Robert Mann How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin for Narrator, Violin and Piano
Text by Rudyard Kipling
How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin was composed in 1959 for The Lyric Trio: Robert Mann, violin; Leonid Hambro, piano; and Lucy Rowan, narrator. Robert Mann selected the text from Rudyard Kipling’s 1902 collection Just So Stories. Writing about a 1962 performance at Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall), New York Times reviewer Eric Salzman called the piece “witty, pointed and delightful,” commenting that it was “full of witty, post-Webern, quiet comments with appropriately louder Rhinoceros interjections when the beast arrives on the scene.” Other fairy tale settings composed by Robert Mann and published by Peermusic include How the Whale Got His Throat and The Princess on the Pea.
Robert Mann (1920-2018) was a driving force in the world of music for more than 70 years. As founder and first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet, and as a soloist, composer, teacher, and conductor, Mr. Mann brought a refreshing sense of adventure and discovery to chamber music performances, master classes, and orchestral performances worldwide. He was, in the words of Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe, “one of the country’s most admired and deeply loved musicians.” Born in Portland, Oregon in 1920, Mr. Mann began studying violin when he was 8, and at age 13 was accepted into the class of Edouard Hurlimann, concertmaster of the Portland Symphony. In 1938, he enrolled in the Juilliard School, where he studied violin with Edouard Dethier, composition with Bernard Wagenaar and Stefan Wolpe, and conducting with Edgar Schenkman. Mr. Mann won the prestigious Naumburg competition in 1941. In 1946, at the invitation of Juilliard’s president, William Schuman, Robert Mann founded the Juilliard String Quartet, serving as the ensemble’s first violinist for 51 years until his retirement from the Quartet in 1997. Along the way, he was a mentor to younger generations of string quartets, including the Alexander, American, Concord, Emerson, LaSalle, New World, Mendelssohn, Tokyo, Brentano, Lark, St. Lawrence, and Colorado quartets. Robert Mann conducted throughout his career, leading ensembles such as the New York Chamber Symphony, Manhattan School of Music Symphony, and ensembles at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, and Aspen music festivals. At the invitation of Seiji Ozawa, he enjoyed a residence at Japan’s Saito Kinen Music Festival as a conductor, teacher, and performer. Mr. Mann composed more than 30 works for narrator with various instruments that he performed with his wife, Lucy Rowan. He also composed an Orchestral Fantasy performed by Dimitri Mitropoulos with the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and at the Salzburg Festival; a Duo for Violin and Piano that was premiered at Carnegie Hall by Itzhak Perlman; and a String Quartet that was included in the repertoires of both the La Salle and the Concord string quartets. His other works include a Duo for Cello and Piano written for Joel Krosnick and Gilbert Kalish, and Dream Time, recorded by violist David Carpenter.
How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin RUDYARD KIPLING
ROBERT MANN
q = 56-60 Narrator
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Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea,
there lived a Par see
con sord., pizz. 3
Violin
from whose hat the
arco 3
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mp
p
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p
Piano
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3
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ppp
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(leave down)
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rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour.
pizz. 3
pp
molto
molto
fff
ff
ff
Š Copyright 2018 by Peermusic III, Ltd. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
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Kq = q
And the Parsee lived by the Red Sea with nothing but his hat
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pp sub.
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3
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and
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3
his
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and a
knife
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3
3
3
poco cresc.
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3
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3
2 cooking-stove 4
of the kind you must
particularly
never
touch.
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3
mf
poco sfz
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3
arco
pizz.
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3
pp
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15
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mp
3
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pp
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mf
pp
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q = e Allegretto grazioso (e = 108)
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3
mp
p
ff
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And one
day he
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took
flour
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and
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water
and
currants
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and
plums
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p
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and
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made
himself
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one
cake
which
two
3
feet
across
and
3
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arco
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f sfz
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was
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things,
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mp
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and
mf
p
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sugar
ord., pizz.
3
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3 and 8
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mf
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sul pont.
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3
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three
feet
2 thick. 8
It
was
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poco sfz
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pp
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40
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he was allowed to cook on that stove, — and he
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(that's magic),
and he put it on the stove because
3 indeed a Superior Comestible 8
baked it and he baked it till it was all done brown and it smelt most sentimental. But
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there came
sfz
down to the beach from the Altogether Uninhabited Interior
one Rhi
no ce ros with a horn on his
mf
ff
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3
pp
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snap pizz.
ff
3
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3
just as he was going to eat it
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pp
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mf
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nose,
two piggy eyes, and few manners.
f
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ff
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In those days the Rhinoceros’s skin fitted him quite tight. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere. He looked exactly like a Noah’s Ark Rhinoceros, but of course much bigger.
50
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arco, col legno
All
the
same,
3 8
fff
3
3 8 3
3 8
f
3
53
he had no man ners
and he has no manners
then,
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and he never will have any manners. He said,
now, sul pont.
sul pont. ord.
4 8 mf
3
fp
4 8 f
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3
ord.
3
fp
3
ff
ff
6 “How!� and the Parsee left
56
cake and climbed to the top of a palm tree
that
(sul pont.)
ord., pizz.
3
3
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3
3 8 3
3
3
pp
sfz pp
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60
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al ways re flect ed 3
3
in
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4 8 pp
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rays of the sun were
4 8
3
arco, col legno 3
from which the
with nothing on but his hat,
more-than-oriental splendour.
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Fast (e = 132)
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mf
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5 8 poco
4 8 pp
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mp
p
mf
And the Rhinoceros upset the oil-stove with his nose,
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ff sub.
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and the cake rolled on the sand,
and he spiked that cake on the
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mf
3
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ff
3
mf
3
ff
7 68
horn
of his nose,
and he
and he went away, waving his
ate it,
tail,
5 8
to
the
desolate and
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3 8
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5 8
pp
mf
ff
73
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Exclusively Uninhabited Interior
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which abuts on the islands of Mazanderan, Socotra, and the Promontories of the Larger Equinox.
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mp
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Slow
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Then the Parsee came down from cited the his palm-tree and put the following Sloka, stove on its legs and re-
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3
3
3
II
III
IV
pont.
pp
p
ppp
which, as you have not heard, I will now proceed to relate:
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Them that takes cakes
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flautando
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arco
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col legno w/ L.H. pizz.
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pp
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ppp
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