Faculty Recital: Kerry Deal, Soprano—The Poetic Voice

CLAUDE DEBUSSY: Ariettes Oubliées              
C’est l’extase langoureuse
Il pleure dans mon coeur
L’ombre des arbres
Chevaux de bois
Green
Spleen 

ALMA SCHINDLER MAHLER: Die stille Stadt

MAHLER: Lobgesang

RICHARD STRAUSS: Wiegenlied

STRAUSS: Befreit

—INTERMISSION—

SERGEI RACHMANINOV: Они отвечали 

RACHMANINOV: Мелодия

RACHMANINOV: Муза

CHARLES GRIFFES: Three Poems of Fiona Macleod                                              
1. The Lament of Ian the Proud
2. Thy dark eyes to mine
3. The Rose of the Night

CLAUDE DEBUSSY: Ariettes Oubliées              
Poems by Paul Verlaine

C’est l’extase langoureuse (It is languorous ecstasy)

C’est l’extase langoureuse,
It is languorous ecstasy,

C’est la fatigue amoureuse,
It is amorous fatigue,

C’est tous les frissons des bois
It is all the tremors of the forest

Parmi l’étreinte des brises,
In the breezes’ embrace,

C’est, vers les ramures grises,
It is, around the grey branches,

Le chœur des petites voix.
The choir of tiny voices.

Ô le frêle et frais murmure!
O the delicate, fresh murmuring!

Cela gazouille et susurre,
The warbling and whispering,

Cela ressemble au cri doux
It is like the soft cry

Que l’herbe agitée expire …
The ruffled grass gives out …

Tu dirais, sous l’eau qui vire,
You would say, under the bending stream,

Le roulis sourd des cailloux.
The muffled sound of rolling pebbles.

Cette âme qui se lamente
This soul which grieves

En cette plainte dormante
In this subdued lament,

C’est la nôtre, n’est-ce pas?
It is ours, is it not?

La mienne, dis, et la tienne,
Mine, and yours too,

Dont s’exhale l’humble antienne
Breathing out our humble hymn

Par ce tiède soir, tout bas.
On this warm evening, soft and low?

Il pleure dans mon coeur (Tears fall in my heart)

Il pleure dans mon cœur
Tears fall in my heart

Comme il pleut sur la ville;
As rain falls on the town;

Quelle est cette langueur
What is this torpor

Qui pénètre mon cœur?
Pervading my heart?

Ô bruit doux de la pluie,
Ah, the soft sound of rain

Par terre et sur les toits!
On the ground and roofs!

Pour un cœur qui s'ennuie,
For a listless heart,

Ô le bruit dans la pluie
Ah, the sound of the rain!

Il pleure sans raison
Tears fall without reason

Dans ce cœur qui s'écœure.
In this disheartened heart.

Quoi! nulle trahison? …
What! Was there no treason? …

Ce deuil est sans raison
This grief’s without reason.

C’est bien la pire peine
And the worst pain of all

De ne savoir pourquoi
Must be not to know why

Sans amour et sans haine,
Without love and without hate

Mon cœur a tant de peine.
My heart feels such pain.

L’ombre des arbres (The shadow of trees)

L’ombre des arbres dans la rivière embrumée
The shadow of the trees in the misty river

Meurt comme de la fumée
Dies like smoke

Tandis qu’en l’air, parmi les ramures réelles,
While in the air, in the real branches,

Se plaignent les tourterelles.
The turtle-doves lament.

Combien, ô voyageur, ce paysage blême
How this faded landscape, O traveller, 

Te mira blême toi-même,
Watched you yourself fade

Et que tristes pleuraient dans les hautes feuillées
And how sadly in the lofty leaves

Tes espérances noyées!
Your drowned hopes were weeping!

Chevaux de bois (Horses of Wood)

Tournez, tournez, bons chevaux de bois,
Turn, turn, you fine wooden horses,

Tournez cent tours, tournez mille tours,
Turn a hundred turns, turn a thousand turns,

Tournez souvent et tournez toujours,
Turn often and turn always,

Tournez, tournez au son des hautbois.
Turn, turn to the oboe's sound.

L’enfant tout rouge et la mère blanche,
The red-faced child and the pale mother,

Le gars en noir et la fille en rose,
The lad in black and the girl in pink,

L’une à la chose et l’autre à la pose,
One down-to-earth, the other showing off,

Chacun se paie un sou de dimanche.
Each buying a treat with his Sunday sou.

Tournez, tournez, chevaux de leur cœur,
Turn, turn, horses of their hearts,

Tandis qu’autour de tous vos tournois
While the furtive pickpocket's eyes are flashing

Clignote l’œil du filou sournois,
As you whirl and whirl around,

Tournez au son du piston vainqueur!
Turn to the sound of the conquering cornet!

C’est étonnant comme ça vous soûle
Astonishing how drunk it makes you,

D’aller ainsi dans ce cirque bête:
Riding like this in this foolish fair:

Rien dans le ventre et mal dans la tête,
With an empty stomach and an aching head,

Du mal en masse et du bien en foule.
Discomfort in plenty and masses of fun!

Tournez, dadas, sans qu’il soit besoin
Gee-gees, turn, you'll never need

D’user jamais de nuls éperons
The help of any spur

Pour commander à vos galops ronds:
To make your horses gallop round:

Tournez, tournez, sans espoir de foin.
Turn, turn, without hope of hay.

Et dépêchez, chevaux de leur âme,
And hurry on, horses of their souls:

Déjà voici que sonne à la soupe
Nightfall already calls them to supper

La nuit qui tombe et chasse la troupe
And disperses the crowd of happy revellers,

De gais buveurs que leur soif affame.
Ravenous with thirst.

Tournez, tournez! Le ciel en velours
Turn, turn! The velvet sky

D’astres en or se vêt lentement.
Is slowly decked with golden stars.

L’église tinte un glas tristement.
The church bell tolls a mournful knell—

Tournez au son joyeux des tambours!
Turn to the joyful sound of drums!

Green

Voici des fruits, des fleurs, des feuilles et des branches
Here are flowers, branches, fruit, and fronds,

Et puis voici mon cœur qui ne bat que pour vous.
And here too is my heart that beats just for you.

Ne le déchirez pas avec vos deux mains blanches
Do not tear it with your two white hands

Et qu’à vos yeux si beaux l’humble présent soit doux.
And may the humble gift please your lovely eyes.

J’arrive tout couvert encore de rosée
I come all covered still with the dew

Que le vent du matin vient glacer à mon front.
Frozen to my brow by the morning breeze.

Souffrez que ma fatigue à vos pieds reposée
Let my fatigue, finding rest at your feet,

Rêve des chers instants qui la délasseront.
Dream of dear moments that will soothe it.

Sur votre jeune sein laissez rouler ma tête
On your young breast let me cradle my head

Toute sonore encore de vos derniers baisers;
Still ringing with your recent kisses;

Laissez-la s’apaiser de la bonne tempête,
After love’s sweet tumult grant it peace,

Et que je dorme un peu puisque vous reposez.
And let me sleep a while, since you rest.

Spleen

Les roses étaient toutes rouges
All the roses were red

Et les lierres étaient tout noirs.
And the ivy was all black.

Chère, pour peu que tu te bouges,
Dear, at your slightest move,

Renaissent tous mes désespoirs.
All my despair revives.

Le ciel était trop bleu, trop tendre,
The sky was too blue, too tender,

La mer trop verte et l’air trop doux.
The sea too green, the air too mild.

Je crains toujours,—ce qu’est d’attendre!—
I always fear—oh to wait and wonder!—

Quelque fuite atroce de vous.
One of your agonizing departures.

Du houx à la feuille vernie
I am weary of the glossy holly,

Et du luisant buis je suis las,
Of the gleaming box-tree too,

Et de la campagne infinie
And the boundless countryside

Et de tout, hélas, sauf de vous!
And everything, alas, but you!

ALMA SCHINDLER MAHLER: Die stille Stadt (The Silent Town)        
Poem by Richard Dehmel

Liegt eine Stadt im Tale,
A town lies in the valley,

ein blasser Tag vergeht;
a pallid day fades;

es wird nicht lang mehr dauern,
it will not be long now

bis weder Mond noch Sterne
before neither moon nor stars

nur Nacht am Himmel steht.
but only night will be seen in the sky.

Von allen Bergen drücken
From all the mountains

Nebel auf die Stadt;
fog presses down upon the town;

es dringt kein Dach, noch Hof noch Haus,
no roof may be discerned, no yard nor house,

kein Laut aus ihrem Rauch heraus,
no sound penetrates through the smoke,

kaum Türme noch und Brücken.
barely even a tower or a bridge.

Doch als der Wandrer graute,
But as the traveler became filled with dread

da ging ein Lichtlein auf im Grund;
a little light shone out;

und aus dem Rauch und Nebel
and from the smoke and fog

begann ein Lobgesang
began a song of praise

aus Kindermund.
from the mouths of children.

MAHLER: Lobgesang (Song of Praise)
Poem by Richard Dehmel

Wie das Meer ist die Liebe:
Love is like the ocean,

Unerschöpflich, unergründlich,
Inexhaustible, unfathomable,

unermeßlich:
Vast:

Woge zu Woge stürzend gehoben,
Wave to wave heaving and falling,

Woge von Woge wachsend verschlungen,
Wave from wave surging and plunging,

sturm-und-wetter-gewaltig nun,
Now powered by storm and weather,

sonneselig nun,
Now blessed by the sun,

willig nun dem Mond
Now obedient to the moon,

die unaufhaltsame Fläche —
The interminable expanse–

doch in der Tiefe
Yet in the deeps

Stetes Wirken ewiger Ruhe,
There is an eternal peace,

ungestört,
Unsubdued,

unentwirrbar dem irdischen Blick,
Immeasurable with earthly sight,

starr verdämmernd in gläsernes Dunkel—
Motionless, condemned to glassy darkness—

und in der Weite
And hovering in the distance

stetes Schweben ewiger Regung,
An eternal movement,

ungestillt,
Unsubdued,

unabsehrbar dem irdischen Blick,
Immeasurable with earthly sight,

mild verschwimmend im Licht der Lüfte:
Gently blurred in the light of the atmosphere,

Aufklang der Unendlichkeit,
An echo of eternity,

Der Unendlichkeit ist das Meer,
Eternity is the sea,

ist das Liebe.
Is love.

RICHARD STRAUSS: Wiegenlied (Cradle song)
Poem by Richard Dehmel

Träume, träume, du mein süßes Leben,
Dream, dream, my sweet life,

von dem Himmel, der die Blumen bringt.
of the heaven that brings flowers.

Blüten schimmern da, die beben
Shimmering there are blossoms that live on

Von dem Lied, das deine Mutter singt.
In the song your mother is singing.

Träume, träume, Knospe meiner Sorgen,
Dream, dream, bud of my worries

von dem Tage, da die Blume spross;
Of the day the flower bloomed,

von dem hellen Blütenmorgen,
Of the bright morning of blossoming

da dein Seelchen sich der Welt erschloss.
When your little soul opened up to the world.

Träume, träume, Blüte meiner Liebe
Dream, dream, blossom of love,

von der stillen, von der heil’gen Nacht,
Of the quiet, of the holy night,

da die Blume seiner Lieber
When the flower of his love,

diese Welt zum Himmel mir gemacht.
Made the world a heaven for me.

STRAUSS: Befreit (Freed)
Poem by Richard Dehmel

Du wirst nicht weinen. Leise, leise
You will not weep. Gently, gently

wirst du lächeln: und wie zur Reise
you will smile, and as before a journey,

geb' ich dir Blick und Kuß zurück.
I will return your gaze and your kiss.

Unsre lieben vier Wände! Du hast sie bereitet,
Our dear four walls you have helped build;

ich habe sie dir zur Welt geweitet;
and I have now widened them for you into the world.

o Glück!
O joy!

Dann wirst du heiß meine Hände fassen
Then you will warmly seize my hands

und wirst mir deine Seele lassen,
and you will leave me your soul,

lässt unsern Kindern mich zurück.
leaving me behind for our children.

Du schenktest mir dein ganzes Leben,
You gave me your entire life,

ich will es ihnen wiedergeben—
so I will give it again to them—

o Glück!
o joy!

Es wird sehr bald sein, wir wissen's beide,
It will be very soon, as we both know,

wir haben einander befreit vom Leide;
but we have freed each other from sorrow.

so gab’ ich dich der Welt zurück.
And so I return you to the world.

Dann wirst du mir nur noch im Traum erscheinen
Then you will only appear to me in dreams,

und mich segnen und mit mir weinen;
And bless me, and weep with me;

o Glück!
O joy!

SERGEI RACHMANINOV: Они отвечали  (They Answered) 
Poem by Lev Alexander Mey, after Victor Hugo

Спросили они: «Как в летучих челнах
“How,” the men asked,

Нам белою чайкой скользить на волнах
“with our tiny boats

Чтоб нас сторожа не догнали?»
can we escape the law?”

«Гребите» – они отвечали
“Row!” the women replied.

Спросили они: «Как забыть навсегда
“How,” the men asked,

Что в мире юдольном есть бедность, беда
“can we forget our quarrels,

Что есть в нем гроза и печали?»
poverty and perils?”

«Засните» – они отвечали
“Sleep,” the women replied.

Спросили они: «Как красавиц привлечь
“How,” asked the men,

Без чары, чтоб сами на страстную речь
“can we enchant beauties

Они к нам в объятия пали?»
without subtle potions?”

«Любите»– они отвечали
“Love,” the women replied.

RACHMANINOV: Мелодия (Melody)
Poem by Semyon Nadson

Я б умереть хотел на крыльях упоенья,
I would like to die on the wings of rapture,

В ленивом полусне, навеянном мечтой,
In a lazy half-sleep, inspired by a dream,

Без мук раскаянья, без пытки размышленья,
Without the torment of remorse, without the torture of reflection,

Без малодушных слез прощания с землей.
Without the cowardly tears of farewell to the earth.

Я б умереть хотел душистою весною,
I would like to die in the fragrant spring,

В запущенном саду, в благоуханный день,
In a neglected garden, on a fragrant day,

Чтоб купы темных лип дремали б надо мною
So that clumps of dark linden trees would doze above me

И колыхалась бы цветущая сирень.
And blooming lilacs would sway.

Чтоб рядом бы ручей таинственным журчаньем
So that a nearby stream with its mysterious murmur

Немую тишину тревожил и будил
would disturb and awaken the silent silence,

И синий небосклон торжественным молчаньем
and the blue sky with its solemn silence

Об райской вечности мне внятно говорил.
would clearly tell me about heavenly eternity.

Чтоб не молился б я, не плакал, умирая,
So that I would not pray, would not cry, dying,

А сладко задремал и снилось мне б во сне,
But would sweetly doze and dream in my sleep

Что я плыву… плыву и что волна немая
That I am swimming... swimming

Беззвучно отдает меня другой волне..
and that a silent wave silently gives me to another wave.

RACHMANINOV: Муза (Muse)
Poem by Alexander Pushkin

В младенчестве моем она меня любила
She loved me tenderly when I was very little

И семиствольную цевницу мне вручила;
A seven-reed panflute she gave me not a whistle

Она внимала мне с улыбкой, и слегка,
She listened with a smile and watched me as I did

По звонким скважинам пустого тростника
Extract the sounds from the holes of the hollow reed

Уже наигрывал я слабыми перстами
I played already with my yet weak baby fingers

И гимны важные, внушенные богами,
Important hymns of Gods whose music always lingers,

И песни мирные фригийских пастухов.
And shepherds' songs of Phrygia made to inspire peace.

С утра до вечера в немой тени дубов
So through the day in the mute shade of tall oak trees

Прилежно я внимал урокам девы тайной;
I listened to the secret maiden's fundamental instruction,

И, радуя меня наградою случайной,
She at times would give me accidental joy

Откинув локоны от милого чела,
By taking the flute in her hands from mine, brushing locks from her lovely face

Сама из рук моих свирель она брала:
She'd take the flute from my hands:

Тростник был оживлен божественным дыханьем
The reed was revived by her divine breath

И сердце наполнял святым очарованьем.
And filled my heart with holy fascination.

CHARLES GRIFFES: Three Poems of Fiona Macleod 
Peom by William Sharp, pseudonym of Fiona Macleod
​​
The Lament of Ian the Proud

What is this crying that I hear in the wind?               
Is it the old sorrow and the old grief?                      
Or is it a new thing coming, a whirling leaf       
About the gray hair of me who am weary and blind?                                                                                      
I know not what it is, but on the moor above the shore                                                                             
There is a stone which the purple nets of heather bind,                                                                                      
And thereon is writ: She will return no more.                       
O blown, whirling leaf, and the old grief,                 
And wind crying to me who am old and blind!

Thy Dark Eyes to Mine

Thy dark eyes to mine, Eilidh,
Lamps of desire!
O how my soul leaps
Leaps to their fire!
Sure, now, if I in heaven,
Dreaming in bliss,
Heard but a whisper,
But the lost echo even
Of one such kiss—
All of the Soul of me
Would leap afar—
If that called me to thee
Aye, I would leap afar
A falling star!

The Rose of the Night

The dark rose of thy mouth
Draw nigher, draw nigher!
Thy breath is the wind of the south,
A wind of fire,
The wind and the rose and darkness,
O Rose of my Desire!

Deep silence of the night,
Husht like a breathless lyre,
Save the sea's thunderous might,
Dim, menacing, dire,
Silence and wind and sea, they are thee,
O Rose of my Desire!

As a wind-eddying flame
Leaping higher and higher,
Thy soul, thy secret name,
Leaps thro' Death's blazing pyre,
Kiss me, Imperishable Fire, dark Rose,
O Rose of my Desire!

Anyone who has completed a doctorate in musical arts has learned the proper academic conventions for writing program notes, and as one such person myself, I feel entitled to go rogue in writing for this program. Don’t tell Dr. Marchard I wrote them in first person, or I may be summarily dismissed from the graduate oral examination panel. (Or maybe do tell her.) At any rate, I am hoping my deviation from the standard norm will provide a more personal voice, and perhaps lend a bit of entertainment to my audience. Thank you all for reading my thoughts and for coming to our recital program: The Poetic Voice. This recital has been chosen in part to highlight the contributions of the poet, and how their voices provided inspiration to the composer.

Claude Debussy composed his six-song cycle, Ariette Oubliées, during 1886-87, while he was occasionally visiting Paris but mostly staying in Rome due to having won the Prix de Rome which afforded him studies in the Villa Medici. However, Debussy refused to conform to the style of composition he was being taught there, which he regarded as too conservative. On the side, Debussy set six poems of Paul Verlaine, and did not submit them officially to his teachers. They made little impact upon their initial publication and performance in 1887, but were later more successful when republished in 1903, after Debussy had achieved more artistic success. He dedicated the cycle to Mary Garden, the soprano who is mainly remembered for singing several operas by Jules Massenet and Mélisande in Debussy’s only completed opera, Pelléas and Mélisande. The symbolist poet Paul Verlaine was a huge inspiration to Debussy; in fact, Debussy claimed that the poet inspired him more than any other literary figures or personal musical acquaintances. This cycle is regarded as one of the greatest syntheses of poetry and music. Each artist strived to create subtlety and nuance, as well as new timbres and rhythm, and in Debussy’s case, harmonic expression.

Paul Verlaine, as a young poet, was influenced by the Parnassian style of poetry which regarded Greek classicism, rigidity of form, and restrained emotional expression as ideals. Like many great young artists, Verlaine broke away from the current style and developed his own voice in the newer style of symbolism. Symbolism, which was first associated with Baudelaire’s Fleur du Mal, seeks to represent truth through use of subtle symbols in both language and images, and is also associated with the Decadent Movement and its frank sexuality. Verlaine himself popularized the term poèt maudit, or cursed poet, to describe himself and his contemporaries who included Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud. Verlaine’s personal life was complicated, as the kids say. He embroiled himself in various military uprisings as part of the revolutionary group The Paris Commune, and was forced into exile for a period. His personal life was even more problematic. He married Mathilde Mauté in 1870, but became involved with another symbolist poet, Arthur Rimbaud, after he received an admiring letter from the young poet. He invited the 17-year-old Rimbaud to live with him in Paris and embarked upon a stormy love affair where he essentially abandoned his wife and infant son. The two traveled together, and following an argument in Brussels, Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the wrist. Although his lover was not seriously injured, Verlaine was arrested and imprisoned for a period of time, during which he wrote his famous Romances sans paroles, which contains his Ariette Oubliées totaling nine poems, in 1874. After being released from prison, Verlaine reconverted to Catholicism, but did not manage to uncomplicate his life. After a stint teaching at some schools in England and the United States, and following another affair with a much younger student, Verlaine ended up back in Paris, living in poverty and alcoholism until his death at age 51. Regardless, there is no denying his artistic achievements and legacy. Besides Debussy, Verlaine also inspired Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Hahn, and Ravel to set his poetry, and he is arguably the greatest poet associated with French mélodie and a huge influence on its development as a genre.

Today is my first time singing the Ariettes Oubliées, although I have previously sung two of Debussy’s other big cycles, Proses lyriques and Cing Poèmes de Charles Baudelaire. I have, however, taught these songs more times than I can possibly remember, and I have often joked that I could sing them on a week’s notice if I needed to. In reality, two months was definitely a lot better for the preparation process, but in part I had already been thinking about the phrasing and interpretation I wanted from these songs for a very long time. When extracted from the full cycle, we tend to hear “Il pleure dans mon coeur” or “Green” as the more popular recital options. I confess my own fondness, instead, for the fourth and sixth songs, because they are more esoteric, which is my fancy way of saying that they’re just plain wonderfully weird at times.

The first four songs of the cycle include an inscription on the top of the score. For “C’est l’extase langoureuse,” a quote by French playwright Favart reads, “The wind over the plain suspends its breath.” Debussy carries this sentiment into the opening descending chords of the piece, which suggest a hushed suspension and intimacy that coincide with the text describing the languorous ecstasy and fatigue of love. The harmony is extremely coloristic and vague; the home key of E is not established until the moving section at the bottom of the first page. The entire piece has an intimate, perfect prosody in the text setting which speaks of gentle breezes, trees, grasses, and a rolling brook until the big climax, which asks rhetorically if those things belong to the lovers as well. The subtle ending sees the lovers sighing together in the soft gentle evening. The inscription for the second piece, “Il pleure dans mon coeur” was written by Verlaine’s lover, Rimbaud: “It rains lightly over the city.” Debussy depicts this rain with a vacillating figure of two notes, B and D-sharp in the home key of B, which continues as a motif throughout the whole song. Debussy himself hated the term “impressionism” used to describe his music, but you can certainly understand how the term applies when you hear this wash of raindrops. The piano also introduces a whole tone counter melody in the left hand that is later repeated by the singer. The poem describes a person who is oppressed by both the rain and their own emotional state of sadness and ennui, and who can’t even understand why they feel that way.  The final line exclaims, “My heart has so much pain” before the piano postlude dies away with the pattering of rain. The inscription of the third piece, “L’ombre des arbres” was written by Cyrano de Bergerac: “The nightingale, from a high branch, sees himself reflected below, and believes he has fallen into the river. He is at the top of an oak tree, and, nevertheless, fears he will be drowned.” The song begins with a heavy and sad motif that first rises a half step and then falls a tritone. The text describes the shadow of the trees dying in the river while birds are singing sadly above, and concludes that the lonely traveler’s dreams are similarly drowned. The energetic fourth piece, “Chevaux de bois,” begins with an inscription by Victor Hugo: “Through Saint Gille we come on my agile chestnut horse.” Hugo’s poem is about riding into war, but Debussy reimagines the horse as part of a spinning carousel. In the opening piano music, marked joyous and sonorant, the piano plays a triplet duple pattern that evokes the turning of the carousel of wooden horses. Verlaine’s text moves gradually from the excitement of the ride and descriptions of the passengers to a sense of loss when the night takes over from the day, and the ride comes to its inevitable end. Debussy subtly slows the song down little by little until church bells can be heard in the distance. The rider gives one last impassioned plea for the carousel to keep turning, but we hear the opening theme grind to a slow halt in the last four bars. “Green” also begins with a marking of “joyously animated” with the top hand playing the offbeats of a triplet pattern. Michael Strauss humorously reveals this pro-tip for the bass hand: there is a rising and falling chromatic pattern that sounds like the James Bond theme. (Now you will never not think that when you hear this song.) The poem describes two lovers in a bucolic setting, surrounded by flowers and trees, perhaps enjoying a picnic of fruit. Debussy alternates between simple and compound meter. In the triplet sections, we generally see the actions of the lovers. In the duple sections, we hear the requests the lover makes requests for their partner to protect their heart and remain by their side. The opening music is repeated with an andantino tempo marking in the final section, and then gradually slows as the lover asks to sleep. Debussy ends the piece with a sensual suspension in the last two bars of the piano part. The title of the last song, “Spleen,” references the four humors; the Greeks associated the spleen with black bile and the tendency to be melancholy. The song opens with the piano top hand playing a theme which is harmonically vague until it ends on a diminished 9th dominant chord of F major. The singer begins here with a monotone chant: “All the roses were red, and the ivy was all black.” The poem speaks of the despair of a lover who can enjoy nothing without their beloved, not the sky, the sea, the air or the countryside around them. Their outburst climaxes on a high B-flat which exclaims they are tired “of everything outside of you” and ends with a defeated acceptance of“Hélas” which occurs on a harmonically distorted version of the opening music and then gradually fades into F minor. 

As a card-carrying member of Generation X, I certainly never learned about Alma Mahler in any music history textbook. Rather, my first introduction to Alma Mahler was through Tom Lehrer’s brilliant comedic song “Alma,” which chronicles her marriages to three different Viennese artists in the early part of the twentieth century. About Gustav Mahler, her first husband, Lehrer writes, “Their marriage, however, was murdah. He’d scream to the heavens above:‘I’m writing Das Lied von der Erde,’ Und she only wants to make love!” As amusing as this clever rhyme makes their relationship seem, the reality was that Gustav did not initially support her compositional efforts despite the great promise her works showed. As a young woman, she studied composition with Alexander von Zemlinsky, who had previously taught Arnold Schoenberg. Zemlinsky, as well as the great painter Gustav Klimt, was in love with Alma himself… perhaps Tom Lehrer needed another two verses for his song? Alma eventually rejected both of these suitors, and married Mahler who was almost twenty years her senior, in 1902 when she was already pregnant with their first child. Mahler asked her to stop composing in favor of being a traditional wife and mother, and it wasn’t until her affair with Walter Gropius created a crisis within their marriage that he relented and began supporting her creative efforts. Fourteen of her songs were published within her lifetime, but only seventeen remain to us in total. Devastatingly, over forty other songs she composed were lost or destroyed. Her compositional style is late Romantic, heavily chromatic and atmospheric in mood, but also very lyrical for the voice. I first encountered a few of her songs about 15 years ago with one of my students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and while I was immediately struck by their haunting beauty, I put off singing them myself because they are really better suited for a mezzo voice. As time went on and I worked more of her songs with students here at the conservatory, I have finally decided it’s time to sing a couple myself. Is some of the tessitura a little low for me? Yes, and I am singing it anyway.

Richard Dehmel was a German poet and dramatist whose work was simultaneously very controversial and influential during the late nineteenth century. He can be considered a symbolist or expressionist poet, but he was also influenced by the naturalist movement: he sought to express life in realistic terms rather than romantic or idealized ones. Part of this naturalism included a strong emphasis on sexual and erotic themes. In the late 1890s, the publication of his volume of poetry Weib und Welt (Woman and World) resulted in his being tried for blasphemy and obscenity for the first of two times. He was later acquitted, but as such, his work stands with other poets of the time such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Whitman who challenged society’s values at the turn of the previous century. Many other composers besides the two featured today chose to set his works: Carl Orff, Kurt Weill, Max Reger, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. 

Each of the two songs by Alma Schindler Mahler features a Lobgesang, or song of praise. “Die Stille Stadt” comes from her Fünf Lieder, which were published in 1911 but written slightly earlier. The song opens in D minor, with creeping chromatic chords that depict the fog and smoke that have sunk heavily upon a small quiet town. A traveler becomes filled with dread as he cannot see the moon and stars. And yet, in the midst of this heavy atmosphere, there emerges a song of praise, sung by children, which seems to shed a tiny ray of light for the traveler. In the postlude, you can hear a similarity to the style of Robert and Clara Schumann, evoking this song before returning to an echo of the heavy opening music. In the final bar, however, rather than cadencing in D minor, the piece settles into a reassuring D major chord. “Lobgesang” from Fünf Gesänge was published in 1924, but probably written around 1901. This song of praise focuses on the power of romantic love, comparing love to the depths and power of the ocean. The piece opens in a mysterious C minor tonality, with more chromatic wandering on display in the bass hand. As the poem begins to describe the heaving and surging of the waves, the piano changes into rapidly moving scales and constantly shifting harmony. The song reaches its climax in a lush Wagnerian descending progression on “mild verschwimmend im Licht der Lüfte: Aufklang her Unendlichkeit,” an echo of eternity.  Here, Dehmel repeats the text of the opening, saying the sea and love remain eternal, which Mahler expresses by means of a huge harmonic and vocal suspension on the word “Liebe.” The pianist finishes with a triumphant postlude of bright, full descending chords that eventually climax in the parallel tonality of C major. 

Unlike Alma Mahler, and luckily for me, Richard Strauss favored the soprano voice over all others, and he wrote over two hundred songs spanning from the late nineteenth century until his Four Last Songs were written in 1948, a year before his death. There is no doubt that Pauline de Ahna, a soprano he met in Munich in 1887 and later married in 1894, was a great influence on his song and operatic writing. She premiered his first opera as well as his conducting debut at Bayreuth, and the couple traveled together performing his lieder, many of which were later orchestrated, in recitals all over the world. (Pauline and Richard, they’re just like us! We even share the name of Strauss Haus.) She was apparently capable of singing very long lines in a single breath, and perhaps less luckily for me, we sopranos have the honor and challenge of trying to sing Strauss’s long, sweeping phrases. Strauss has often been criticized for choosing lesser poets, but after his marriage, he showed a new interest in setting contemporary poets, including Richard Dehmel. 

The two songs on the program today were written in 1898 and 1899, and show two different sides of love. The first song, “Wiegenlied,” is a cradle song which a mother sings to her baby describing how he came into the world and what it means for her. Interestingly, Dehmel called his poem, “Venus mater,” which implies that the mother in the song is either the goddess Venus herself, or that all mothers are represented here as a Venus archetype. In a stark contrast to the Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception, the poem intimately describes how the baby is the “bloom” that has sprung from a night of love between the mother and father, and is an example of Dehmel’s frank treatment of sexuality. Strauss depicts the rocking of the cradle with an ethereal texture of arpeggiated chords throughout the piece. The first of the three strophes remains primarily in the home key of D major, while the second, which describes the mother’s worries about bringing a child into the world, flirts with the parallel key of D minor. The third strophe is the most harmonically adventurous, toying with moments of E and F-sharp major that lead to a mini-Wagnerian climax on the word “Welt” in the final line of the poem: “When the flower of his love made my world into heaven.” The second song, “Befreit,” is a song which speaks to the end of a relationship, when a partner knows their beloved is about to die and needs to say a reassuring farewell to them. Despite my personal love of this song over the years, I have long been afraid to sing it myself, because it seemed so big emotionally. However, after so many years on the back burner, I have finally decided to tackle one of Strauss’s greatest songs. Like “Wiegenlied,” the poem consists of three strophes. The song opens rather ominously in the key of E minor. However, as the consolation of the lover begins to say “you will not cry,” alternate tonalities are introduced right away. The piano has a repeated pitch triplet figure that suggests a death march. The frequent use of the note of G-sharp is particularly significant to the key, but Strauss first uses it to suggest C-sharp major and delays the cadence to E major until almost the end of each strophe, when the repeated text “O Glück” finds its way to even more distant minor key areas: D minor in the first strophe, and C minor in the second strophe. The final stanza of the poem opens in A minor, when the lover finally says it will be soon that death comes, but that the pair has freed each other pain and finally gives permission to cry together on a soaring high G-sharp. The last cry of “O happiness” lands firmly in the final key of E major, suggesting the transcendence of love over death. 

With the three Rachmaninoff songs on today’s program, we reach the point where I hit a wall in regard to the idea of unifying the set by a single poet, despite my best efforts, and some of these best efforts were rerouted into making the pianist of the program happy. (When you are married to your performance partner, collaboration takes on a new meaning.) Rachmaninoff wrote over eighty songs, grouped mostly in seven major opuses, but he never joined them by a consistent poet, which presents a challenge in organizing his songs in this manner. Regardless, Rachmaninoff chose texts that were evocative and inspired musical creativity. The first two songs, “They answered” and “Melody” both come from Opus 21, Twelve Romances, which was published in 1902. The composer had by then a relationship with the great Russian singer, Feodor Chiapalin, whom he had conducted in the opera Boris Godunov. Rachmaninoff helped Chiapalin prepare the role, and Chiapalin influenced the composer with his theories on having a “culminating moment” in his interpretations. The Opus 21 songs are thus declamatory and more operatic in style, with big climatic moments, and he finds a better balance between the voice and the piano than in his previous song writing attempts.  

“They answered” has text written by Lev Mei which is basically a translation of the Victor Hugo poem, “Comment, disaient-ils?” This poem has also been famously set in its original French by Franz Liszt.  Interestingly, Hugo’s poem title translates as “How, they asked?” while Mei’s text renames the poem, “They answered.” In either case, it is the women who are answering three questions posed by men: “How can we escape from invaders? How can we forget the sorrows of the world? How can we find women without love potions?” In each case, the women provide wisdom to the troubled questions posed. For the three stanzas of poetry, Rachmaninoff provides energetic arpeggios in the piano, in the home key of D-flat major. This rolling accompaniment ends with the first two answers, with a surprising harmony of Eb7, functioning as a V7 of V which resolves to a deceptive cadence of F before returning to the home key. For the final answer, “Love,” Rachmaninoff respells the G-flat chord as F-sharp to lead to an even more surprising key area of D7, and uses the singer’s octave answer note, A, to return to our home key by respelling it as a B double flat for the piano in the postlude. Rachmaninoff leads us through one more deceptive cadence before the reassuring final D-flat chord. 

“Melody” is another song from Opus 21, by a different poet, Seymon Nadson. Nadson was the first successful Russian poet of Jewish origin, and was immensely popular during the reign of Alexander III from 1881–1894, as his poems expressed themes of decay, depression, sickness and death that resonated with students and other liberal sympathizers who resisted the tsar’s oppressive regime.  Rachmaninoff had previously set another of his poems in his Opus 14 set, and perhaps his interest in Nadson’s poetry foreshadowed his own experience with the Soviet Regime, which eventually forced him to seek exile from his homeland during the Russian Revolution in 1917. “Melodia,” which Rachmaninoff names his song, is based on Nadson’s poem, “I would like to die on the wings of ecstasy.” The poem is a gentle yearning for a peaceful, happy death, which is described in various ways throughout the poem: in peaceful slumber, in a garden with lilacs, in a stream with sky above, and finally, falling into waves and floating away. Unfortunately, Nadson himself died a very different death, from tuberculosis, at age 24. Rachmaninoff treats the poet’s text with subtlety, by creating a gentle wave-like texture in the upper hand of the piano, and some points, lower hand of the piano while letting the vocal line lead the harmony. While the home key is B-flat major, Rachmaninoff experiments with various modal scales built around D which subtly suggest the possibility of G minor and yet never realize that key area. The final note for the singer is a D that melts away into the piano postlude, which finally lets the piano step out of a more supportive role and realize descending and ascending melodies that suggest the gentle waves of death that the speaker of the poem longs for. 

Rachmaninoff’s Opus 34 songs demonstrate an even more mature compositional voice. Written in 1912, this collection of 14 songs was tailored to the various singers he had in mind for each piece, but he also chose to highlight the major poets of Russian Romanticism, including Pushkin. Alexander Pushkin is considered the greatest Russian writer of all time, and his writing has inspired many operas: Eugene Onegin, Boris Godunov, The Queen of Spades, and Rachmaninoff’s own Aleko. Most of his collections of poetry were written between 1820–1830 before he dedicated himself primarily to prose. The poem “The muse,” from 1823, is often considered autobiographical and describes a relationship between a young artist and his inspiration in the form of a young woman, with whom he plays the flute. The poem harkens to classical Greek ideals while also expressing Pushkin’s idea that he, as the artist, was merely the instrument into which creativity was delivered, from a Muse, possibly from God. No doubt these ideas resonated with Rachmaninoff as well, who organizes the text differently than it reads on the page in terms of stanzas. The song opens with a contemplative introduction for the piano which only consists of two notes: B and E, played in the top hand. It’s not until a scale finally emerges that we understand we are in E minor, which immediately adds a confusing G-sharp in the next bar, and sets the precedent for the rest of the piece as an exploration and contrast between minor and major modalities. When the singer finally enters, the lines are delivered in a declamatory way, almost as a recitative without the piano, and even as the piano fills in slowly as the singer goes on, the mood of the piece does not change until the line describing the Phrygian song of the shepherd. Here, Rachmaninoff builds the singer’s scale on the classical Greek Phrygian mode which starts on E, except he changes what should be a C-sharp to a C natural. (Fun fact: I tried it both ways, and it definitely sounds better with the C.) The piano takes the E at the top of the scale back into the a brief repeat of the opening music, this time alternating with E-flat major tonality, and then respells the E-flat as D-sharp to find his way to the next key, E major. It seems the lyrical, truly melodic part of the song begins here in a 12/8 rocking meter. Rachmaninoff continues his minor/major exploration in the next key areas: B minor and D major during the climax of the piece on the word “divine breath.” However, the final line fails to stay in D, and returns inexorably to E minor. One could argue Rachmaninoff’s harmonic exploration shows us both the wonder of being an instrument of art, as well as the danger lurking beneath.  

The Three Poems of Fiona Macleod which constitute Charles Griffes’ Opus 11 are often considered to demonstrate the American composer at the height of his technical and artistic prowess. Charles Tomlinson Griffes was tragically lost to a long illness in 1920, just one year after the cycle’s premiere performance and the great success of his orchestral work Kubla Khan in 1919. He was only 35 years old; comparisons to Mozart’s early death have been drawn, and one wonders what he could have composed had he continued to live another thirty years or so. The composer had many artistic influences, including Debussy, but he was most strongly drawn to the music of Wagner and other Germans of the late Romantic, highly chromatic period. He was also highly attracted to nature and steeped himself in the literary mysticism associated with poets like Fiona Macleod, who belonged to the literary movement called the Celtic Revival.

Fiona Macleod was the creation of a fascinating personage, the poet William Sharp. Born in 1855 in the Victorian age of England, Sharp was associated with the Rossetti group of poets which included WIlliam Butler Yates. In 1870, he began writing under the pseudonym of a female poet, Fiona Macleod, and produced works dealing with romanticism, nature, and mysticism. The identity of Fiona Macleod was kept secret until the time of his death, and was then revealed to the public soon after, when his wife Elizabeth released a book explaining her husband’s decision to recreate himself as a woman writer. Many theories have been offered to explain the artistic birth of Fiona Macleod: some critics believe her creation is an outgrowth of Sharp’s repressed homosexuality; some believe it is a direct consequence of his asexual but intense relationship with a Mrs. Edith Wingate Rinder who had encouraged him to explore feelings that had been lying dormant within him; still others maintain that she represents a daughter figure whom the married couple never had. What is quite certain is that in Victorian England, it was not acceptable for men to feel and express deeply romantic or feminine sentiments, so Fiona Macleod became an outlet for such feelings and ideas which emanated from Sharp. Interestingly, Griffes himself published commercially profitable arrangements of popular American songs designed for teaching children under the pseudonym Arthur Tomlinson, which may have made him feel a kinship with William Sharp. The poems set here by Griffes are excellent examples of the “Celtic Twilight” style of poetry, which describes a mystical and perhaps dark and otherworldly side of nature. The underlying shared theme of the three poems seems to be a desire to commune with the dead.

The first poem, “The Lament of Ian the Proud,” was called in its own time one of the “fairest flowerings of art in song” and probably remains the best known of Griffes’ songs. The song consists of a basic ternary form which is held together by the “lament” motif based on the F-sharp minor triad, which occurs in the opening and ending of the song, as well as during two interludes, although it is altered in the second interlude to contain a diminished fifth instead of a perfect one. The piece also explores and blurs tonality with the tonic major, most notably at the climax of the piece, which places the word “wind” on a high A-sharp belonging to F-sharp major, and then returns to the minor by use of the dominant pedal of C-sharp, bound on the final word of the piece, “blind.”

The second song, by contrast, is gentler in spirit. The soft blending of the triplets in the opening and throughout provide a velvet-like and sensual texture which serves as the backdrop for the romantic text of the poem. The key words of the text, such as the repeated “leaps” of the soul and the “kiss” provide reason for the piano to launch into increasingly bold and dramatically sweeping phrases, culminating in the most extended flourishing of the piano under the suspended high A-flat of “afar.” The lover describes how he would leap from heaven, as a falling star, if he were called to her. (My undergraduate literature major geek self is reminded of Cathy’s impassioned speech to Nelly about dreaming of being unhappy in heaven without Heathcliff. Ironically Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights in 1847 using a male pseudonym.) The piece then quiets down further with a sense of yearning and reaching toward the stars as heard in the piano’s top hand repeated minor third motif and an unusual cadence with a suspension leading to the second inversion of the tonic A-flat, which lends an air of unsettledness to the closing. 

The third piece contains the following text written above the song, as a way of explaining the poem that follows: “There is an old mystical legend that when a soul among the dead woos a soul among the living, so that both may be reborn as one, the sign is a dark rose, or a rose of flame, in the heart of the night.” At its initial critical reception, “The Rose of the Night” was deemed too modern and overly dissonant. Indeed, the piano begins with a tense and yearning theme, presented in the top hand, which contains the notes G#-C-E-G natural-A, and seems to beckon an invitation to the lost beloved. The tension of the opening never truly resolves but rather moves inexorably, as marked poco a poco più mosso by the composer, with continually more thickly dissonant harmonies, towards the fortissimo climax on “imperishable fire.” The piano postlude erupts in a huge Wagnerian climax before dying away slowly in faded triplets that suggest, to me, that the union has not been consummated, and the lover remains in waiting. The final chord of the piece contains all the notes of the opening motif, which thus function as a strange sort of dissonant “tonic” chord that connects the opening of the piece to the end.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to come and listen to our program today. I would also like to thank concert services for their help in arranging this recital, as well as my wonderful chair and colleagues in the vocal arts department for their support (particularly Jean Collier and David Small for rescheduling their own fabulous marital team voice recital for another date after we discovered we had booked the same date). Thank you to my kiddos for listening to me scream in the house almost every day (yes, your parents are fighting about vowels again). Finally, to Michael, thank you for being my partner in music as well as everything else in life.