In this song, the lovely shepherdess of the title bemoans her abandonment by a feckless lover. The music takes an appropriately lugubrious pace; the brief orchestral lead-in introduces the song's melody with soaring strings and ends its first full phrase with a little harmonic jab worthy of Mahler or Strauss. The vocalist soon enters, each of her phrases following the contour of an arch, creeping up with longing, then falling with disappointment. Canteloube's orchestration is fairly rich in the beginning, but thins out significantly by the final verse, evoking the shepherdess' abandonment through the reduced musical texture.

A lovely shepherdess

One morning,

Seated on the grass,

Wept for her lover:

"Now is the time

When I should see him returning!

To some other shepherdess

He has given his heart!

"Ah, poor shepherdess!

Here am I deserted

Like a turtledove

That has lost its mate!"

© All Music Guide

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This song, entitled "Go, dog, go!" lasts less than a minute, but is

full of vivid action. It is based on the calls of a farmer to a dog, and

is astonishingly realistic in its depiction of the commands, signals,

and inflections a farmer uses to give orders to the working dog. The music

is brilliantly arranged—it doesn't bring the farmer, dog, and cows into

the music hall, but rather brings the listener out into the field to

watch and listen to the quick scene.

The commands are ones that any dog owner will be familiar with, "Go,

catch her [the runaway cow], faster, get her, good, drop it, come!" The

music catches the vocal inflections exactly, and perfectly captures the

moment, all in less than one minute. The song also uses the non-verbal

commands, such as a long, rolled "r, " while the instruments depict the

dog running to head off the runaway cow.

© All Music Guide

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