Joined in Song - Lieder and Chansons by American Composers

 

Soirées Musicales Quintette

 

Annie Lower – soprano

Rachael Griffin – soprano

Mattias Lower – tenor

Leon Warnock – baritone

Peter Roennfeldt – piano

​

The medium of language, when combined with music, has the ability to unite people from diverse backgrounds. The English-speaking world, in particular North America and England, has many examples of composers setting texts of other languages. Although German, French and Italian styles of music had long been adopted elsewhere during the baroque and classical eras, it is from the late 1800s that one sees more examples of traffic in the other direction. Composers from the United States had a strong affinity with the German and French schools, with many of them studying abroad. In fact, up to World War One it was considered somewhat unusual for a composer or even a performer to have been trained entirely on home ground.

This program shows how some American composers were inspired by Continental culture. Edward MacDowell studied at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1870s and then in Frankfurt, before meeting Liszt and Clara Schumann. Charles Tomlinson Griffes was a student for several years in Berlin, where he met Humpderinck. Amy Beach was trained entirely at home, but later she performed some of her major works in Dresden, Munich and Leipzig. Virgil Thomson had an extended period up to the 1930s
in Paris, where he became a close friend of Gertrude Stein and a liaison for numerous Americans studying there. Charles Ives is mostly known for his experimentation, but he was also open to the influence French and German song styles. Dating from 1994, the French choral cycle by Morten Lauridsen, capped off a decade of setting texts in four different European languages.

This program, therefore, surveys more than a century of American song in languages other than English. Some are modelled on contemporary trends in French Chanson and German Lieder, as a type of personal study. Others take the form of a tribute or homage, with settings of texts made famous by Schumann and Brahms. Charles Ives felt obliged to state, in his collection of 114 Songs, published in 1922, that: ‘The writer has been severely criticized for attempting to put music to texts of songs,
which are masterpieces of great composers. …It should be unnecessary to say that they were not composed in the spirit of competition; neither Schumann, Brahms or Franz will be the one to suffer by comparison, another unnecessary statement. Moreover, they would probably be the last to claim a monopoly of anything … These songs are inserted not so much in spite of this criticism as because of it’. This program explores a rich trove of music that joins both sides of the North Atlantic.

​

Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920)

​

             Five German Poems                                                          

                         Auf dem Teich, (On the pond)

                         Auf geheimen Waldespfade (On secret forest paths)

                         Der träumende See (The dreaming lake)

                         Zwei Königesassen auf Orkadal (Two kings from Orkadal)

                         Wohl lag ich eist in Gram und Schmerz (I lay deep in grief and pain)

             From  Three Tone-Pictures (1910-12)  for piano

                         The Vale of Dreams    

                                   

Edward MacDowell (1860-1908)

​

             Zwei Lieder Op.12 (1898)                                                

                         Nachtlied (Night song)

                         Das Rosenband (The rose ribbon)

             From Drei Lieder Op.33 (1888)                                       

                      Bitte (Request)           

                      Jdylle (Idyll)          

             From Six Idylls after Goethe Op.28 (1887)  for piano

                         Leichte Silberwolken schweben (Light silver clouds float)

​

Amy Marcy Beach (1867-1944)

​

             Three Songs Op.21 (1893)

                         Chanson d’amour (Song of love)

                         Extase (Ecstasy)

                         Elle est moi (She is me)

             From Les Rêves de Columbine Op.65 (1907) for piano

                          Sous les Étoiles (Under the stars)            

​

Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)             

​

             La Valse Grégorienne (Gregorian waltz)

             La belle en dormant (Sleeping beauty)  

             Le Berceau du Gertrude Stein (The cradle of Gertrude Stein)

​

Charles Ives (1874-1954)  

​

             Du bist wie eine Blume (You are like a flower)

             Widmung (Dedication)

             Weil’ auf mir (Because on me)

             Du alte Mutter (You old mother)

             Feldeinsamkeit (Field solitude)

             Ich grolle nicht (I do not complain)   

​

Morten Lauridsen (born 1943)

​

             From Les Chansons des Roses (1993)

                                Dirait-on (One would say)