Beau Soir
Program Notes by Lindsey M. Williams for her Senior Recital at McMurry University
May 5, 2011 7:30 PM
Henry Purcell was trained in the choir of the Chapel Royal. He was later appointed composer-in-ordinary to the King of England in 1677, and he served four different monarchs. As composer to the crown and organist of Westminster Abbey in 1679, he composed a variety of popular genres in that era. Although Purcell is an extraordinary composer in many forms of music, such as anthems, odes, and music composed for royal coronations, Purcell is especially known and admired for his vocal works. His vocal pieces are natural and instinctive to singers; possibly because he himself was a countertenor. Purcell has an unmistaken sense for portraying human emotions in a dramatically touching way through the melody lines of his vocal works. In 1690 Purcell became a full-time composer for the theatrical stage.
When I am laid in earth (1689), also known as Dido’s lament, comes from the opera Dido and Aeneas. This selection is a remarkable example of how Purcell uses the melody line to define the words. In particular Dido’s recitative Thy hand, Belinda, is highly chromatic and uses notes foreign to the key, clearly portraying her feelings of darkness. Dido, the Queen of Carthage, sings this aria right before she kills herself. She had come to the realization that life was not worth living because her love, Aeneas was bewitched and commanded to leave Carthage.
Hark! The ech’ ing Air (1692) is a song in The Fairy Queen, a semi-opera based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This song is sung during the elaborate Epithalamium, the wedding song, which ends the production. It is evident that Purcell uses text illustration in melody and rhythm, especially during the line “clap their wings.” It is a beautiful piece that outlines his energetically light and fresh qualities that Purcell characterizes in his melodies.
Antonio Vivaldi is a master of the Italian Baroque concerto. His father, a leading violinist at St. Marks chapel, raised him to be educated in music and priesthood. In 1703, Vivaldi began his priestly duties, and a year later he became very ill. He was excused from active service, and solely devoted all of his time to music due to his illness. One of the Venetian girls’ orphanages, Ospedale della Pietà, appointed Vivaldi as maestro di violin. From late Baroque to early Classical, Vivaldi was one of the most significant figures in the Baroque orchestra because of how he featured the instrumentalist’s solos. However, it is important to recognize his many achievements in opera, cantata, motet, and oratorio.
Laudamus Te is from Vivaldi’s Gloria in which the text is derived in part from the Roman Catholic Mass. He composed this grand sacred piece while he was at the Ospedale della. Laudamus Te is a joyful movement, featuring a vocal duet in G-major. The two vocal lines imitate each other at first, and then they join together harmonizing in thirds. An instrumental refrain separates each of the vocal sections.
Johannes Brahms is one of the greatest composers of the nineteenth century, composing three-hundred and eighty songs for soloists and small ensembles. One-hundred of them are arrangements of children and folk songs. His works are both free and strict in form, line, texture, and rhythm. Arnold Schoenberg characterized Brahms’s music with four crucial elements of style: “musical asymmetry; elasticity of form; systematic construction of movements; and economy, yet richness.”
Vergebliches Ständchen (1882) is a folk-poem from the Lower Rhine. Although this piece may sound like a simple strophic song, it is a good example of musical asymmetry because the accompaniment varies from verse to verse. The singer interprets a conversation between a boy and a girl in which the boy implores the girl to let him into her house. The girl constantly rejects the boy’s plea because her mother has taught her well, and “all would be over” with her if she were to let him in.
Wiegenlied,“Cradle Song”, (1868) is a familiar folk lullaby that was composed by Brahms in honor of Bertha and Artur Faber’s second child. The text is taken from Des Knaben wunderhorn, The Youth’s Magic Horn (German Folk Poetry). Bertha or Frau Faber was the first to sing this Lullaby.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born after the classical orchestra had grown rapidly in size and range; opera was a popular art form, and singers were learning and accepting the role of acting. In the musical world, his operas are seen as universal, durable, and important as Shakespeare’s plays are in the world of literature. He composed his first three operas by the age of twelve. Many refer to Le nozze di Figaro as his masterpiece, the precursor of two other prolific works, Don Giovanni (1787), and Cosi fan tutte (1790).
Voi, che sapete (1785-86) is an aria from Mozart’s infamous Italian opera, Le nozze di Figaro. It is such a significant opera known throughout history because it is the first of it’s kind. Never before had comic opera been so complex and intricate or reach such emotional depths through its realistic characters. Cherubino, a servant to the Count, sings this piece during act II. He has tremendous romantic yearning that is most evident at this point in the opera because he is in love with the Countess. Susanna, another servant to the Count, asks him to sing one of his love songs for the Countess, and he is eager to do so. Cherubino is a “pant roll”, a young boy’s character that is sung by a mezzo-soprano. The chromaticism that Mozart uses in this piece musically characterizes the “pant role” of young Cherubino, and implies his feelings of ache and passion; particularly during the sudden modulation at “e in un momento torno a gelar” (“and in a moment I freeze again”), as it turns to minor at “Ricerco” (“I search”), and then the energy increases through the tension in harmony and quick rhythms at “Sospiro” (“I sigh”).
Fernando Obradors is a well-known Spanish art song composer who was born in Barcelona and first studied the piano with his mother. For most of his life he taught himself harmony, counterpoint, and composition. He has composed several symphonies, but he is most well known for his Classical Spanish art songs. The majority of Obradors compositions are light in texture and weight, but they exemplify the traditional sound of a Spanish song; that is, they are categorized in the generic neoclassical style inspired from the folk song and toñadilla, Spanish Song (dance rhythms, lyricism, and colorful vocal display). His texts cover a wide variety of literature, from charming poetry of the fifteenth century to admired poetry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Claude Debussy once said “Music and poetry are the only two arts that move in space.” He blends music and poetry to move and work together to create a masterpiece. Debussy wrote a total of eighty-seven songs, two of them were left unfinished, and some are even unpublished. He was an expert in composing songs for the voice, and was excellent in creating musical expression that directly translates the poetry. Tonal color is such a crucial part of Debussy’s song style, and this is evident through the ways he meticulously marks his scores with accents, dynamics, and tempos. Debussy is most closely identified with the art form, Impressionism. Some of his most well known works associated with this impressionistic style are String Quartet, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faun, Chansons de Bilitis, and Pelléas et Mélisande. However, Debussy will always hold an important and unique place in the history of the French Song through his abilities to intertwine poetry and music.
Beau soir (1883) is perhaps the most recognizable example of Debussy’s early impressionistic style. Debussy was at the young age of fifteen or sixteen when he wrote this melody. The text and music paint a quiet scene: a beautiful evening washed in the setting sun, warm in the evening breeze. The voice and piano work together as an ensemble to create this atmosphere; their phrasing is exceptionally lyric in the style of Massenet and earlier French song.
Mandoline (1882) has such an elegantly witty text, taken from the poetry cycle of Verlain’s Fêtes galantes, which characterizes the melody. Debussy composed this extravagant piece when he was only twenty-one years old. This song is a serenade tingled with irony. He sets the mood with the first chord of the piece; it sounds airy, imitating the sound of the mandolin tuning up in open fifths, and the chord is quickly repeated an octave higher. The scene of this piece is told from an observer’s point of view, describing a mystical setting, sensuous in energy, sustained by the ever-present strumming of the mandolin in the accompaniment. The three characters portrayed in this scene, Aminta Clitandre and Damis, are defined by the text and curve of the melody line. A significant element in this song is how Debussy manipulates the texture; he explicitly differentiates the legato and staccato in the vocalist’s line. This creates a pointillist contrast with the accompaniment, painting the text quite well. This is evident in the last phrasing of this piece; “la la la la” imitates the strumming of the mandolin.
Steven Schwartz studied piano and composition at the Juliard School of Music when he was in high school, and got his B.F.A. in Drama at Carnegie Mellon University. He worked as producer for a short time, but then quickly dove into Broadway theatre. He wrote many famous Broadway shows such as Godspell, Pippin, and the musical from which two of my selections are from, Wicked.
Wicked is based on a novel Gregory Maguire and Winnie Holzman, and has become a musical that has won thirty-five major awards, including the Grammy Award and three Tony Awards. It is about the untold story of the two witches of Oz. Glinda is the ambitious, popular, and beautiful blonde, and Elphaba is of emerald-green skin, smart, and misunderstood. Wicked tells the story of how this unlikely friendship grows and develops, and how they become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.
I’m Not That Girl is sung by Elphaba during the first act. She sings this song as she ponders on her feelings for a popular student in her class, Fiyero, who is Glinda’s boyfriend. Elphaba expresses that she “wasn’t born for the rose and pearl,” and accepts that she not meant to be with Fiyero because she is not that girl.
For Good is a moving duet that both of the girls sing together at the end of the show as they say their final goodbyes. Despite their trials in their friendship, such as challenges caused by Fiyero, the two girls see beyond these issues and affirm their friendship through acknowledging that they have changed each other’s lives for good.
Three Songs in a Jazz Setting
La vie en rose, was first popularized in 1946 by the French singer Edith Piaf, it has since then become her signature song, as well as a gem of its own. Piaf wrote the lyrics, and “Louiguy” (Louis Gugliemi) assembled the sweet melody. This song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998. Aretha Franklin, Michael Bublé, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong, Celine Dion, and around fifty other notable artists have covered this song. It will always be a true 1940’s classic.
Autumn Leaves is a familiar jazz tune, and has been covered by many big named artists such as Edith Piaf, Michael Bublé, and Eve Cassidy. Big band, acoustic guitar, and piano accompaniment are some of the few settings that popularized this tune. Tonight we have chosen to perform this specific piece in swing style. It is a song reminiscing of a past love. Leaves that fall during the autumn season can often signify melancholy feelings and the passing of time.
I’ll Be Seeing You (1938) was originally written by Sammy Gain and Irving Kahal for the Broadway stage in Right This Way, but many are familiar with Bing Crosby or Billie Holiday’s version of this song. Though it has been referenced in many films, there are those that say I’ll be Seeing You initially flourished in popularity during the 1940’s because of WWII, where lovers were separated and couples connected with the song on a personal level.
