Resounding Verse

Arthur Symons's poem captures a lazy June afternoon, with a fountain burbling and the moon hanging in the sky, waiting for the coming of night. Elizabeth Maconchy transforms the poem into a song of mesmerizing stillness and beauty.

The episode features a world-premiere recording by soprano Joanna Songi and pianist Matthew Fletcher, based on an unpublished manuscript found in the Maconchy archive at St. Hilda's College, Oxford. You can find a YouTube video of their performance here.

For an illuminating look at Maconchy's life and work, see the final chapter of Anna Beer's book Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music.

Also please check out the Maconchy page on my website Art Song Augmented, which includes another recording by Songi and Fletcher, as well as additional resources and access to scores.

In Fountain Court
Arthur Symons

The fountain murmuring of sleep,
A drowsy tune;
The flickering green of leaves that keep
The light of June;
Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
The peace of June.

A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
The white curved moon;
June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
Wait too, with June;
Come, through the lingering afternoon,
Soon, love, come soon.

The Haitian-American composer Nathalie Joachim transforms a Haitian hymn, and in so doing creates a multi-layered tapestry of sound that evokes the many voices of Haiti—past, present, and future.

"Resevwa Li" comes from Joachim's Grammy-nominated 2019 album Fanm d'Ayiti (New Amsterdam Records), featuring the Spektral Quartet.

Resevwa Li

Men n’ap proche devan ou Granmèt
Avèk tout ti kado n yo papa
Li mèt tout piti kou li ye,
Tanpri resevwa li

Adye papa souple
Kisa pou m ta ba ou
Ou ki fè tout bagay
Ou ki mèt tout bagay

Kado nou pot pou ou
Se tout jefò n ap fe
Pou peyi n devlope
Pou lavi nou pi bèl.

Receive Them

We come before you, God
With all of our little gifts, Father
As little as they may be
Please receive them

Oh father, please
What should I give you
You, who make everything
You, who create everything

The gifts we bring to you
Are all of our efforts
To benefit our country
For our lives to be the most beautiful

translation by Nathalie Joachim

Connie Converse was one of the first singer-songwriters, an uncommon talent who predated Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. But she was barely known in her day, and after making a handful of low-fi recordings in the 1950s, she disappeared in 1974. Her songs weren't widely known until some of those low-fi recordings were released on CD in 2009. This episode looks at one of her most affecting songs, which appears on Walking in the Dark, a recent album by soprano Julia Bullock, in an arrangement by Jeremy Siskind. Julia Bullock performs the song with Christian Reif.

For more information on Connie Converse's songs, go to her page on my website, Art Song Augmented.

Also, be on the lookout for Howard Fishman's book about Connie Converse, To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse, which is forthcoming in May 2023.

One by One
Connie Converse

We go walking in the dark.
We go walking out at night.
And it's not as lovers go,
Two by two, to and fro,
But it's one by one.

One by one in the dark
We go walking out at night.
As we wander through the grass
We can hear each other pass,
But we're far apart.

Far apart in the dark
We go walking out at night.
With the grass so dark and tall
We are lost past recall
If the moon is down.

And the moon is down.
We are walking in the dark.
If I had your hand in mine,
I could shine, I could shine
Like the morning sun,
Like the sun.

We know very little about the German composer Marie von Kehler (1822–1882), who served as a "lady in waiting" to a princess and seems to have been acquainted with Johannes Brahms. But we do know that she wrote over eighty songs that were published over a decade after her death—none of which had ever been recorded until Stephan Loges and Jocelyn Freeman recorded four of them for my website Art Song Augmented. This episode looks at one of the best Kehler song's, a setting of a poem by Julius Sturm about a strange prayer that someone says to a beloved who has wounded him.

For more information on Marie von Kehler's songs, go to her page on Art Song Augmented and check out my blog post on her on the Women's Song Forum.

Nur einmal möcht' ich dir noch sagen
Julius Sturm

Nur einmal möcht' ich dir noch sagen,
Wie du unendlich lieb mir bist,
Wie dich, so lang mein Herz wird schlagen,
Auch meine Seele nie vergißt.

Kein Wörtlein solltest du erwidern,
Nur freundlich mir in's Auge sehn,
Ja, mit gesenkten Augenlidern
Nur stumm und schweigend vor mir stehn.

Ich aber legte meine Hände
Dir betend auf das schöne Haupt,
Damit dir Gott den Frieden sende,
Den meiner Seele du geraubt.

———

Just once yet I would like to tell you
How endlessly dear you are to me,
How as long as my heart still beats
My soul, too, will never forget you.

You need not reply with a single word,
Just look kindly into my eyes,
Yes, with lowered eyelids
Just stand before me, speechless and quiet.

But I laid my hands
Prayerfully upon your beautiful head,
So that God might send you the peace
That you have stolen from me.

Thanks to Sharon Krebs for her help with the English translation.

Carolyn Forché's 46-page poem "On Earth" forms the basis for a song cycle called The Blue Hour, which was composed by five women—Caroline Shaw, Shara Nova, Rachel Grimes, Angelica Negrón, and Sarah Kirkland Snider—and just released on CD this month by Nonesuch and New Amsterdam Records.

This episode looks at one of Caroline Shaw's contributions to the cycle, a song that embraces Bach and plainchant and, in just over three minutes, captures the immensity of time and the cosmos.

The episode features a recording of the song by the chamber ensemble A Far Cry, with Shara Nova.

You can find the score to The Blue Hour here.

Please also check out my episode on Caroline Shaw's "A Gradual Dazzle."

Firmament
an excerpt from Carolyn Forché's "On Earth"

firmament, fissure, flare stars, frottage

fragments from the Second Brandenburg
fresh wind of the linens
from a gloved hand a flaming bottle
from chance to chance, event to event
from earth to satellite, event to event
from our last train ride through the ricefields
from the cathedral comes Kyrie

Francis Jammes's poem depicts two lovers who sit on a bench, alone together under the shade of overhanging branches. But it's not clear if the scene is real or imaginary. In her setting of the text, Lili Boulanger heightens the poem's sense of mystery—and also the poetic speaker's anxiety that the blissful moment may only be a figment of his imagination.

You can find the score to Boulanger's song here.

The episode features the a recording of the song by tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang, from their CD Clairières: Songs by Lili and Nadia Boulanger.

Learn more about Boulanger's songs, access her scores, and hear another performance by Phan and Huang on my website Art Song Augmented, an online forum devoted to songs by underrepresented composers.

Nous nous aimerons tant
Francis Jammes

Nous nous aimerons tant que nous tairons nos mots,
en nous tendant la main, quand nous nous reverrons.
Vous serez ombragée par d'anciens rameaux
sur le banc que je sais où nous nous assoirons.
Donc nous nous assoirons sur ce banc, tous deux seuls.
D'un long moment, ô mon amie, vous n'oserez...
Que vous me serrez douce et que je tremblerai...

We Will Love Each Other

We will love each other so much that we won't speak 
but just stretch out our hands to each other when we see each other again. 
You will be in the shadow of ancient branches, 
on the bench where I know we will sit. 
So we'll sit on that bench, alone together.
For a long moment, o my sweetheart, you won't dare... 
How sweet you will be to me, and how I will tremble...

Thomas Walsh's poem and Mary Turner Salter's setting of it capture the moment between day and night—and the desire to linger in that moment as long as possible.

The episode features the first-ever recording of Mary Turner Salter's "Afterglow," performed by soprano Camille Ortiz and pianist Gustavo Castro and engineered by Joseph Wenda. I commissioned the recording for Art Song Augmented, my website devoted to art songs by underrepresented composers. Learn more about Salter's songs, access her song scores, and hear three other performances by Ortiz and Castro on her Art Song Augmented page.

You can find the score to Salter's song here and a video recording here.

Afterglow
Thomas Walsh

Over the orchard one great star;
The mellow moon—; and the harvest done;
And the cheek of the river crimsoned far
From the kiss of the vanished sun.

Nathaniel Bellows’ poem and Sarah Kirkland Snider's haunting setting of it—from her song cycle Unremembered—revisit the site of a childhood trauma and meditate on innocence and the mechanisms of memory.  

The performance of the song features vocalists Padma Newsome, DM Stith, and Shara Worden, and the Unremembered Orchestra (members of ACME, Alarm Will Sound, ICE, The Knights, and Sō Percussion), conducted by Edwin Outwater.

In the episode I discuss Nathaniel Bellows' illustration that accompanies his poem; you can find this illustration, as well as the others associated with the song cycle, on the Unremembered website.

The River
Nathaniel Bellows

On the banks
The wash so brown
The shadows blue
They’re black

I saw the form
Astride the loam
Splayed out upon
Its back

A bear, a dog
A bed, a log
A child’s eyes
Are pure

Until the hands
Of the missing man
Were clear against
The dew

The river’s flow
A blackened bow
That tied around
Our town

Had sapped his life
Like a lantern’s light
Buried
Underground

Anne Carson's poem and Caroline Shaw's mesmerizing setting of it meditate on the feeling of being in and out of time.

The recording of the song, which appears on the album Let The Soil Play Its Simple Part (Nonesuch, 2021), features Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion (Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting).

Room in Brooklyn

Anne Carson

This
slow
day
moves
Along the room
I
hear
its
axles
go
A gradual dazzle
upon
the ceiling
Gives me that
racy
bluishyellow
feeling
As hours
blow
the wide
way
Down my afternoon.

The 21st-century Mexican composer Rodrigo Ruiz sets a text by the 19th-century German writer Heinrich Heine. In so doing, Ruiz channels 19th-century musical style and offers a deeply moving interpretation of a poem about the loss of love and the death of an artistic tradition that Heine once held dear.

The performance of the song features soprano Grace Davidson and pianist Christopher Glynn.

The song appears on the CD An Everlasting Dawn.  Check out Ruiz's recent CD of chamber works, Behold the Stars, on the Signum Classics label, and be on the lookout for Signum's release of his song cycle Venus & Adonis.

Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen
Heinrich Heine

Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen,
Das du einst so schön besungen,
Als die zaubermächtgen Flammen
Wunderbar dein Herz durchdrungen?

Jene Flammen sind erloschen,
Und mein Herz ist kalt und trübe,
Und dies Büchlein ist die Urne
Mit der Asche meiner Liebe.

Tell Me, Where is Your Beautiful Sweetheart

Tell me, where is your beautiful sweetheart
That you once sang of so beautifully 
When the magical flames of love
Wonderfully pierced your heart?

Each flame is burnt out,
And my heart is cold and grey,
And this little book is the urn
With the ashes of my love.