THE REVOLUTIONARY RHYTHMS AND IMAGERY
OF AMERICAN POETRY
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Programme Notes
by Andrea Budgey
Morton Feldman: The O'Hara Songs, text by Frank O'Hara
Lucas Foss: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, text by Wallace Stevens
Osvaldo Golijov: How Slow the Wind, text by Emily Dickinson
Libby Larson: Saints Without Tears, text by Phyllis McGinley
André Previn: Three Songs of Toni Morrison
Alexander Rapoport: Chicago Portraits, text by Carl Sandburg
The works on this evening’s concert are all settings of texts by American poets, three men and three women, one of the 19th century, and five whose output comes primarily or entirely from the 20th century. The title comes from a poem by Wallace Stevens: “After the leaves have fallen, we return to the plain sense of things…”, and refers to a characteristic aspect of the distinctively American literary style which developed through this period. Its poets, for all they were versed in the European tradition, sought not to copy the romantic adjectival flights of earlier European generations, but to craft a plainer, more vernacular medium for expressing the same emotional depths, an unvarnished language in which common speech and everyday objects could be accommodated with profound seriousness. The “poetry” of their work lies not in superficial verbal colours or ornaments, but in the structures, situations, and concerns – the “bare branches” – of the poems.
Of the 20th-century poets represented, Wallace Stevens may be said to follow most closely in the line of Emily Dickinson, with the poetic line reflecting the rhythms of everyday speech, even when the vocabulary is rich and the most profound questions are under consideration. Frank O'Hara combined the influences of Symbolism and Surrealism with a taut personal immediacy. He once said of his work: “It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial.” A commitment to the use of a rugged vernacular and to the reality of life in working-class America characterize Carl Sandburg’s poetry, reflecting his own origins, the time he spent as a labourer, and his deeply-held socialist convictions; while in Toni Morrison's work, we find a distillation of poetic influences, an extraordinary ability to peer at the world through the eyes of others, and, occasionally, the rhythms of African-American speech. Phyllis McGinley's verse is perhaps the most conventional on this programme, in its use of rhyme and metre, but it crackles with a dry, objective wit, inventive rhyme, and clear-eyed generosity of spirit.
Morton Feldman (1926-1987): The O'Hara Songs for voice, violin, viola, cello, piano, and chimes (1962) poetry by Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)
American composer Morton Feldman studied with Wallingford Riegger and Stefan Wolpe, but was in many ways more influenced by Anton Webern and John Cage, as well as by his New York contemporaries in the visual and literary arts. He departed from the mathematical structures of late serialism to write structures which were still profoundly mathematical in their inspiration, but with a significant element of indeterminacy. His notation is often highly unconventional, using systems such as grids to convey musical meaning.
Feldman's later works were often very long, almost static, successions of quiet sounds (String Quartet II, his longest work, is over six hours in duration). By comparison, the relatively early work The O'Hara Songs is a miniature; it also uses traditional staff notation to guide the performers. O'Hara's unsettling text is robbed of its speech rhythm, and stretched over sustained instrumental sonorities. These, however, are always rather spare – the first movement uses only violin and cello, the second, piano and chimes, and the third, solo viola. The complete poem is presented in the outer movements, but the middle movement simply sets the phrase “Who'd have thought that snow falls” to a repeated falling figure, which takes on an inexorable character before the movement ends.
Lukas Foss (1922- ): Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird for voice, flute, piano and percussion (1978) poetry by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
The German-born American composer Lukas Foss studied piano, flute, theory, composition, orchestration, and conducting from an early age; by the time he was 20, his teachers had included Louis Moyse, Fritz Reiner, Isabelle Vengerova, Paul Hindemith, and Serge Koussevitzky. His compositions include works for stage, orchestra, chamber, chorus, voice, and piano, and his career has included conducting appointments with American and Israeli orchestras, as well as teaching appointments at UCLA, Tanglewood, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University, the Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, and Boston University.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is, in many ways, highly characteristic of Foss’ compositional style. The solo voice presents Wallace Stevens’ poetry, in thirteen brief, almost fragmentary movements, combining soaring phrases with hushed whispering, and a tape delay echoes the effects of the voice three seconds later. The flute conveys the many moods of the poems and the many manifestations of the blackbird, using a variety of extended techniques. The piano (its lid removed) and the percussion combine to produce an extraordinary range of mysterious and atmospheric effects, using such devices as triangle beaters, cowbells, and Japanese bowls directly on the piano strings, creating an ideal framework for the allusive, even gnomic text.
Osvaldo Golijov (1960- ): How Slow the Wind for soprano, clarinet, and string quartet (2001) poetry by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Osvaldo Golijov grew up in Argentina and moved to Israel in 1983, where he studied at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy. In 1986 he moved to the University of Pennsylvania, and studied with George Crumb and Oliver Knussen. He has collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, and has been composer-in-residence at the Spoleto USA Festival, Marlboro Music, Ravinia, and several other festivals. He has taught at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, since 1991, and is also on the faculties of the Boston Conservatory and the Tanglewood Music Center.
How Slow the Wind was originally composed for voice and string quartet, a commission for the “Close Encounters with Music” series at Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood in 2001; the current arrangement dates from the following year. This through-composed setting of two short lyrics by Emily Dickinson, was also, for Golijov, a response to the death of his friend Mariel Stubrin. He has written: “I had in mind one of those seconds in life that is frozen in the memory, forever – a sudden death, a single instant in which life turns upside down, different from the experience of death after a long agony.” The string quartet functions as a natural ambience for the wistful interplay of voice and clarinet, with the first violin sometimes stepping out of the quartet texture to offer its own reflections.
Libby Larsen (1950- ): Saints Without Tears for soprano, flute, and bassoon (1975) poetry by Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)
Libby Larsen studied with Dominick Argento, and is the composer of more than four hundred works, including vocal pieces, chamber and orchestral music, and a dozen operas. She co-founded, in 1973, the Minnesota Composers Forum, and has been composer-in-residence with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, and the Colorado Symphony. Her most recent work is an operatic adaptation of the play Picnic, by William Inge, premiered at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in April of this year. Of her philosophy of composition, she has said: “I want to give the listener not the sound of the bird so much as the feeling of flying, not the footsteps on the mountain so much as the sense of climbing.”
Saint without tears sets five witty and gently sardonic texts by Phyllis McGinley, humorous vignettes of popular saints: Anthony of Egypt, Bridget of Ireland, Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila and Thomas More. The largely regular metres of the verse are offset by Larsen's lively use of rhythm – syncopation and cross-rhythm – and by the colourful interplay of the woodwinds with the vocal part. Moments of tonal and melodic surprise counterpoint the texts' juxtaposition of traditional metre with irreverent tone. The overall movement of the set is from the distant past to the less alien 16th century, and from detachment to genuine feeling.
André Previn (1929- ): Three Songs for voice, cello, and piano (1994) poetry by Toni Morrison (1931- )
André Previn was born in Germany, grew up (from the age of ten) in Los Angeles, and has enjoyed a career as a conductor, pianist and composer in the USA and England, including an eleven-year stint as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra. His work includes orchestral, film, and chamber music, and, more recently, opera: A Streetcar Named Desire was premiered in 1998, and Brief Encounter in May of this year. He is also a jazz pianist, and the influence of jazz is often to be heard in his compositions.
His Songs, composed for soprano Sylvia McNair and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, are settings of unrelated poems by the Nobel-prize-winning poet Toni Morrison, rich in imagery and polyvalent in meaning. Previn's treatment of these texts echoes their lyricism, and the contrast between the universality of emotional expression (in “Mercy” and “Shelter”) and the particularity of the individual (in “Stones”). The cello functions as a second voice, in wordless dialogue with the singer, while the piano part serves as a backdrop and support for – and occasional commentator on – their conversation. The influence of jazz is particularly noticeable in “Stones”, where the cello functions as the bass of a trio texture.
Alexander Rapoport (1957- ): Chicago Songs for baritone, violin, viola, cello, bass, and percussion poetry by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Toronto composer Alexander Rapoport studied at the Hochschule für Music und darstellende Kunst in Vienna, and at the University of Toronto. He teaches composition and music theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music and at the University of Toronto. His setting of Sandburg’s Chicago Songs was written for the Talisker Players on a commission funded by the Laidlaw Foundation; it was first performed in 2002, and revised for this evening's programme.
Carl Sandburg worked as a labourer and travelled as a hobo before becoming a writer, political organizer, and reporter. His Chicago Songs are vigorously colloquial portraits of working men in strenuous, dangerous occupations, self-confident, even belligerent – “red-blooded”, to use one of Sandburg’s favourite images – and secure in their places in life. The rhythmic drive of Rapoport’s musical settings reflects Sandburg’ vision of American life, using the syncopations of swing for
“Jack”, a brisk march for “Dynamiter”, a tarantella for “The Shovel Man”, and a quirky waltz for “Fish-Crier”. In “Ice Handler”, the voice and percussion exchange recitative over a repeated sustained pattern in the strings, and the metrical irregularity of “A Teamster’s Farewell” underlines the restless tone of the teamster on his way to prison.