Live performance at Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels on 3 June 2012
chorus: Octopus Symphony Chorus
orchestra: Le Concert d'Anvers
conductor: Bart Van Reyn
soprano: Ida Falk Winland
tenor: Yves Saelens
bass: Birger Radde
more info: www.octopusensembles.be
RECITATIVE
Lucas (tenor): Here the main body of the hunt chases the hares from their formes. Driven from all directions, they have no escape.
They fall, and soon are laid in rows and gleefully counted.
CHORUS
Hear, O hear the clamour that echoes through yonder woods! What a clamour that is that echoes throughout the woods! It is the shrill cry of the horn, the baying of eager hounds.
Now the stag leaps up and runs, followed by hounds and riders. He flees, he flees! O how he flies along! Hounds and riders follow him. Oh, how he leaps and bounds! Oh, how he runs for his life!
Now he bursts out of cover and races across the fields and into the thicket. Now he's outwitted the hounds; they scatter, run hither and thither. The hounds have scattered and are running hither and thither. Tally-ho, tally-ho, tally-ho!
The huntsman's voice and the horn rally the pack anew. Ho, ho, ho! Tally-ho! Ho, ho! With redoubled zeal
the reunited pack sets off again. Tally-ho, tally-ho, tally-ho!
Surrounded by his enemies, his courage and his powers quite exhausted, the fleet-footed beast now sinks. His approaching death is heralded by the victory-call of the horn and the cries of the happy hunters: halloo, halloo, halloo! The death of the stag is heralded by the victory-call of the horn, etc.
RECITATIVE
Hannah (soprano): Upon the vine the grapes now glisten, bright and full of juice, inviting the grower pleasantly to pick them and tarry not.
Simon (bass): Now are tub and barrel carried to the slopes, and from their shacks the pickers are trooping merrily to their agreeable day's work.
Hannah (soprano): See, how the slopes up yonder are all alive with people! Harken to the merry voices ringing on all sides!
Lucas (tenor): The work is helped along by jokes from daybreak to sunset, and then the foaming grape-juice turns merriment to cries of joy.
CHORUS
Hurrah, hurrah! The wine is safe, the barrels have been filled, now let us be merry, and shout hurrah, hurrah
with might and main! Let us drink! Brothers, drink up, let us all be merry! Let us sing! Everyone sing, and be merry!
Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for wine! Hurrah for the land that produces it! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for wine! Hurrah for the barrel that holds it! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for wine! Hurrah for the jug from which it flows! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for wine!, etc.
Come, my friends, fill your jugs, empty your beakers, let's be merry!
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho! Let's be merry. and sing hurrah, hurrah with might and main! Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for wine!
Now pipes are piping, drums are beating. The fiddle is scraping, the hurdy-gurdy twanging, the bagpipes droning. The little children are skipping, the boys are jumping;
the lasses fly round, arm in arm with the lads, dancing a country reel! One-two, one-two! Everyone hop!
Come on, my friends! One-two, one-two! Everyone jump! Fill your jugs, fill your jugs! One-two, one-two! Everyone dance! Drain your beakers, drain your beakers! Heigh-ho, heigh-ho! Let's be merry! Shout heigh-ho and shout hurrah, shout with might and main!
Cheer, yell! Hurrah, hurrah! Hurrah, hurrah! Leap and dance! One-two, one-two! Laugh, sing, cheer and sing! Hip-hip-hip-hurray! Now let's claim our final jug, hip-hip-hip-hurray! And then sing all together of the grape that makes us merry! Hip-hip-hurrah! Hurray!
Hurrah for wine, for the noble wine in which we drown our sorrows! May its praises be sung far and wide in thousandfold rejoicing!
Heigh-ho, let's be merry, and shout hurrah, hip-hip-hurrah with might and main! Hurrah!
