Charles Ives: The Cage

Performed by Kodály Institute students Marina Rivero Prieto (piano) and Samuel Rausch (voice) under the auspice of their chamber music teacher Lajos Rozmán kodaly.hu/facu....
Here are their thoughts about the music and the clip:
Samuel: Lajos, Marina, and I agreed that this piece had the potential to powerfully give voice to this strange world we find ourselves living in now. The text was written by Charles Ives in the early 20th century, but I expect to each one of you the story is not just an echo of the past but intimately recognizable! The picture of the man with the sour face, the one wrapped into himself, the one with the fallen bicycle, and the new beggar are all ones I took in Kecskemét or Budapest. The story told by the second 4 pictures is I think just as dramatic and important as that told by the first 4, even if it is often only told within our own hearts, even if the "cast" is only a single actor in their own flat!
I intended the video to give the viewer a lot to think about, a lot to feel. I highly recommend reading through the text of the piece on its own and letting one's own imagination fill in the scene. There are so many nuances that can be felt when it is just a conversation between the poetry and one's heart.
A leopard went around his cage from one side to the other side
He stopped only when the keeper came around with meat
A boy who had been there three hours began to wonder "Is life anything like that?"