Murray Adaskin: A Simple Song Without Words
Michael Baker: Vocalise
Henry Cowell: Vocalise
David Diamond: Three Vocalises
Morton Feldman: Voice, Violin and Piano
Harry Freedman: Toccata
Mieczyslaw Kolinski: Concertino
André Previn: Vocalise
Abigail Richardson: Agon
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Three Vocalises
Heitor Villa-Lobos: two movements from Suite for Voice and Violin


The world’s first music was, in all likelihood, produced by the human voice, and in many of the world’s cultures it is the singing (or chanting) voice which bears the weight of ritual and magic. Even a wordless lament has a meaning guaranteed by context and expectation. Of course, relatively few cultures have created a category of purely abstract music, even for instruments, and abstract music for the human voice, intentionally devoid of textual significance, is a rarity even in western art music. A programme such as this therefore has certain built-in tensions: between our enjoyment of music for its own sake, as experienced listeners of art music, on the one hand, and our older, deeper expectation that a human voice must be saying – or at least meaning – something.

The composers represented in this programme have approached this dichotomy in different ways. Most have endeavoured to treat the voice, as far as possible, as an equal partner in a work of instrumental chamber music: Michael Baker’s Vocalise, for example, also exists in an alternative, purely instrumental scoring, while Morton Feldman’s restriction of the vocal timbre to a hum helps to shift the voice-part away from conventional expectations of “human” sound production; Kolinski’s Concertino would also be very effective with two woodwind soloists, and Previn and Vaughan Williams have created works in which the voice and the other melodic instrument are equal colleagues, with only subtle idiomatic distinctions between them. Henry Cowell’s Vocalise alludes to non-western musics in which instruments traditionally shadow and support the voice; he “westernizes” by giving the melodic instrument greater autonomy than in the borrowed traditions, but reduces the piano to the role of a pitched percussion instrument – here it is the voice which begins in a position of “advantage”. David Diamond’s three movements implicate the viola, as well as the voice, in melodic gestures suggestive of operatic expression, without abandoning the polite restraints of a miniature form – the “meaning”, insofar as the hearer likes to imagine one, is a matter of reminiscence and association.

Other composers, however, have felt it necessary to specify more precisely the pattern of vowels and consonants to be used by the singer. Villa-Lobos, at least in the “Sertaneja” movement, employs the sort of syllables (and even short, de-contextualized phrases) so characteristic of traditional vocal dance music; this practice is sometimes described as an imitation of instrumental articulations, but its origins are difficult to trace. Harry Freedman has given the singer syllables borrowed from improvisatory scat-singing – another case of the voice imitating instrumental sound, perhaps – but has also included the “dah, dit” sounds of Morse code, hinting lightly at encoded meanings too fleeting to be grasped by the hearer. Abigail Richardson’s Agon is less prescriptive with respect to its “text” – only a few syllables are suggested at key points, and the singers are, for the most part, given considerable freedom in choosing what phonemes to use – but of all the pieces on the programme, Agon is the most tightly defined with respect to its meaning, one might even say its “plot”. Richardson describes the interaction of her vocal “ant-agonists” in explicit terms, and the expressive markings include such instructions as “Start to get competitive”, “sickly sweet”, “angrily”, and “triumphantly”. Ultimately, the effectiveness of such a dramatic presentation depends on an understanding between composer and audience, either by means of an explanatory note or through cultural expectation.

Murray Adaskin (1906-2002) – A Simple Tune without Words, for soprano, piano, and percussion (1981/1996)
This entertaining snippet borrows a melodic line from Adaskin’s 1981 work March No. 3, and sets it for untexted voice accompanied by a single instrumentalist playing (briefly) piano, and rather unorthodox – perhaps pseudo-oriental? – percussion.

Michael Baker (1941- ) – Vocalise, for voice, violin, and piano (1981)
The vocal part of this compact work is perhaps the most explicitly “instrumentally” conceived on the programme, since the composer has also provided for performance by violin, clarinet, and guitar. The two upper parts present very similar, wide-ranging melodic material in alternation and in parallel, while the piano part provides, for the most part, a densely accompanimental contrast. The work arches gradually upward in texture and dynamic intensity, slowing rather than accelerating into an espressivo climax, before ending in a collective whisper.

Henry Cowell (1897-1965) – Vocalise for soprano, flute, and piano (1936)
An ethnomusicologist (and polymath) as well as a composer, Cowell urged his contemporaries to “draw on those materials common to the music of all the peoples of the world, to build a new music particularly related to our own century”. Vocalise is one of a group of works from the 1930s in which he took his own advice quite explicitly: these pieces use a variety of deceptively simple and repetitive rhythmic patterns, and modal melodies reminiscent of Asian and African models. Here the piano part is reduced to a single line, with the strings damped to give it a primarily percussive rather than melodic effect, and the voice and flute intertwine in winding, conjunct, consonant figures far removed from the angular modernism so prevalent in the period.

David Diamond (1915-2005) – Vocalises for voice and viola (1935/1956)
Diamond’s Vocalises are dedicated to Virgil Thomson, and reflect a musical ethos which the two composers shared: a balance of expression and restraint, with the integrity of musical craft never undermined by “mere” showmanship. In the first two movements, the voice and viola exchange similar melodic material in partnership, alluding to an operatic range of emotion without transgressing the bounds of the chamber form. The third movement is based on more straightforwardly melodic ostinato material, which the performers exchange and develop in an intimate give-and-take.

Morton Feldman (1926-1987) – Voice, Violin and Piano (1976)
While Feldman’s compositions during the 1950s and ‘60s were often notated in graphic form, and offered the performers considerable freedom, he returned, in the 1970s, to very precise notation. In Voice, Violin and Piano, the voice is used as a pure timbre, juxtaposed with those of the violin and piano in complex but slow-moving melodic and rhythmic cells. The overall effect is one of transparency, subtlety, and mystery, heightened by the work’s very precision and by the completely non-verbal – almost unearthly – role of the singer, who is given the challenging task of humming throughout, rather than using even the basic vowel sounds common to most vocalise.

Harry Freedman (1922-2005) – Toccata for soprano and flute (1968)
Freedman composed this brief, single-movement work for Mary Morrison and Robert Aitken (then colleagues in the Lyric Arts Trio), in part as a counterweight to the serious contemporary works which they often performed; he “decided to write something that was sheer fun but that also displayed the pure, instrumental quality of Mary’s voice and how beautifully it blends with the flute”. That said, he nevertheless set the vocal part in complex syllables which seem to refer to scat-singing, and to such extra-melodic effects as Morse code, inviting the hearer to impose more-than-instrumental meaning on the vocal line.

Mieczyslaw Kolinski (1901-1981) – Concertino for soprano, clarinet, and piano (1974)
Kolinski’s distinguished career as a composer, ethnomusicologist, music therapist, and editor took him from Berlin to Brussels, New York, and Toronto. His compositional style might be described as “eclectic” – he was a restrained modernist, but not an adherent of any particular school or style, and characterised his own larger works as possessing a “transparent complexity”. The Concertino, like Michael Baker’s Vocalise, gives the voice a rigorously instrumental treatment, in a substantial and demanding four-movement form, neo-classical in its structure, and increasingly adventurous in its tonality and rhythmic irregularity as the work progresses.

André Previn (1929- ) – Vocalise for soprano, cello & piano (1995)
This long-breathed and lyrical work was written for Sylvia McNair, Yo-Yo Ma, and the composer at Tanglewood during the summer of 1995 (and recorded the day after its composition!). The disposition of the parts suggests complete collegiality and partnership, as all three “instruments” move in simple but expansive melodic and tonal arcs, not so much modulating as migrating from one loosely defined modal area to another. The alternation of consonance and dissonance colours the leisurely journey, rather than driving it forward. The vocal part is written without any suggestion of a “text”, leaving the singer to choose which sounds best match her instrumental partners.

Abigail Richardson (1976- ) – Agon, for soprano, mezzo-soprano, and string quartet (2005)
This work was commissioned by the Talisker Players, with the support of the Laidlaw Foundation. The piece is strongly dramatically conceived; in the composer’s words:

The title Agon refers to an ancient Greek verbal contest between two characters in a play. Instead of using words, this competition pits vocal capabilities. The piece begins hesitantly, as the soprano is unsure of the mezzo but gradually learns to trust her. Their relationship evolves into a competitive one, much like sibling rivalry, in which each tries to out-perform the other. During this time, the soprano is often trying to steal lines from the mezzo. Eventually they arrive at a cadenza-like section in which each singer gets a chance to display her capabilities. From here, the singers battle it out briefly, with the soprano appearing victorious. She gloats, and the piece begins to “wrap”, but the mezzo laments, and manipulates the soprano, soon gaining control and winning the day.

Appropriately enough, the string quartet functions as a Greek chorus, sometimes commenting on the action and sometimes moving it forward. Towards the end of the piece, the players are even asked to sing while they play, neatly reversing this programme’s emphasis on the singer as an instrumentalist!

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) – Three Vocalises for soprano and clarinet (1958)
The Three Vocalises date from the last year of Vaughan Williams’ life, and may be seen as a final distillation of the melodic pastoralism which informed so much of his instrumental music. Voice and clarinet function as a beautifully balanced woodwind duo, but each part is also treated completely idiomatically – a consistent element in Vaughan Williams’ musical craft. The singer is left to select the phonemes which will most closely match the timbre of the clarinet. The relaxed, at times quasi-improvisatory, prelude is followed by a briskly controlled scherzo, and a gentle menuetto with an almost matter-of-fact conclusion.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) – Suite for voice and violin (1923): “Quéro ser alégre”, “Sertaneja”
This Suite dates from Villa-Lobos’ trip to Paris in 1923, following his “discovery” by Darius Milhaud and Artur Rubinstein, and it draws inspiration from the colourful exoticism popular among Parisian composers of the day, as well as from the traditional idioms of Villa-Lobos’ native Brazil. Despite the implicit wistfulness of the title “Quéro ser alégre” (“I would like to be happy”), this first movement is completely untexted, and the sense of longing is expressed as much in the restlessness of the virtuoso violin part as in the vocal line. “Sertaneja”, on the other hand, is a hectic dance, and the singer is given the sort of vocables – essentially meaningless syllables and short phrases – which seem to be a feature of vocal dance music over much of the globe.