><B>NEW Studio Recording!</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <B>WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE PREMIERE:</B></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.aaronalon.com/AllRightsReserved.mov" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.aaronalon.com/AllRightsReserv"><U><B><IMG SRC="88ef2ab0.png" border=0 width="242" height="171" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>OR SEE IT ON</B></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9qA9pf_KQg" TARGET="_blank" TITLE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9qA9pf_K"><U><IMG SRC="8937b320.png" border=0 width="123" height="50" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <B><U>Text</U></B></div> <div> Because no new texts are in the public domain,</div> <div> I decided to write my own</div> <div> My own.  My own!</div> <div> My own-</div> <div> text.</div> <bR> <div> But I ran into a problem.</div> <div> A problem.</div> <div> In that nothing rhymes with orange.</div> <div> Orange.</div> <div> Nothing 'cept for orange.</div> <div> Orange.</div> <div> And I already used it.</div> <bR> <div> Crap.</div> <bR> <div> That's all right.</div> <div> That's okay.</div> <div> I'll write a new text anyway.</div> <div> A text 'bout writing texts.</div> <div> But nothing rhymes with text.</div> <div> Nothing 'cept for sexed.</div> <div> And that's just really vulgar. </div> <div> And nothing rhymes with vulgar.</div> <div> Nothing 'cept for bulgur.</div> <div> And what the hell is bulgur?</div> <div> Oh that's a type of grain.</div> <bR> <div> Oh the grain is as thick</div> <div> As an elephant's…</div> <div> Trunk!</div> <bR> <div> Oh now, this is inane,</div> <div> Going on about grain.</div> <div> Well, it's at least a text.</div> <div> Oh hell…text, text, text.  </div> <div> Well, at least it isn't orange.</div> <bR> <div> Damn.</div> <bR> <div> Okay…forget all the rhymes. </div> <div> The Romantic sublimes.</div> <div> What I need is length.</div> <div> So, I must use melismas.</div> <div> Melismas!  Melismas!</div> <bR> <div> Meli-</div> <div> …lismas.</div> <bR> <div> Right.  I need rhymes for `melisma.'</div> <div> I want ones with charisma,</div> <div> But instead this is abysma</div> <div> Oh, where's the Pepto Bisma?</div> <div> Well, I guess this is show bizma!</div> <bR> <div> Memories!</div> <div> Of when one could set T.S.,</div> <div> But now it's just B.S.!</div> <div> A copyright waste land.</div> <div> You'd better make haste, and</div> <bR> <div> Unless thou findest that thou likest best</div> <div> To be acquainted with an antiquated</div> <div> Shakespearian tongue that long 'twas laid to rest</div> <div> Thou must seek rights to texts not so outdated.</div> <bR> <div> But you can't use Frost.</div> <div> It's a law suit lost.</div> <div> A line you never crossed.</div> <div> 'Cause you can't afford the cost.</div> <div> No, you must have been quite sauced</div> <div> To even think of setting Frost!</div> <bR> <div> With art impeding art today,</div> <div> Who needs to blame the NBA?</div> <div> Great artists steal, or so they say.</div> <div> Though this may hardly be Bizet.</div> <bR> <div> The copyright restrictions</div> <div> Are all just maledictions,</div> <div> The composer's worst affliction</div> <div> Except deadlines and eviction!</div> <bR> <div> So I'll try to write new poems</div> <div> Never found in dusty tomes</div> <div> Yet I find myself unsexed</div> <div> Feeling vexed and too perplexed</div> <div> As I search for what comes next</div> <div> …After “text”</div> <bR> <div> Well, at least it isn't orange.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <U>Performance History</U></div> <div> <A HREF="id152.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="April 14, 2008"><U>April 14, 2008</U></A></div> <div> Ross Chitwood, tenor</div> <div> Ben Laude, piano</div> <div> Aaron Alon: Doctoral Composition Recital</div> <div> <I>Shepherd School of Music, Rice University, Houston, TX</I></div> <div>  <A NAME="about_the_recording"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <div> <U>About the Recording</U></div> <div> This is a studio recording of Ross Chitwood, tenor, and Ben Laude, pianist.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Text and music ©2008 Aaron Alon (ASCAP).  All rights reserved. </div> </td> </tr></table></body>