presents… JAMIE BARTON Mezzo-soprano KATHLEEN KELLY …R. STRAUSS Cäcilie, Opus 27, No. 2 This program is made possible in part by the generous support of Mr. and Mrs. J. Patterson

For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545 | 1

presents…

JAMIE BARTON | Mezzo-soprano KATHLEEN KELLY | Piano

Wednesday, December 11, 2019 | 7:30pmHerbst Theatre

ELINOR REMICK HeatherWARREN

LILI BOULANGER Attente

AMY BEACH Ah, love but a day!

NADIA S’il arrive jamaisBOULANGER

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HAYDN Arianna a Naxos, Hob.XXVIb:2 Recitative: Teseo mio ben, dove sei tu? Aria: Dove sei, mio bel tesoro Recitative: Ma, a chi parlo? Aria: Ah! che morir vorrei

INTERMISSION

2 | For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545

LIBBY LARSEN Love After 1950 1. Boy’s Lips (a blues) 2. Blonde Men (a torch song) 3. Big Sister Says, 1967 (a honky-tonk) 4. The Empty Song (a tango) 5. I Make My Magic (Isadora’s Dance)

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RAVEL Chanson à boire

DUPARC Phidylé

R. STRAUSS Cäcilie, Opus 27, No. 2

This program is made possible in part by the generous support of Mr. and Mrs. J. Patterson McBaine

San Francisco Performances acknowledges the generosity of Concert Partners: Dr. Robert P. Cabaj and Mr. Bennie Ferma; Ian Hinchliffe and Marjorie Shapiro

Jamie Barton is represented by Columbia Artists1790 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-1412 columbia-artists.com

Hamburg Steinway Model D, Pro Piano, San Francisco


ARTIST PROFILESSan Francisco Performances presents Jamie Barton for the second time. She made her SF Performances recital debut in December 2015. Kathleen Kelly makes her SF Performances de-but with tonight’s recital.

Critically acclaimed by virtually ev-ery major outlet covering classical music, American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is increasingly recognized for how she uses her powerful instrument offstage—lifting up women, queer people, and other margin-alized communities. Her lively social media presence on Instagram and Twitter (@jbar-tonmezzo) serves as a hub for conversations about body positivity, diet culture, social jus-tice issues, and LGBTQ+ rights. She is proud to volunteer with Turn the Spotlight, an or-ganization working to identify, nurture, and empower leaders among women and people of color—and in turn, to illuminate the path to a more equitable future in the arts.

Jamie is the winner of the Beverly Sills Artist Award and Richard Tucker Award, both Main and Song Prizes at the BBC Car-diff Singer of the World Competition, and Metropolitan Opera National Council Au-ditions. Her debut solo album, All Who Wander, featuring songs by Mahler, Dvořák and Sibelius, was shortlisted by the Interna-tional Classical Music Awards and Gramo-phone Classical Music Awards, and earned the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award.

This season, Jamie was the featured per-former on Last Night of the Proms at Lon-don’s Royal Albert Hall, bringing the 2019 BBC Proms festival to a close. She appears

as Léonor in La favorite at Houston Grand Opera, Eboli in Don Carlo at Dallas Opera, Fricka in Die Walküre at Reykjavík Arts Festival, and Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and San-ta Fe Opera. Jamie brings her feminist recit-al with pianist Kathleen Kelly to Wigmore Hall in London, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, and Herbst Theatre for San Francisco Perfor-mances. She returns to the Metropolitan Opera for role debuts as the titular Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and as Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, with a Met Live in HD performance of Stuarda simulcast to cinemas in over seventy countries.

The 2019–20 season will see pianist Kath-leen Kelly in London, Atlanta, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Detroit. Her many recital collaborations have taken her to Weill Hall, Zankel Hall, the Kennedy Center, Vi-enna’s Musikverein, the Mahlersaal of the Vienna State Opera, the Neue Galerie, the Schwabacher Series in San Francisco, and the Tucson Desert Song Festival. She has curated art song series for the Houston Grand Opera and the Vienna State Opera, and is currently involved in the creation of new song through Sparks and Wiry Cries’ songSLAM events.

The first woman and first American named as Director of Musical Studies at the Vienna State Opera, Kathleen’s operatic experience is the backbone of her career. Trained at the San Francisco Opera, she joined the company’s music staff and moved from there to a long association with the Metropolitan Opera. She was head of music at Houston Grand Opera, and music director of the Berkshire Opera before moving to Vi-enna. Kathleen has conducted at the Glim-merglass Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, Arizona Opera, El Paso Opera, Opera Columbus, the Merola Program, and the Alexandria Sym-phony, and has been a visiting master coach for the prestigious young artist programs of Chicago Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington Nation-

al Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company. In demand as a mentor of rising artists,

Kathleen has given master classes and work-shops across North America, among others at the University of Toronto, the Schulich School at McGill University, University of Cincinnati, Baylor University, Vanderbilt University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, the Peabody Con-servatory, University of Washington, West-minster Choir College, and Interlochen.

A published poet and essayist, Kathleen has created several new opera translations and libretti. Her English adaptation of Han-sel and Gretel, commissioned by Tri-Cities Opera, is now in use alongside her chamber orchestra arrangement of the work. For Ari-zona Opera, she created a multilingual ver-sion of Emmerich Kalman’s Arizona Lady, and she wrote the libretto for David Han-lon’s Wolf Trap premiere Listen, Wilhelmina! Her English adaptation of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride premiered in November 2019.

KDFC SALON SERIESWed Jan 15 | 6:30pmEDWARD SIMON | Piano

Wed Feb 5 | 6:30pmEDWARD SIMON | Piano HRABBA ATLADOTTIR | Violin ERIC GAENSLEN | Cello

Wed Feb 26 | 6:30pmEDWARD SIMON | Piano

Wed Apr 15 | 6:30pmEDWARD SIMON | Piano MARCO GRANADOS | Flute

All Salons are presented in the Education Studio at theWar Memorial Veterans Building

415.392.2545sfperformances.org

presents…

JAMIE BARTON | Mezzo-SopranoKATHLEEN KELLY | Piano

Wednesday, December 11, 2019 | 7:30pmHerbst Theatre

Please hold your applause until the end of each set. Please turn pages quietly.

Heather ELINOR REMICK WARREN(1900–1991)

Elinor Remick Warren came from a profoundly musical family (her mother studied piano with Liszt), and her own talents were clear very early. She trained first as a pianist but was composing (and publishing) music by the time she was in high school. Warren spent a year at Mills College, went to New York City for further study, and was briefly a student of Nadia Boulanger in Paris, but she soon returned to Los Angeles and made her long career there. She composed a number of large-scale works for chorus and orchestra, such as The Legend of King Arthur and Abram in Egypt, and she also wrote orchestral and chamber music, but she may be best remembered for her more than 160 songs. Heather sets a poem by the American poet Marguerite Wilkinson (1883–1928) that records a near-ecstatic reaction to seeing fields of heather rippling in the sunlight. Warren accompanies the soaring vocal line with shimmering arpeggios from the piano that seem to mirror the motion of the billowing heather. Those interested in this song should know that there is a fine recording by soprano Marie Gibson with the composer at the piano.

Heather

All my life long I had longed to see heatherIn the land of my kinsmen, far over the sea;Now here is heather like a wide purple oceanRolling its tides toward me.Dark, dipping waves of it, deeper than amethystWhen the gold day was begun;Long, curving swells of it, dusky and lovely, Here on the downs in the sun!Now I am shaken by great storms of beautyWetting my eyelids with joy of my eyes;Now is my soul like a wind-stricken seabirdTroubling the deep with her cries!All my life long I had longed to see heatherIn the land of my kinsmen, far over the sea;Now here is heather like a wide purple oceanRolling its tides toward me;Here! Here on the downs in the sun!

—Text by Marguerite Wilkinson


Attente

Mon âme a joint ses mains étrangesÀ l’horizon de mes regards;Exaucez mes rêves éparsEntre les lèvres de vos anges!

En attendant sous mes yeux las,Et sa bouche ouverte aux prièresÉteintes entre mes paupièresEt dont les lys n’éclosent pas;

Elle apaise au fond de mes songes,Ses seins effeuillés sous mes cils,Et ses yeux clignent aux périlsÉveillés au fil des mensonges.

—Text by Maurice Maeterlinck

Expectation

My soul has joined its strange handsTo the horizon of my sight;Make my scattered dreams come trueBetween the lips of your angels!

For now under my weary eyes,And its mouth open to the prayersUnlit between my eyelidsAnd whose lilies do not open;

It appeases in the depth of my dreams,Its breasts picked off under my eyebrows.And its eyes blink at the perilsBorn at the same time as the lies.

Attente

LILI BOULANGER(1893–1918)

The younger sister of the great teacher Nadia Boulanger, Lili Boulanger was a musician of extraordinary talent. Lili was the first woman ever to win the Prix de Rome, but that promise was cut short by perpetually poor health and by an early death: she was only 24 when she died, ten days before the death of Debussy. So short a life inevitably means that one’s out-put is small, and today Lili is remembered for her vocal settings and a small amount of instrumental music. As might be expected from the sister of Nadia Boulanger, Lili’s music is beautifully crafted. She has been described as an impressionist, but more striking are her instinctive sense of form and an expressive control of what is at times a surprisingly chromatic harmonic language.

Lili composed Attente (“Expectation”) in 1910, when she was only 17. The song, which sets a poem by Maurice Maeterlinck, is quite brief, and its harmonic language is complex: the song was composed in the extremely unusual key of C-sharp Major, though the intensely chromatic writing blurs the sense of a settled home key. Something of the composer’s conception of this song can be understood from her performance markings: plus effacé (“more subdued”), Très intense, and Expressif.

Ah, Love But a Day

AMY BEACH(1867–1944)

Amy Beach deserves to be remembered as more than just America’s first successful woman composer, as she is often categorized. A child prodigy, she appeared as piano soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 17 and began composing while still a girl. At age 18 she married the Boston surgeon H.H.A. Beach, who—though a cultivated man musically—did not want his wife performing in public. He did, however, encourage her to compose, and over the next several decades she produced a sequence of successful large-scale works. Her Mass in E-flat (1890) was the first work by a woman composer pre-sented by Boston’s Haydn and Handel Society, and her “Gaelic” Symphony (1897) and Piano Concerto (1900) were performed to critical acclaim. Upon the death of her husband in 1910, Beach—then 43—resumed her career as a concert pianist, making a particularly successful series of tours through Europe.

Ah, love but a day! is the second of Three Browning Songs, Opus 44, which Beach composed in 1899–1900. This rapt love song may get off to a subdued start (Beach’s marking is Lento con molto espressione), but—riding along some subtle shifts of har-mony and rhythm—it drives to a soaring climax on the words “Look in my eyes,” then falls away to a quick conclusion that Beach marks dolcissimo. The great Swedish tenor Jussi Björling (1911–1960) made a short film of this song with orchestral accompaniment, and the performance can be seen on YouTube.


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S’il arrive jamais

NADIA BOULANGER(1887–1979)

We remember Nadia Boulanger as one of—perhaps the—outstanding teacher of the 20th century, and the range of her students was impressive, for it included such diverse figures as Copland, Glass, Piazzolla, and Quincy Jones. Nadia regarded her younger sister Lili as the truly gifted composer in the family and decided to devote her life to teaching rather than to composing, but in her early years she wrote for voice, keyboard, and chamber and orchestral ensembles. S’il arrive jamais, on a text by Émile Verhaeren, is the last of a set of eight songs titled Les heures claires and composed in 1909 (it should be noted that there is evidence that Nadia composed these songs jointly with the French composer-pianist Stéphane Raoul Pugno, with whom she was closely associated in these years). S’il arrive jamais is quite a dramatic song, and at the start Boulanger gives it a remarkable performance instruction: the vocalist is instructed to sing Avec une fierté noble et triste (“With a pride—or haughtiness—noble and sad”). The impassioned vocal line rides above a powerful piano accompaniment, and after the text concludes the piano has a brief but striking postlude.

Ah, Love but a day!

Ah, Love, but a day,And the world has changed!The sun’s away,And the bird estranged;The wind has dropped, And the sky’s deranged;Summer has stopped. Look in my eyes!Wilt thou change too?Should I fear surprise?Shall I find aught new In the old and dear,In the good and true,With the changing year?

S’il arrive jamais

S’il arrive jamaisQue nous soyons, sans le savoir,Souffrance ou peine ou désespoir,L’un pour l’autre; s’il se faisaitQue la fatigue ou le banal plaisirDétendissent en nous l’arc d’or du haut désir;Si le cristal de la pure penséeDoit en nos cœurs tomber et se briser,Si malgré tout, je me sentaisVaincu pour n’avoir pas étéAssez en proie à la divine immensitéDe la bonté;Alors, oh ! serrons-nous comme deux fous sublimesQui sous les cieux cassés, se cramponnent aux cimesQuand même -- et d’un unique essor,L’âme en soleil, s’exaltent dans la mort.

—Text by Emile Verhaeren

Should it ever occur

Should it ever occurThat we unwittingly becomePain, sorrow or despairFor one another; if it ever wereThat fatigue or banal pleasureLoosened up the golden bow of high desire;If the crystal of pure thoughtIn our hearts should ever fall and break,If, in spite of it all, I feltDefeated for not having beenSufficiently touched by the divine immensityOf kindness;Then, oh, let us embrace like two sublime madmenWho under broken skies still hang on to the summit -And in one soaring path,Our souls bathed in sunlight, exaltedly go to our death.


Arianna a Naxos

JOSEPH HAYDN(1732-1809)

In 1789 Haydn—then 56 years old and the experienced composer of 92 symphonies—wrote a cantata for soprano and keyboard. In a letter the following year to his English publisher John Bland, Haydn said that he planned to orchestrate the cantata, but he never got around to that task, and it has come down to us in its original form. This cantata is a scena—a min-iature dramatic scene—that takes as its subject the Greek myth of Ariadne. Ariadne, daughter of Minos the king of Crete, helped Theseus escape from the Cretan labyrinth. Theseus married Ariadne but later abandoned her at Naxos, and in the different accounts of the story she is either left to go mad or is rescued by Bacchus. Such a story has rich dramatic possibili-ties, and it has attracted composers as diverse as Monteverdi, Handel, Massenet, and Martinů, each of whom treats it in quite a different way; the most famous operatic version is Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos of 1912.

The standard form for a scena was the recitative-and-aria, and Haydn uses that structure here, creating a cantata in four distinct sections. The piano’s lengthy prelude sets the mood for the opening recitative (“Teseo mio ben, ove sei tu?”) in which Ariadne wakes and longs for her lover. The opening recitative also makes clear the important part the piano plays in this cantata: it is not a simple accompanist but an active co-participant—setting scenes, underlining the meaning of the text, and sometimes dramatizing things that Ariadne herself has not yet understood. The first aria is slow (Haydn’s marking is Largo), and here Ariadne calls on the gods to return Theseus to her; the piano subtly draws attention to her increasing disquiet. The second recitative (“Ma, a chi parlo?”) brings Ariadne’s emotional collapse—as the reality of her abandonment overtakes her, she alternates between misery and desperate delusion, still hoping that Theseus will re-appear. The final aria (“Ah, che morir vorrei”) offers Ariadne’s somewhat conventional wish to die, but it is also an expression of her fury, most evident in the F-minor Presto that draws the cantata to its fiery close. Everyone is struck by the fact that after the dark tonality of this last section, Haydn unexpectedly modulates into F Major for the final chord, but that final chord still sounds pretty fierce.

Arianna a Naxos

Teseo mio ben! ove sei? ove sei tu?Vicino d’averti mi parea,ma un lusinghiero sogno fallace m’ingannò.Gia sorge in ciel la rosea Aurorae l’erba e i fior colora Febo uscendo dal mar col crine aurato.Sposo adorato, dove guidasti il piè?Forse le fere ad inseguirti chiama il tuo nobile ardor!Ah, vieni, ah, vieni o caro ed offriròpiù grata preda a tuoi lacci.Il cor d’Arianna amanteche t’adora costante,stringi con nodo più tenacee più bella la face splenda del nostro amor.Soffrir non posso d’esser da te divisa un sol momento.Ah, di vederti, o caro, gia mi stringe il desio.Ti sospira il mio corVieni, vieni, idol mio.

Dove sei, mio bel tesoro?chi t’invola a questo cor?se non vieni, io già mi moro,nè resisto al mio dolor.Se pietade avete, oh Dei,secondate i voti miei,a me torni il caro ben.Dove sei? Teseo, dove sei?

Arianna in Naxos

Theseus my love, where are you?I thought that you were near,but a false, alluring dream tricked me.Already pink Aurora springs forth skywardsand plants and flowers are colored by Phoebus emerging from the sea with golden hair.Adored husband, where do your steps take?Perhaps to hunt wild beastsyour noble ardour calls you!Ah! come! ah! come my dearest and I shall offer myself a more welcome prey to your nets.The heart of Ariadne who loves you,who, constant, adores you,bind with a more tenacious knotand let the torch of our love shine more brightly.I cannot bear to be separated from you a single moment.Ah! the desire to see you, my love, already takes hold of my heart. My heart sighs for you.Come, come, my idol.

Where are you, my beautiful treasure?Who steals you from this heart of mine?If you do not come back, I am already dying,nor shall I be able to endure my grief.if you have pity, oh Gods,favour my prayers,let my dear one return to me.Where are you, Theseus, where are you?


Ma, a chi parlo? Gli accenti Eco ripete sol.Teseo non m’ode, Teseo non mi risponde,e portano le voci e l’aure e l’onde.Poco da me lontano esser egli dovria.Salgasi quello che più d’ogni altroS’alza alpestre scoglio,ivi lo scoprirò. Che miro? oh stelle! misera me!Quest’è l’Argivo legno! Greci son quelli! Teseo! ei sulla prora!Ah, m’inganasse almen...no, no, non m’inganno.Ei fugge, ei qui mi lascia in abbandono.Più speranza non v’è, tradita io sono.Teseo! Teseo! M’ascolta! Teseo! ma ohimè, vaneggio! i flutti e il vento lo involano per sempre agli occhi miei.Ah, siete ingiusti o Dei se l’empio non punite! Ingrato! perchè ti trassi dalla morte?Dunque tu dovevi tradirmi?e le promesse? e i giuramenti tuoi?Spergiuro! Infido! hai cor di lasciarmi?A chi mi volgo?da chi pietà sperar?Gia più non reggo, il piè vacillae in così amaro istantesento mancarmi in sen l’alma tremante.

Ah, che morir vorreiin sì fatal momento,ma al mio crudel tormentomi serba ingiusto il ciel.Misera abbandonata,non ho chi mi consolachi tanto amai s’invola,barbaro ed infedel.

—Text by Anonymous

But to whom am I speaking? Only Echo repeats my cries.Theseus does not hear me, does not reply,and the winds and the waves bear away my words.He cannot be far away from me.Let me climb the steepest and highest cliff,there I will sight him.What do I see? Oh heavens! Unhappy me!That is the Argive ship! Those are Greeks! And Theseus! in the prow of the ship! Ah! if only I were mistaken...no, no, I am not wrong.He is escaping and leaving me here, abandoned.I have no hope left, I am betrayed.Theseus! Theseus! Hear me! Theseus!But alas, I am talking wildly,the wind and the waves are stealing him forever from my sight.Ah! you are unjust, Gods, if you do not punish this wicked man. Ungrateful wretch! Why did I save you from death? Therefore you had to betray me?What of your promises? The vows you swore to me? Liar! Unfaithful man!Have you the heart to leave me?To whom can I turn?From whom can I hope for pity?I can no longer stand, my foot gives way,and in such a bitter momentI feel my breast is abandonedby my trembling soul.

Ah! how I long to dieat such a fateful moment,but for my cruel tormentthe unjust heavens preserve me alove.Unhappy and abandoned,I have no one to console me,the man I loved so much flees from me,cruel and faithless.

INTERMISSION



Love After 1950

LIBBY LARSEN(B. 1950)

Libby Larsen studied at the University of Minnesota, where her composition teachers included Dominick Argento and Eric Stokes. A co-founder of the Minnesota Composers Union, she has been composer-in-residence with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony. Larsen is a prolific composer. She has composed opera (including one based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), numerous orchestral works, chamber music, and many works for voice, both for solo singers and for chorus.

Larsen composed Love After 1950 specifically for mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, who gave the first performance at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago on August 7, 2000. On her website (libbylarsen.com), Larsen has provided a wonderful program note for Love After 1950, and listeners are referred to that for her full discussion of this piece, which sets texts by five con-temporary women writers that form what Larsen calls “an interior monologue about love.” She conceived of each of the five songs as a dance, and she set each in a specific musical style. Boy’s Lips is a blues song, while Blond Men is set using what Larsen calls “piano lounge gestures as the atmosphere for the vocal line.” Big Sister Says, 1967 “could only be a honky-tonk and nothing else.” The Empty Song is set as “a slow Tango,” while I Make My Magic is the blood pulsing through your veins.”

Larsen concludes her note with a reference to Robert Schuman’s 1840 cycle Frauenliebe und -Leben, which follows a young girl on the path to becoming a contented wife and mother, and Larsen’s final paragraph is worth quoting in full: “We also chose a deliberate progression in the poetry, from the adolescent mystery of a first kiss through an affair, break-up and rec-onciliation of sorts. This work, virtuosic in its performance and understanding of life, is no Frauen Liebe und -Leben, rather Love After 1950 is the new-woman’s Frau, Love ‘em and Leave ‘em.”

Boy’s lips (a blues)

In the water-heavy nights behind grandmother’s porchwe knelt in the tickling grasses and whispered:Linda’s face hung before us pale as a pecanand it grew wise as she said:“A boy’s lips are soft as baby’s skin,”Mmm, soft as baby’s skin…

The air closed over her words.A firefly whirred near my ear, And in the distance I could hear the streetlamps ping into miniature sunsagainst a feath’ry sky.

—Text by Rita Dove

Blonde men (a torch song)

I think I ought to warn you that I hate blonde men,before you break your heart.I hate the greenish gold of their eyebrows and lashes,how they shatter the sun into rainbows.And their eyes: like a long drink of water,that clear and that cold.Worse than the eyes is the blond hair,The blond hair, the greenish gold of their eyebrows and lashes,Their eyes: like a long drink of water, the blond hair.The shock of a bright blond head slanting above me like a sunbeam on the covers of my dark blue bed.

—Text by Julie Kane

Big sister says, 1967 (a honky-tonk)

Beauty hurts, big sister says, beauty hurts.Yanking a hank of my lanky hair around black wire-mesh rollerswhose inside bristles prick my scalp like so many pins.Beauty hurts! Big sister says, beauty hurts.She says I better sleep with them in.She plucks, tweezes, glides razor blades over tender arm-pit skin,slathers downy legs with stinking depilatory cream,presses straight lashes bolt upright with a medieval-look-ing padded clamp…looking good hurts.Looking good hurts, Beryl warns, it’s hard work.She plucks, tweezes, glides razor blades over tender arm-pit skin, She plucks, tweezes, presses straight lashes bolt upright.Beauty hurts! Looking good hurts!Rollers, tweezers, razor blades, oh, beauty hurts.

—Text by Kathryn Daniels



The empty song (a tango) Today saw the last of my Spanish shampoo.Lasted an age now that sharing with you,such a thing of the past is.Giant Size. The brand was always a compromise.My new one’s tailored exactly to my needs.Non-spill. Protein-rich. Feeds Body, Promises to solve my problem hair.Ah, Sweetheart, these days it’s hard to care,but oh, oh, insomniac moonlight, how unhoneyed is my middle of the night.I could see you far enough, Beyond me how we’ll get back together.Campsites in Spain, moonlight, heavy weather.Today saw the end of my Spanish shampoo,the end of my third month without you.

—Text by Liz Lochead

I make my magic (Isadora’s dance) I make my magic of forgotten things:Night and nightmare and the midnight wings of childhood butterflies and the darkness,Ah, the straining dark underwater, and under sleep.I make my magic,Night and a heartbreak try to keep myself,Until before my eyes the morning sunlight poursAnd I am clear of all chains,The magic now that rains down around me is sunlight magic.I come to a sunlight magic, yours, yours, yours, yours.

—Text by Muriel Rukeyser


Chanson à boire, from Don Quichotte à Dulcinée

MAURICE RAVEL(1875–1937)

In the early 1930s, G.W. Pabst, one of the greatest of silent film directors, conceived a new project: he would make a sound film based on Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote and starring the aging Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin, who had created the title role in Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte in 1910. Pabst planned to have Chaliapin sing songs that would be composed specifi-cally for the film, and after considering several other composers, he chose Ravel to write these songs. Ravel accepted the commission, but the composer was at this point in the early stages of the debilitating illness that would eventually kill him, and he could not meet the deadline. Unable to wait, Pabst turned to Jacques Ibert, whose Quatre chansons de Don Quichotte were heard in the movie.

Though he knew his music would not be used in the film, Ravel pressed on and completed his songs in 1933: these three songs, titled Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, were his last completed work. Pabst did not require that his composers set the words of Cervantes, and for his texts Ravel turned to the work of French novelist, diplomat, and playwright Paul Morand. The first two songs, one a love song and the other a prayer, are both at moderate tempos and end quietly. The concluding text, Chan-son à boire, is a drinking song, and it finds the aging knight already quite drunk when it begins. Ravel sets the song as a jota, an old triple-time dance from the Aragon region of Spain. He marks it simply Allegro, and the song gives us Don Quixote in an ebullient mood.

Chanson à boire

Foin du bâtard, illustre Dame,Qui pour me perdre à vos doux yeux,Dit que l’amour et le vin vieuxMettent en deuil mon coeur, mon âme!

Je bois à la joie!La joie est le seul butOù je vais droit . . .Lorsque j’ai bu!

Foin du jaloux, brune maîtresse,Qui geint, qui pleure et fait sermentD’être toujours ce pâle amantQui met de l’eau dans son ivresse!

Je bois à la joie!La joie est le seul butOù je vais droit . . .Lorsque j’ai bu!

—Text by Paul Morand

Drinking song

A fig for the bastard, illustrious Lady,Who, to shame me in your sweet eyes,Says that love and old wineWill bring misery to my heart, my soul!

I drink to joy!Joy is the one aimTo which I go straight . . .When I am drunk!

A fig for the jealous fool, dark-haired mistress,Who whines, who weeps and vowsEver to be this pallid loverWho waters the wine of his intoxication!

I drink to joy!Joy is the one aimTo which I go straight . . .When I am drunk!


Phidylé L’herbe est molle au sommeil sous les frais peupliers,Aux pentes des sources moussues,Qui, dans les prés en fleurs germant par mille issues,Se perdent sous les noirs halliers.

Repose, ô Phidylé! Midi sur les feuillagesRayonne, et t’invite au sommeil!Par le trèfle et le thym, seules, en plein soleilChantent les abeilles volages;

Un chaud parfum circule aux détours des sentiers,La rouge fleur des blés s’incline,Et les oiseaux, rasant de l’aile la colline, Cherchent l’ombre des églantiers.

Mais quand l’Astre, incliné sur sa courbe éclatante,Verra ses ardeurs s’apaiser, Que ton plus beau sourire et ton meilleur baiser Me récompensent de l’attente!

—Text by Leconte de Lisle

Phidylé

The grass is soft for sleeping under the fresh poplars, On the slopes by the mossy springs,Which in the flowery meadows arise in a thousand rills, To be lost under dark thickets.

Rest, O Phidylé! the midday sun on the leaves Is shining and invites you to sleep!In the clover and the thyme, alone, In full sunlight the hovering bees are humming;

A warm fragrance haunts the winding paths,The red poppy of the cornfield droops,And the birds, skimming the hill on the wing,Seek the shade of the sweet briar.

But when the sun, sinking lower on its resplendent orbit, Finds its fire abated,Let your loveliest smile and your most ardent kiss Reward me for my waiting!

Phidylé

HENRI DUPARC(1848–1933)

The creative career of French composer Henri Duparc is one of the strangest in all music. As a young man, Duparc studied with Franck and composed a very few works: two pieces for orchestra, some choral settings, and a handful of songs. Then in 1885, at the age of 37, he gave up music. A nervous condition prevented further composition, and Duparc went back and destroyed almost everything he had written to that point. He left Paris and led a quiet life in the countryside, where he drew and painted watercolors until he became blind. An extremely religious man who was devoted to his family, Duparc lived as an invalid for the next 50 years, dying at age 85 in 1933. His reputation today rests on the 13 songs he composed in his youth and allowed to survive. It is probably the smallest body of work of any composer, yet these sensitive settings, alert to nuances of meaning and touched with a Wagnerian freedom of harmony, are enough to insure Duparc’s continuing fame. Martin Cooper has evaluated him succinctly: “He was unique in giving the French melodie a musical substance, an emotional in-tensity and a unity of poem and music that were not to be equaled until the songs of Fauré’s maturity.”

Duparc was particularly attracted to the poetry of the Parnassian school and sets texts only by those poets. In French po-etry, the Parnassians flourished briefly between the Romantics and the Symbolists; they prized emotional restraint, classical form, and a careful attention to technique. Phidylé (1882), one of Duparc’s most famous songs, sets a text by the Parnassian poet Leconte de Lisle (1818–1894). This love song moves from a sleepy beginning (Duparc marks the opening Lente et calme), grows more animated and rises to a great climax on “recompensent,” then fades to a beautifully judged close. This song is dedicated to Ernest Chausson.



Cäcilie, Opus 27, No. 2

RICHARD STRAUSS(1864–1949)

It has been said that Richard Strauss had a lifetime love affair with the sound of the soprano voice, but it should also be noted that he had a lifetime love affair with a particular soprano. The young composer married the singer Pauline de Ahna on September 10, 1894, and it would prove an often stormy but very sound marriage—it lasted until his death 55 years later, in 1949. Strauss frequently accompanied his wife in her recitals and wrote songs with her voice in mind. On the eve of the marriage, Strauss completed a set of four songs and presented them to Pauline as a wedding present; these four songs were later published as the composer’s Opus 27.

The last song of Opus 27, Cäcilie, is a love-song in every sense of that term—it sets a love-poem by Heinrich Hart (Cäcilie was the name of the poet’s wife), and Strauss composed it the day before his and Pauline’s wedding. This song begins at white heat, and Strauss is nevertheless able to ratchet up the level of intensity as it soars to an impassioned statement of love.

Cäcilie Wenn du es wüßtest,Was träumen heißt von brennenden Küssen,Von Wandern und Ruhen mit der Geliebten,Aug in Auge,Und kosend und plaudernd,Wenn du es wüßtest,Du neigtest dein Herz!

Wenn du es wüßtest, Was bangen heißt in einsamen Nächten,Umschauert vom Sturm, da niemand tröstetMilden Mundes die kampfmüde Seele,Wenn du es wüßtest, Du kämest zu mir.

Wenn du es wüßtest,Was leben heißt, umhaucht von der GottheitWeltschaffendem Atem,Zu schweben empor, lichtgetragen,Zu seligen Höhen,Wenn du es wüßtest,Du lebtest mit mir!

—Text by Heinrich Hart

Cecily

If you knew What it is to dream of burning kisses,Of wandering and resting with one’s love,Gazing at each other,And caressing and talking,If you knew,You would incline your heart!

If you knewWhat fear is on lonely nights,As the storm rages, when no one comfortsWith soft voice the struggle-weary soul,If you knew, You would come to me.

If you knewWhat it is to live enveloped in God’sWorld-creating breath,To float upwards, borne on light,To blissful heights,If you knew,You would live with me!

—Translation © 1976 George Bird and Richard Stokes

Documents

presents… JAMIE BARTON Mezzo-soprano KATHLEEN KELLY …R. STRAUSS Cäcilie, Opus 27, No. 2 This program is made possible in part by the generous support of Mr. and Mrs. J. Patterson