Dark Eyes

I've been noticing a lot of dark-eyed juncos this winter here in Carlisle.  It seems to me that, while normally abundant, their numbers might be even as much as double the norm.  I could go and check the old Massachusetts bird sightings to be sure.

In any case, they are a fascinating little bird and very colorful, especially given the backdrop of snow that we have on the ground here.  Is it my imagination, or are there more of various other species, too?  I'm thinking particularly of the white-crowned sparrow, the downy woodpecker and the carolina wren.

Whenever I think about juncos, however, one of my favorite songs, Fair Phoebe and her Dark-eyed Sailor,
always pops into my head.  This turns up in two of my most special, and admittedly disparate, recordings: one by Steeleye Span and the English Idyll, number 2 by George Butterworth.  Be sure to listen to track 3 from this recording.  The opening (which is about all you get to hear) is a double-reed lover's delight.  The oboe plays the tune, while a pair of bassoons play a counter melody, in harmony.  Just wonderful!

No doubt, there are other settings that I don't know.  I've provided the link to my own page about Butterworth where you can see how highly I regard this great composer, but of course you can look him up in Wikipedia, or wherever too.

There's one other musical reference to dark eyes that immediately springs to mind: it's from Recondita armonia, Cavaradossi's first-scene aria from Puccini's Tosca.  His painting of the Madonna that he's working on has, somewhat to his own surprise, the wrong hair and eye color, i.e. not those of Tosca, his girlfriend.  This turns out to be a fatal mistake, literally!

• ... È bruna Floria,
• l'ardente amante mia.
•  ...
• E te beltade ignota,
• Chinta di chiome bionde,
• Tu azzuro hai l'occhio,
• Tosca ha l'occhio nero.

Floria, my passionate lover (Tosca) is a brunette, while you, the unknown image are blond and with blue eyes, Tosca has dark (literally black) eyes.