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Duration
3.15
Short description
As a student, Pärt earned pocket money by accompanying on piano the theatre club of the Tallinn Palace of the Pioneers (now the Kullo hobby centre). He came to the theatre at the invitation of Salme Lauren, who was then director of the theatre club and for whose translated, written, and staged plays Pärt composed a large amount of music in those years. Among those pieces are his earliest known works – composed more than half a century ago over the period 1956–1960, their exact dates unknown.
Summer Waltz was written for Lauren’s play Adventure in the Woods and it belongs to Pärt’s 1960 cycle Tykes’ Songs, later titled Five Children’s Songs, as well as to the 2015 collection Songs from Childhood. Both are dedicated to his mother.
World premiere
Composer's recital: Arvo Pärt "Lapsepõlvelood" / "Songs from Childhood" CD promotional concert
Johanna Vahermägi (vioola), Kadri Hunt (conductor), Katariina Maria Kits (violin), Mari Poll (violin), Children's Music Studio of Estonian Radio , Henri Zibo (accordion), Heikko-Joseph Remmel (double bass), Maria Mängel (soloist), Andreas Lend (cello)
Completion year
Original version
Dedication
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Arranger
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Instrumentation details
Vocal text
Lyrics by Salme Lauren
Translation by Paul Hillier
Twas once in a flowery grove that a dragonfly
Asked a girl out to the ball.
A grasshopper band came by and serenaded them
All through the night until dawn.
Summer is here, flowers fill the fields.
Birds are singing so sweetly in the trees.
La, la, la …
The grasses are hugging the rose beetle softly,
The honey-bee dances in light.
The gnat now is singing, and glow-worm is lifting
Its lantern along in the night.
Summer is here, flowers fill the fields.
…
More guests will be here soon, the fun isn’t over!
The ladybird, she never tires:
She dances in trances among the rose branches
And snatches her dress on the briars.
Summer is here, flowers fill the fields.
…
High over the treetops the golden moon’s floating,
…