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Joan Szymko
Joan Szymko Music
Quite Regularly Gay
An excerpt from a Stein essay that is believed to contain the first modern literature usage of the word “gay” in the context of homosexuality.
SSAA, div. piano, soloist (opt. duet)
Gertrude Stein said: “A sound, a whole sound is not separation, a whole sound is in an order.” “Quite Regularly Gay” is indeed “in an order.” Part minimalist round, part Gilbert and Sullivan, this lively piece is a setting of an excerpt from a Stein essay that is believed to contain the first modern literature usage of the word “gay” in the context of homosexuality.
While the score looks very dense and complicated, the primary theme it is constructed as a round that comes to gather rather quickly. The challenge lies in part independence.
Text
They were regularly gay. They were gay every day.
They ended every day in the same way, at the same time, and
they had been every day regularly gay.
To be regularly gay was to do every day the gay thing that
they did every day. To be regularly gay was to end every
day at the same time after they had been regularly gay.
They were regular in being gay,they learned little things
that are things in being gay, they learned many little things
that are things in being gay, they were gay every day, they
were regular,they were gay, they were gay the same length
of time every day,they were gay, they were quite regularly gay.
She came to using many ways in being gay, she came to use
every way in being gay. She went on living where many
were cultivating something and she was gay, she had used
every way to be gay.
– Excerpted by the composer from “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene,” an essay from Geography and Plays (1922) by Gertrude Stein
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