5 Cabaret Songs (1977-85)

Song of Black Max

Waitin’

Toothbrush Time

George

Amor

Schoenberg’s involvement with the popular idiom was a brief flirtation. William Bolcom is married to it in that he has long made a speciality of it both as a composer and as performer - not least, in the latter case, in partnership with his singer wife Joan Morris. What is more, though he is prolific in all the usual orchestral and chamber areas of the repertoire, he has always been most successful with compositions like the Cabaret Songs, which he has produced over a period of years in collaboration with his regular librettist Arnold Weinstein. Brilliantly done, their popularity is well deserved. They are written by a composer who has an obviously thorough knowledge of the history of popular song, who commands a highly developed technique but who uses his academic resources with the utmost discretion in illuminating the style and the wit of the lyrics.

Song of Black Max, with its echoes of Weill’s Brecht settings and Walton’s Façade and its subtly effective use of bitonality to reflect the surreal sound of Black Max’s harmonica under the bridge, is as good a place to start as any. While Waitin’ is a brief and fascinatingly enigmatic allusion to the church hymnal, Toothbrush Time touches on the opposite extreme of the sophisticated quasi-improvised jazz ballad. As the vivid characterisation of George - an affectionate portrait, for all its parody - and the charmingly understated narrative of Amor both confirm, the Weinstein-Bolcom partnership is as congenial as any of its kind.