Will there really be a morning? — Pre-concert Talks & Other Notes

Four songs to words by Emily Dickinson

Ricky Ian Gordon (b1959)

Will there really be a morning?

Robert Beaser (b1954)

I dwell in possibility

Jake Heggie (b1961)

I shall not live in vain

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Sleep is supposed to be

Emily Dickinson, the reclusive Belle of Amherst, has supplied American composers with a rich wellspring of inspiration. Her epigrammatic yet rich verses seem to cry out for musical setting.

Ricky Ian Gordon’s Will there be a morning? - inspired by the autobiography of the actress Frances Farmer, which uses the Dickinson poem as its title and epigraph - dates from 1983. “It is the only song of mine,” Gordon says, “that uses a repeat; I wanted to hear it again.” Robert Beaser is counted among the “new tonalist” composers aiming for a synthesis of European tradition and the American vernacular. His lyrical gift, which has been compared to that of Samuel Barber, is particularly well suited to Dickinson’s I dwell in possibility. Jake Heggie’s I shall not live in vain was written specially for Renée Fleming, who recently gave the first performance in Washington. “I’ve set many Dickinson poems,” Heggie says, and I had always had an eye on this one. Then when I heard Renée sing Rusalka, I instantly knew what this song should soung like.”

The spare eloquence of Aaron Copland’s vocal writing seems a perfect vehicle for Dickinson’s poetry. The sustained, intense Sleep is supposed to be is drawn from one of this century’s most important song cycles, Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1949-50). Copland wrote of his Dickinson cycle: “The poems center about no single theme, but they treat subject matter particularly close to Miss Dickinson: nature, death, life, eternity.” Copland’s Dickinson songs were first performed by Alice Howland with the composer at the piano at the McMillan Theatre, Columbia University, on 4 May 1950.

Cori Ellison©

Will there really be a “Morning”?

Is there such a thing as “Day”?

Could I see from the mountains

If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like Water lilies?

Has it feathers like a Bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I have never heard?

O some Scholar! Oh some Sailer!

Oh some Wise Man from the skies!

Please to tell a little Pilgrim

Where the place called “Morning” lies!

I dwell in Possibility

I dwell in Possibility -

A fairer House than Prose -

More numerous of Windows -

Superior - for Doors -

Of Chambers as the Cedars -

Impregnable of Eye -

And for an Everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky -

Of Visitors - the fairest -

For Occupations - This -

The spreading with my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise -

I shall not live in vain

If I can stop our Heart from breaking

I shall not live in vain.

If I can ease one Lilfe the aching

Or cool one Pain.

Or help one fainting Robin onto his nest again

I shall not live in vain.

Sleep is supposed to be

By the souls of sanity

The shutting of the eye.

Sleep is the station grand

Down which, on the other hand

The hosts of witnes stand!

Morn is supposed to be

By people of degree

The breaking of the Day.

Morning has not occurred!

That shall Aurora be -

East of Eternity -

One with the banner gay -

One in the red array -

That is the break of Day!

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Lydia, Op.4, No.2

Clair de lune, Op.46, No.2

Chanson d’amour, Op.27, No.1

Les Roses d’Ispahan, Op.39, No.4

Après un rêve, Op.7, No.1

“I wish I had written that,” said Massenet on first encountering Lydia. He might not have been so happy to claim authorship of Faurés earlier songs - a handful of drawing-room romances, most of them to words by Victor Hugo - but this was different. Aware no doubt that Leconte de Lisle had written his poem in the (supposed) manner of Gallus, Fauré set the words with appropriately classical restraint and with a both witty and emotive allusion to the Lydian mode in the first line. With that line and its mixture of diatonic and modal intervals, Fauré seems to have found something essential of himself: certainly, the Lydian motif was to echo in his music from 1870, through La bonne Chanson in 1894, until as late as the Second Piano Quintet in 1921. In Lydia those very personal harmonies have the effect of heightening the intimacy which is further enhanced by the dialogue, modest though it is, between the piano and the voice and by the entry of new melodic material to reflect the change of mood in the second stanza.

Fauré’s next important discovery after Leconte de Lisle was not Baudelaire - although he had in the meantime been inspired by Duparc’s example to set three poems from Les Fleurs du mal - but Verlaine. According to Robert de Montesquiou, it was he who drew the composer’s attention to Verlaine by lending him a copy of the Fêtes galantes. It is difficult to believe, on the other hand, that Fauré was not already well aware of those poems, if only through the settings by Debussy. Anyway, Clair de lune, which was written in 1887, was the first of no fewer than eighteen Fauré songs to words by Verlaine. It is probably also the most inspired, the minuet in the piano part representing the gently rhythmic movement of the masqueraders while the vocal line is shaped entirely according to the natural inflections of the words. And yet, independent as they are, the two elements are clearly aware of each other in their modally coloured poetic landscape.

Chanson d’ amour, written in 1882 to words by Armand Silvestre - a fashionable poet of limited inspiration - is not one of the great Fauré mélodies. It is, on the other hand, a song of considerable charm with a discreet counterpoint between the vocal line and, under the broken-chord figuration in the right hand, the bass line of the piano part. Les Roses d’Ispahan, written in 1884 as the third of Fauré’s five settings of words by Leconte de Lisle, is saved from sentimentality by its subtle orientalism, its voluptuous line and, in the middle section, its teasingly erotic modulations.

Marcel Proust, an admirer of many of Fauré’s songs, declared Après un rêve “worthless.” Those many musicians who have profited from arranging it for a variety of instrumental combinations - not least Pablo Casals with his cello version - could not honestly agree with him. Nor can any listener susceptible to seductive melody and tumescent harmony. Written in 1877, just after the painful break of the composer’s engagement with one of Pauline Viardot’s daughters, the song touches from time to time on an emotional truth that transcends a text chosen more for its association with the friend who translated it (from an anonymous Tuscan original) than for its literary merit.

Lydia

Lydia, sur tes roses joues,

Et sur ton col frais, et plus blanc

Que le lait, roule étincelant

L’or fluide que tu dénoues.

Le jour qui luit est le meilleur;

Oublions l’éternelle tombe;

Laisse tes baisers de colombe

Chanter sur tes lèvres en fleur.

Un lis caché répand sans cesse

Une odeur divine en ton sein;

Les délices, comme un essaim,

Sortent de toi, jeune déesse!

Je t’aime et meurs, ô mes amours!

Mon âme en baisers m’est ravie,

O Lydia, rends-moi la vie,

Que je puisse mourir toujours.

(Leconte de Lisle, imité de Gallus)

Lydia

Lydia, on your rose cheeks,

and on your fresh collar whiter

than milk, in sparkling curls

rolls liquid gold as you untie it.

The best day is the one shining now;

let us forget the eternal tomb;

let your dove’s kisses

sing on your lips in bloom.

A hidden lily ever radiates

a divine fragrance in your breast;

delights, as in swarms,

pour from you, young godess!

I love you and I am dying, O gods of love!

My soul has been ravished in kisses,

O Lydia, give me back my life,

so that I can always die again.

Clair de Lune

Votre âme est un paysage choisi

Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques

Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi

Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur

L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune

Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur

Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,

Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres

Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau,

Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

(Paul Verlaine)

Moonlight

Your soul is a choice landscape

charmed by passing masks and bergamasks

playing the lute and dancing and almost

sad under their fantastic disguises.

While singing in the minor mode

about conquering love and the easy life ,

they seem not to believe in their happiness

and their song mingles with the moonlight,

with the calm, sad and beautiful moonlight,

which makes birds dream in the trees

and fountains sob with ecstasy

the high and slender fountains among the marbles.

Chanson d’amour

J’aime tes yeux, j’aime ton front,

O ma rebelle, ô ma farouche,

J’aime tes yeux, j’aime ta bouche

Où mes baisers s’épuiseront.

J’aime ta voix, j’aime l’étrange

Grâce de tout ce que tu dis,

O ma rebelle, ô mon chere ange,

Mon enfer et mon paradis!

[J’aime tes yeux, j’aime ton front…

J’aime tout ce qui te fait belle,

De tes pieds jusqu’à tes cheveux,

O toi vers qui montent mes voeux,

O ma farouche, ô ma rebelle!

[J’aime tes yeux, j’aime ton front…

(Armand Silvestre)

Love song

I love your eyes, I love your brow,

O my rebel, O my wild one,

I love your eyes, I love your mouth

where my kisses will be drained away.

I love your voice, I love the strange

grace of everything you say,

O my rebel, O my dear angel,

my hell and my heaven!

I love your eyes, I love your brow…

I love everything that makes you beautiful,

from you feet to the hair of your head,

O you the object of all my wishes,

O my wild one, O my rebel.

I love your eyes, I love your brow…

Les Roses d’Ispahan

Les roses d’Ispahan dans leur gaine de mousse,

Les jasmins de Mossoul, les fleurs de l’oranger

Ont un parfum moins frais, ont une odeur moins douce

O blanche Leilah! Que ton souffle léger.

Ta lèvre est de corail, et ton rire léger

Sonne mieux que l’eau vive et d’une voix plus douce,

Mieux que le vent joyeux qui berce l’oranger.

Mieux que l’oiseau qui chante au bord du nid de mousse.

O Leilah! Depuis que de leur vol léger

Tous les baisers ont fui de ta lèvre si douce,

Il n’est plus de parfum dans le pâle oranger,

Ni de céleste arôme aux roses dans leur mousse.

Oh! Que ton jeune amour, ce papillon léger,

Revienne vers mon coeur d’une aile prompte et douce,

Et qu’il parfume encor les fleurs de l’oranger,

Les roses d’Ispahan dans leur gaine de mousse!

(Leconte de Lisle)

The Roses of Isfahan

The roses of Isfahan in their mossy dress,

the jasmins of Mosul, the flowers of the orange

have a perfume less fresh, a scent less sweet

O pale Leïlah! than your airy breath.

Your lips are of coral, and your airy laughter

sounds better than running water and has a sweeter voice,

better than the joyful wind that rocks the orange tree,

better than the bird which sings on the edge of its mossy nest.

O Leïlah! Since in their airy flight

your kisses have fled your so sweet lips,

there is no perfume in the pale orange tree,

no celestial aroma on the roses in their moss.

O if only your young love, that airy butterfly,

would come back to my heart on a sweet and ready wing,

and would perfume once more the orange flowers,

the roses of Isfahan in their mossy dress.

Après un rêve

Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image

Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage,

Tes yeux étaient plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,

Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l’aurore;

Tu m’appelais et je quittais la terre

Pour m’enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,

Les cieux pour nous entr’ouvraient leurs nues,

Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entrevues.

Hélas! Hélas, triste réveil des songes,

Je t’appelle, ô nuit, rends-moi tes mensonges;

Reviens, reviens, radieuse,

Reviens, ô nuit mystérieuse!

(Romain Bussine, d’après une poésie toscane)

After a dream

In a sleep charmed by your image

I dreamed of happiness - an ardent mirage -

your eyes were sweeter, your voice pure and sonorous,

you were as radiant as the sky lit by the dawn;

you were calling to me and I was leaving the earth

to flee with you towards the light,

the heavens were opening the skies to us,

unknown splendours, glimpses of divine light.

Alas! alas, a sad awakening from my dreams,

I appeal to you, O night, give me back your lies;

come back, come back, radiant,

come back, O mysterious night!

Joaquín Turina (1882-1949)

Tres Poemas, Op.81

Olas gigantes

Tu pupila es azul

Bese el aura

When Albéniz advised Turina to turn to Spanish folk music for his material, the younger composer was probably not altogether pleased. As a pupil of Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum in Paris - where he had been instructed in the worship of César Franck and the virtues of cyclic form - he had had just taken part in the first performance of his Piano Quintet, Op.1, and might have hoped for some other kind of comment. Albéniz was right, however. Although Turina retained his ambition to write works in the conventional major forms, the Andalusian in him was asserting itself in his piano and chamber music even before his departure from the Schola Cantorum and his return to Spain in 1914.

The earliest of Turina’s songs, beginning in 1914 with Rima, Op.6, to words by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, are in a comparatively simple folk-song style. The Tres poemas, Op.81, written twenty years later to words by the same poet, do not exclude the composer’s characteristic “sevillanismo” even though he had by then achieved such academic distinction as to be appointed Professor of Composition at the Madrid Conservatory. The first of them - a setting of Olas gigantes, inspired by the unhapy love affair which was the central experience of Bécquer’s short life - is concerned at first with reflecting the turbulence of the poet’s imagery in its sophisticated harmonies and its impulsive rhythms. Its slow last stanza, on the other hand, is a not too distant echo of an Andalusian lament. Tu pupila es azul - although, paradoxically, the text is based on Byron’s “I saw thee weep” - is thoroughly Spanish both in the guitar figuration of the accompaniment and the shape of the vocal line, not least the flamenco cadenza at the end. Besa el aura is similarly coloured, if more brilliantly, until the tempo broadens for a conclusively cyclical allusion to Olas gigantes in the final bars.