Introduction:
“Kyrie” from Missa Nigra Sum
by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
If I were a plumber would you hire me?
Would you trust me with your sink?
You might pay me to fix your faucet,
but nobody cares what a plumber thinks.
No, nobody cares what a plumber thinks.
Nobody pays to hear another man think...
lyrics
Palestrina
June 20, 1998
1. Palestrina, what would you do
if there were so many voices all louder than you?
Palestrina would you find a way
and the will to go on though no one’s listening?
Palestrina, please give me some hints.
Shed some light on my path so that it all makes sense.
Palestrina, would even you fail
to create balance and beauty of the things in my head?
2. Palestrina, did you know that you’d be
considered a master after centuries?
Or did you just live day to day,
writing note after note, page after page?
Did you feel the fire in your head,
by candle at night when your wife was in bed?
Did you wake up tired, but glad
that in the silence of night you’d given birth to a mass?
Are you listening? Can you hear me?
Will my voice reach through the years?
Am I touching your spirit,
through your soul, through your heart, through your head,
through your ears?
3. And here I stand today
before a jury of masters staring down at me.
What else can I say
after Beethoven, Bach, and Debussy?
Palestrina, I pale in your light.
Though I’m burning today, tomorrow you’ll still shine.
But even as I flicker and fade,
I plea for permission to ply your trade.
If I were a plumber it would be easy
to make my case understood.
I've got no illusions of my stature:
I'm not a genius, but I'm good...
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