Description on Youtube:
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
INTRODUCTION - indicates the husbandman's satisfaction at the abundant harvest.
RECITATIVE
Hannah (soprano):
That which Spring first promised with its blossoms, that which Summer ripened with its warmth, Autumn presents in abundance to the joyful farmer now.
Lucas (tenor): The golden store he now transports in heavy-laden wagons. The spacious barn can hardly hold all that his fields have yielded.
Simon (bass): Happily he looks around him, measuring the piled-up grain, and happiness fills his heart.
TRIO & CHORUS
Simon (bass): So nature honest toil rewards, she invokes it, smiles upon it, gladdens it with hope, lends it a willing hand,
and guides it with all her might.
Trio: All benefits come from thee, O toil. The cottage that shelters us, the wool that clothes us,
the food that sustains us, all come from thee, they are thy gifts. O toil, O noble toil, all benefits come from thee.
Hannah (soprano): Thou dost virtue instil, and makest rough-hewn manners gentle.
Lucas (tenor): Thou dost ward off vice, and purify the heart of man.
Simon (bass): Thou dost give us the courage and inclination to strive for goodness and perform our duty.
Chorus: O toil, O noble toil, from thee comes every benefit.
RECITATIVE
Hannah (soprano): See how impatiently the youngsters rush to the hazel-bush! Small boys swing on every single branch, and from the swaying bush the ripe fruit rains like hail.
Simon (bass): The farmer's son is climbing nimbly up a ladder to the top of the tree. Hidden in the topmost branches, he sees his sweetheart drawing nigh, and, with a lover's sense of fun, throws the fat nuts down into her path.
Lucas (tenor): Around every tree in the garden girls of all ages are gathered, their colour as fresh and rosy as the ripe fruit they pick.
