'Twas Brillig - Camarata Chorus & Orchestra



Here's a rare treat: A cover of the short chorus that the Cheshire Cat sings to himself in Alice in Wonderland. This chorus was originally written by Lewis Carroll for his book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, with music by Oliver Wallace. It is part of the much longer poem, Jabberwocky, which is made up of many nonsense words. Humpty Dumpty offers Alice an explanation of many of these words:

Brillig — Four o'clock in the afternoon: the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.

Slithy — Combination of "slimy" and "lithe."

Tove - A combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew. They are very curious looking creatures which make their nests under sundials and eat only cheese.

Gyre — To go round and round like a gyroscope.

Gimble — To make holes as does a gimlet.

Wabe — The grass plot around a sundial. It is called a "wabe" because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it, and a long way beyond it on each side.

Mimsy — Combination of "miserable" and "flimsy"

Borogove — A thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round, "something like a live mop".

Mome — Possibly short for "from home," meaning that the raths had lost their way.

Rath — A sort of green pig.

In the preface of his book, Carroll notes that gyre and gimble are pronounced with a hard g, and that slithy is pronounced like two words: sly and thee. The Cheshire Cat gets everything right, but Tutti Camarata and his Chorus gets all of this wrong. It also sounds like they are singing borogroves instead of borogoves.

It's a fine cover and the added bridge, which is not part of the original poem, is a nice addition to what would be a very repetitive song. However, it does bug me that they didn't pronounce those words correctly.

This song can be found on the 1957 Disneyland LP record ALICE IN WONDERLAND: MUSIC FROM THE SCORE which features new arrangements of the music from the film by Tutti Camarata. The entire album is available exclusively through iTunes.

Labels: alice in wonderland, alice in wonderland lp, jazz, tutti camarata, twas brillig

  ¶ 2:25 PM