MUSIC AND ART HIGH SCHOOL SONG
"NOW UPWARD IN WONDER"
"NOW UPWARD IN WONDER"
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"Now upward in wonder
Our distant glance is turning Where brightly through ages The immortal light is burning- Our task unending, Defending, That realm above, 'Til dull and lifeless things have caught A beauty That our daring dreams Have brought-" |
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Lyricist - Edward Scribner Cobb
(faculty at M&A until the winter of 1945) |
Composer - Brahms
(from Finale Symphony No. 1) |
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When were the lyrics for the school song created and by whom?
An excerpt From the first yearbook for the High School of Music and Art (Spring of 1940) Page 106 – “A school song fitting enough must come from the classics, and the theme from the last movement of Brahms’ First held the fort for two years until Hayden took over, but not for long. Brahms returned with flags and exalted lyrics flying.” E. Scribner Cobb (music teacher at HSMA from 1936 - 1945), was noted as writing the lyrics for Now Upward In Wonder. |
M&A alumnus Walter Gray (Class of 1948) stated the following:
“In my day (which was several days before yesterday), the closing line of the school song was:
“. . . A beauty that daring dreams have wrought.” Not “our” (which is also not in your sheet music illustration) and I’m as sure as can be that Mr. Cobb would have used “wrought” rather than “brought.”
I’ve seen and heard many variations of the lyrics, but this editor bows to the experience of Mr. Gray, who attended the school when Mr. Cobb first wrote our song.
“In my day (which was several days before yesterday), the closing line of the school song was:
“. . . A beauty that daring dreams have wrought.” Not “our” (which is also not in your sheet music illustration) and I’m as sure as can be that Mr. Cobb would have used “wrought” rather than “brought.”
I’ve seen and heard many variations of the lyrics, but this editor bows to the experience of Mr. Gray, who attended the school when Mr. Cobb first wrote our song.
The Life of Edward Scribner Cobb (Written by Pete Salwen, M&A '62)
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Edward Scribner Cobb, or sometimes "Scribner Cobb," was born in 1907 in Niigata, Japan, the son and namesake of Rev. E.S. Cobb, a Congregational minister and professor and also a bit of a musician himself. He went to Amherst, where he studied poetry with Robert Frost and won a major intercollegiate poetry prize, the Glascock, one of the oldest in the U.S., in 1930. According to his obituary he was also "a student under the late Arnold Schoenberg" (possibly while Schoenberg was briefly in Boston in 1933-34) and wrote compositions that included a Symphony in F and a Suite for Two Flutes and Strings, which both premiered with the Rochester Philharmonic under Howard Hanson. Another source describes Cobb as a conductor and says he "played every instrument in the orchestra."
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In June 1931 Cobb married another musician, composer and teacher, Ida Bostelman, at a friend's apartment on West 79th Street. A Juilliard graduate, Ida would eventually publish around 140 compositions, studies and songs, including many for children. They lived on Riverside Drive, and for several years Cobb taught privately and at schools around the tri-state region. He joined the M&A faculty either as soon as the school started up (as per your account) or soon after, where he taught instrumental music and also organized and directed the music theory department. He left M&A in 1945 to join the music faculty at Montclair State Teachers College in New Jersey. But in July 1951 he died "after a month's illness" at St. Luke's Hospital in Morningside Heights. He was just 43, or as I see it now, only a kid.
I'm strangely touched by all this, and I find it gives me real joy to think of us thousands of M&Aers nostalgically singing his somewhat hokey but affecting lyrics all these years later.
I'm strangely touched by all this, and I find it gives me real joy to think of us thousands of M&Aers nostalgically singing his somewhat hokey but affecting lyrics all these years later.
For the historians: Edward Scribner Cobb and his wife, Ida Cobb (Bostelman), also had a musically talented daughter named Joan Cobb. Check out the life and career of another Cobb.
MIDIS
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SATB Midi
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Alto Midi
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Tenor Midi
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Bass Midi
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