2. Fury Said to a Mouse

“Fury Said to a Mouse” comes from Chapter III of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (pg. 17 in edition linked below). The poem is a “long and sad tale” told by the Mouse that Alice meets, and cleverly the poem resembles a tail on the page. Alice is confused by the pun (tale/tail), and fails to pay attention to the Mouse’s tale, as she’s too busy thinking about his tail.

The Nonsense Songs are a song cycle written by Liza Lehmann and published in 1908. The cycle was an immediate hit with British and American audiences alike, and was featured on Lehmann’s American concert tours in 1910. Of the cycle, the London Tribune wrote, “[Lehmann] has met Lewis Carroll on his own ground of delicate wit and humour, and clothed these old friends from Alice in Wonderland in dainty and sparkling musical raiment.”

Nick Kreider, baritone
Cwen Homa, piano

Filmed and recorded by Neill Campbell from Duckling Studios: https://www.ducklingstudios.com/

Sources:
Nonsense Songs, Liza Lehmann, 1908: https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/us...
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865: https://archive.org/details/AlicesAdv...
The Life of Liza Lehmann, Liza Lehmann, 1919 https://archive.org/details/lifeofliz...
Notes on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Hugh Haughton, Penguin Classics, 1998