Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo
Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo | |
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by Novello & Co , | |
Scoring | Choir, piano, with optional percussion and brass |
Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo (1970) is a children's cantata composed in a popular style for unison or two-part voices and piano, with optional bass and drums. The
Synopsis
A close reading of the Genesis story, Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo lightheartedly chronicles the adventures of Noah, charged by God to build an ark in order to preserve mankind and all the creatures of Earth.
The work opens with God voicing his displeasure with man ("There’s nothing but sinning, wickedness and violence there! / Remind me to wash mankind right out of my hair!"). Noah is then commanded to build an ark of gopher wood and fill it with pairs of animals—one male and one female—in spite of the constant mocking by the sinful citizens of Fun City ("Noah! Noah! Don’t do any more! Your boat’s a laughing stock! / Ha! Ha! But Noah went right on building the ark, and his hammer went knock, knock, knock!"). Accompanied by a Latin-American samba rhythm, Noah and his family then load the ark with one pair of every animal imaginable "from antelope to zebra...one pair of each, just as the Lord had planned."
Aboard the ark, forty days and forty nights of ceaseless rain takes its toll, but the mood changes both dramatically and musically when the rain finally stops. Spirits begin to lift while the musical accompaniment shifts from percussive, raindrop-like figures to a swaying gesture reminiscent of gentle ocean waves. As the floodwaters subside, Noah enlists a terrified raven to scout for dry land. Following a short, unsuccessful survey of the watery landscape the affrighted raven succumbs to a moment of literary allusion croaking "Nevermore!" (invoking Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem, The Raven).
The following week a
Performance
Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo was conceived as an accommodating work. In the Preface to the Novello edition the authors indicate that they "hope it will be useful wherever and whenever groups of singers and musicians need a work of some length to perform together, and that they will arrange, divide and adapt it (within reason) as best suits their available talent and the occasion."[1]
The instrumental possibilities are similarly wide-ranging. Instrumental accompaniment may vary, including solo piano and/or guitar with any of the following instruments: bass, drums,
Captain Noah was recorded by The
In late 2016 the Zemel Choir began a Kickstarter campaign[2] to create an animated version of Captain Noah.
Reception
Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo has become a favourite among sacred and secular institutions alike. Relatively short (about twenty-six minutes) and intended for children, the work has been successfully adapted for adult performers, with the aforementioned recording by The
The work received the 1976
References
- ^ a b Horovitz, Joseph and Michael Flanders. Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo. Kent: Novello & Company Limited, 1970.
- ^ "Captain Noah and his floating Zoo".
- ^ Chester Novello - Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo