Wednesday, February 27, 2008
the manners and mores of relationships in the urban age
Programme Notes
by Andrea Budgey
Seymour Barab: (arr. Peter Stoll): Songs of Perfect Propriety, text by Dorothy Parker
Stephen Chatman: Dandy Man, text by Jurgen Dankieff
Jean Coulthard: Tarantella, text by Hilaire Belloc
Omar Daniel: You Are Where You Are, text by Yann Martel
Lee Hoiby: Two Women, text by Tennessee Williams and Dorothy Parker
Kurt Weill: (arr. Laura Jones): Four Songs from 'One Touch of Venus', text by Ogden Nash
This programme has been designed as an exploration of “the manners and mores of relationships in the urban age” - the relationships in question are predominantly those of romantic attraction, but those between (and within) social classes are also an important component of the picture. The poets represented are primarily male (although sometimes adopting a female voice); the exception, of course, is Dorothy Parker, whose brilliantly but unmercifully acerbic eye for hypocrisy, inequity, and self-delusion was turned as often on herself as on others. The musical settings dance lightly around the conventions which maintain appearances in this elaborately constructed environment, but also highlight the fractures which allow the genuine and inescapable emotions of the dramatic protagonists to seep out. The readings from Miss Manners maintain the same rather brittle tone, but insist on civility and consideration as the keys to perfect propriety.
Seymour Barab (1921- ) – Songs of Perfect Propriety, arr. for voice, wind trio and piano by Peter Stoll (1959/2008)
The American composer Seymour Barab is known primarily for his more than 30 short operas, many of them for young or amateur performers. He also enjoyed a twenty-year career as a professional orchestral cellist and viola da gamba player, with particular interests in both new music and early music.
Songs of Perfect Propriety is a set of twenty-four world-weary lyrics by Dorothy Parker, of which eight have been arranged by Peter Stoll for this evening's programme. Each poses a challenge to the composer and arranger by virtue of its brevity, and in each case the challenge has been met with a perfectly pointed miniature. In the first song, a rhythmic ostinato frames the bloodthirsty, buccaneering text, with an abrupt change of key and mood at the dolcissimo conclusion. 'Inventory' is a cock-eyed waltz, and in 'Symptom Recital' the angularity of the vocal and instrumental lines moves inexorably toward the denouement. 'A Very Short Song' is more bittersweet, with an unstable, shifting lyricism; 'One Perfect Rose' begins in similar vein, but is soon sabotaged by sardonic chromaticism. Each verse of 'Love Song' moves from apparent simplicity of sentiment and sonority to sour disillusionment. The melodic and rhythmic restraint – almost stasis – of 'Chant for Dark Hours' underlines the delay and frustration of the text, while the denser textures and figurations of 'Coda' sweep the work to its inescapable conclusion.
Stephen Chatman (1950- ) – Dandyman, for voice and flute (1974)
Born and trained in the United States, Stephen Chatman has been head of the composition division at the University of British Columbia since 1976; aside from his own considerable output, he has trained and mentored many prominent Canadian composers. Dandyman dates from a period of his work (before 1982) characterized by virtuosity, semi-aleatoric combinations, atonality, and an emphasis on colour and contrast. The dramatic interplay of vocal soloist and instrumentalist frames the singer's headlong pursuit of the “Dandyman” with movement, lighting, extended vocal and instrumental techniques, “occasional” percussion, extremes of melodic and rhythmic complexity, and a highly idiosyncratic amalgam of colloquial German and “American” English – more readily experienced than described! The composer's instruction that the flute player ought to be male suggests that the musician is intended actually to represent the “Dandyman” and to interact with the singer accordingly.
Jean Coulthard (1908-2000): Tarantella from Two Night Songs for voice, string quartet, and piano (1960)
British Columbia composer and teacher Jean Coulthard was a major force in Canadian music for several decades, during which time she not only taught, but continued to refine her own work by seeking the advice of other composers, most notably Vaughan Williams, Copland, Schoenberg, Milhaud, Bartók, and Nadia Boulanger. Tarantella sets a text by the British writer (and occasional versifier and humourist) Hilaire Belloc. The piece begins reflectively, with quasi-recitativo phrases set against more active instrumental lines, but soon sweeps into a mood of ironically energetic nostalgia. The brisk, dancing alternation of 6/8 and 4/8 metres underlines the playfulness of the rhyme-scheme, and the almost inconsequential eccentricity of the text. The final Lento dramatico recalls the opening, and emphasises that the swirling activity of the piece is merely a memory of figures now dead, overcome by the inexorable movement of history.
Omar Daniel (1960- ) – You Are Where You Are for voice and piano quintet (2004)
Omar Daniel received his D Mus from the University of Toronto, where he studied with John Beckwith. His music – orchestral, vocal, and works – has been performed throughout Canada, and in the USA, Europe, and Great Britain, and he is the recipient of a number of awards. Since 2000, he has taught at the University of Western Ontario, as director of the Composition, Electroacoustic Research and Performance Facility; he has also served as a producer for the Marquis Classics label.
You Are Where You Are, a setting of five short texts by Yann Martel, was commissioned by the Artists of the Royal Conservatory and premiered during a European tour in Stockholm in 2004. The cycle follows a series of mundane and fragmentary urban encounters, interior monologues, and cell-phone conversations, at a yoga class, an office, a supermarket, a travel agent, and in church, elevating them to art while retaining for the hearer an uneasy impression of eavesdropping. Throughout the richly varied instrumental accompaniment, often orchestral in its complexity, Daniel often uses the strings and piano separately, allowing the effect of integration when they come together to provide a sense of rare insight and self-understanding for the rather scattered protagonist of an emotional narrative only hinted at.
Lee Hoiby (1926- ) – Two Women for soprano, clarinet, and piano (op. 45)
Lee Hoiby, born in Wisconsin, originally planned a career as a concert pianist, but changed his mind when he was invited to study composition with Gian Carlo Menotti at the Curtis Institute. Menotti’s influence led Hoiby in the direction of opera, and his dramatic works have been presented by the Spoleto Festival, the New York City Opera, the Des Moines Metro Opera, the Dallas Opera, and Pacific Opera Victoria in British Columbia, as well as on and off Broadway; he has recently completed work on an operatic setting of Romeo and Juliet.
The two women represented here are both involved in conversations of which we hear only one side explicitly: the solo clarinet sketches in the rhythm and affect of their interlocutors' responses, but we are left to deduce verbal content from the women's part of the dialogue. Tennessee Williams' Miss Alma uses the telephone in her pursuit of an apparently hesitant gentleman, perhaps to provide her with a boldness she lacks in face-to-face encounters; certainly the device provokes her to bursts of nervous (but highly virtuosic) laughter. Dorothy Parker's female protagonist reveals her thoughts in a series of acerbic asides, as her enthusiastic but incompetent dance-partner keeps straying from waltz metre into a halting 4/4. Eventually, however, he seems to develop a degree of rhythmic fluency, and the singer's final “I could go on for ever” may even contain an element of sincerity.
Kurt Weill (1900-1950): Four Songs from 'One Touch of Venus', arr. for voice and string quartet by Laura Jones (1943/2007)
When Kurt Weill left Europe in 1935, he more or less abandoned the aesthetic of rigorous social criticism which had informed his collaborations with such playwrights as Bertold Brecht and Georg Kaiser, choosing instead the populist and even commercial constraints of the Broadway musical. What he retained from his earlier work, however, was a highly cultivated approach to theatrical forms and the development of character, and One Touch of Venus, based on a book by Ogden Nash and S.J. Perelman, shares with Weill's European theatre works a vividly satirical approach to social values and customs. The piece opened in October of 1943 and ran for 567 performances. It tells the story of a shy barber who falls in love with a miraculously animated statue of Venus, and the complications which arise from his pre-existing engagement and her dread of the tedium of suburban life.
This scenario allows for ironic and bittersweet comment on relations between the sexes in mid-20th-century America, presented in the relaxed and syncopated language of popular musical forms. The string quartet, in this arrangement, fulfills the task of the theatre orchestra, while the clarinet (and bass clarinet) punctuate the vocal line, sometimes with offhand comments and sometimes with sympathetic agreement. It is worth noting that Marlene Dietrich, originally booked to play the title role, decided that it was "too sexy and profane”, and withdrew from the production during rehearsals.