|
Nothing
Divine is
Mundane
Songs of
Virgil Thomson
Dora Ohrenstein,
soprano
Glenn Siebert,
tenor
William Sharp,
baritone
Phillip Bush,
piano
Cassatt Quartet
In a lecture given in 1926 Gertrude Stein said:
When [a] first rate work of art becomes a classic because it is accepted the only thing that is important from then on to the majority of the acceptors is that it is so wonderfully beautiful. Of course it is wonderfully beautiful, only when it is still a thing irritating, annoying stimulating then all quality of beauty is denied to it. If every one were not so indolent they would realize that beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. ("Composition as Explanation," a lecture given to the Oxford and Cambridge Literary Societies)
The music of Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) has not suffered the fate of becoming classic and accepted. Some listeners have in fact found it annoying and irritating, and so were deaf to its beauty. If we take Stein's admonition to heart, perhaps we can appreciate what makes it beautiful as well as bothersome.
Stein's remarks address the subject of artistic innovation, and Thomson clearly saw himself as an innovator. Like many others of his generation, he was seeking alternatives to the Teutonic aesthetic which had long dominated European and American music. He found that tradition overblown and self-indulgent, too concerned with the creation of "masterpieces." Erik Satie was his musical idol, and restraint, directness and sincerity what he valued most. In Thomson's work, the Gallic tradition took on a peculiarly American tone the hymns and folk songs of his Kansas City youth held pride of place in his musical vocabulary. From these and other devices Thomson forged a distinct style, never wavering in his allegiance to simplicity and economy, determined to strip his music of all but the essentials without sacrificing expressivity.
At its best Thomson's music achieves an eloquence all the more moving because it is done with such seemingly simple means. And in no genre is this more true than in his vocal music, where his outstanding literary skills came into play. Thomson was a gifted writer of prose, and he had an unerring ear and feel for language. When these talents were put to use in the setting of a text the results are exemplary indeed, his achievements here are seldom disputed. That recognition has focused primarily on his fidelity to the natural rhythms and cadences of speech, and for Thomson this was an enduring concern. Writing about his first song settings of poems by Gertrude Stein, he says:
"My hope in putting Gertrude Stein to music had been to break, crack open, and solve for all time anything still waiting to be solved, which was almost everything, about English musical declamation. My theory was that if a text is set correctly for the sound of it, the meaning will take care of itselfI had no sooner put to musicone short Stein text than I knew I had opened a door. I had never had any doubts about Stein's poetry; from then on I had none about my ability to handle it in music."1
His text settings are indeed models of clarity, but closer examination reveals that there is far more to admire in Thomson's handling of poetry. Time and time again, he finds ingenious ways to reveal a poem's structure, enhance and amplify its meaning, and underline the potent word or image.
Thomson moved to Paris in 1925 and became close friends with Stein soon after, commencing one of the great collaborative relationships of our century. Asked by an interviewer why he wrote no more than two operas with Stein, Thomson said "It simply never occurred to me that both of us would not always be living." The earliest Stein settings are the two songs which open this disc, Preciosilla (1927) and Susie Asado (1926). John Cage has pointed out that Thomson takes two radically different approaches to Stein's ultramodern poetry the first provides contrast with an "old music" setting, invoking Baroque musical conventions of aria and recitative, the second joins its avant-gardism with musical parallels to Stein's "literary cubism"2 Both strategies serve the poetry remarkably well. By applying to Preciosilla his characteristic method of shaping a text by emphasizing its word groups, he makes the poem more accessible. Whatever Stein may have had in mind in lines like "please get wet naturally," and "Toasted susie is my ice cream" (some have suggested a Sapphic sexual interpretation), Thomson's setting certainly convinces us that something amusing is going on. Susie Asado consists entirely of "musical abstractions" arpeggios and scales, those building blocks of music
which Thomson compared to "the squares, circles and discs found regularly in the paintings of Joan Mirò and the sculptures of Alexander Calder. "3 The bare bones setting makes the words leap out with tremendous force. About Susie Asado, Cage wrote "one finds oneself a little more innocent and a little more idiotic for having enjoyed it."4 The two songs illustrate Thomson's hallmark: he insists on building a piece from whatever musical materials are best suited for the text at hand, but uses only those which convey it concisely and precisely.
It was this stubborn adherence to musical economy, in an era that increasingly prized complexity, that caused annoyance to some listeners. Ned Rorem wrote in rebuttal that "his seeming inanitywas sophistication at its most poignant." Both the sophistication and poignancy escaped many in the musical establishment, whether romanticists allied to older traditions, or serialists and experimentalists advocating new practices. Finding no kindred spirit in Thomson, they dismissed his music as simplistic. Closer listening and examination shows the falseness of this view. Yet it would be disingenuous not to admit that Thomson's music can, at times, have an insistentent quality. He was always reminding us to get back to basics, intent on showing the endless possibilities of his beloved "abstractions," the scale, arpeggio, simple three-quarter time. There was a polemic to it, and that is what provokes irritation in some listeners.
The four poems of "La Belle en Dormant" (1931) are by George Hugnet, a close friend of Thomson's during the Paris years. Of him Thomson wrote "Hugnet was small, truculent and sentimental, a type at once tough and tender His poetry is liltingly lyrical, pleasingly farfetched as to image, and sweet on the tongue".5 The first three are love songs in varying moods, very French in style and with accompaniments that mimic guitar and harp. The final song has the strangest musical setting: two alternating chords repeat statically until the final three bars, when a sudden change of harmony and dissonant vocal line highlight a particulary farfetched image of bearded sea captains plunging overboard in search of childhood.
Max Jacob, creator of the text used in "Stabat Mater," (1931) was another important figure in Thomson's Parisian circle, a gifted poet and painter whose mercurial nature made him endearing one moment, abusive the next. Born a Jew, he experienced an intense vision of Jesus at the age of 33 and was baptized a Catholic, with Picasso as godfather. Thomson writes about the "Stabat Mater" in his autobiography:
"It is a perfect work in the sense that I have never felt an urge to tamper with it; it has nothing to ask of me, leads its own life. It must have been the simon-purity of Max Jacob's religious inspiration that held me in line while writing it. I remember starting out to compose music in the twelve-tone convention; then feeling constricted by the method, I let the piece write itself. When it was finished, I went for a walk in the Bois de Vincennes; and there, suddenly, lying on a bluegrass hillside near the empty race track, I had felt all trembly, joyfully tired, and emptied, as by a visitation."6
For Thomson, an avowed atheist who was undemonstrative by nature, this must have been a remarkable moment. The work proved to be a very significant one in his carer: it was his "first real success in America" according to Aaron Copland after its 1932 performance in Saratoga Springs, and his first work ever to be published (by Cos Cob Press in 1933). It is entirely free of Thomson's characteristic irony, and more overtly expressive than much of his work.
This is also true of Thomson's "Five Songs From William Blake," (1951) written twenty years later. In the intervening years he worked as music critic of The Herald Tribune (1940 - 1954), and composing two major works: his second opera, "The Mother of Us All" and the film score to "Louisiana Story," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. The Blake songs sound strikingly fresh today they are bold and dramatic, displaying an enviable freedom and command of styles and musical materials. Fulfilling a lifelong desire to give musical voice to Blake's philosophy, Thomson allowed himself uncharacteristic range and outspokenness. In "The Divine Image" and "The Little Black Boy," folk and hymn tunes do eloquent service to Blake's profoundly humanistic vision. The pounding piano and quickening vocal line of "Tiger!Tiger!" make terror and awe palpable. In "The Land of Dreams" Thomson becomes even more extravagant, the word painting, extreme dissonance and restless texture recalling Charles Ives. "And Did Those Feet," with its declamatory vocal line set over a Celtic tune in the pianist's right hand, percussive martial chords in the left, has enough going on to satisfy even "the complexity boys" (Thomson's nickname for those who equated density with quality). Each one of these songs makes a powerful statement, and the cycle deserves to be counted as one of the finest by an American of any era.
The text of "The Little Black Boy" has been perceived as problematic and was even at one point withdrawn from performance by Thomson. There are many possible readings of Blake's poem, but we present it here with the view that its intent is not racist, but rather enlightened and compassionate.
Written in the same year as the Blake songs, the "Four Songs to Poems of Thomas Campion" are Thomson at his most lyrical, drawing on an array of vocal styles from German lied to parlor songs to operatic declamation. The first of these is a particularly fine example of how Thomson could strip his music down to almost nothing to achieve poignancy. Gentle rhythmic opposition (duples against triples) between voice and piano suggest the beloved's elusiveness and persists for the song's duration, except for certain key moments at the word "sympathy" and at its end, where rhythmic unison is achieved simultaneously with the protagonist's yielding and acceptance. This cycle exists in two versions: for voice and piano, as performed here, and for a chamber ensemble of voice, clarinet, viola, and harp.
"Mostly About Love" (1959) are settings of Kenneth Koch poems, some of which were altered by Thomson; we provide the poems as originally written because the alterations are of interest. Koch was associated with the New York school of poetry, and the style is stream of consciousness, by turns exuberant, playful, witty, and delicate. Thomson again shows great imagination in his treatment of the text, spinning out vocal lines that catch its flow and high-spirits. Indeed, these songs do more than capture the poetry, they fling it into another realm. The last in this group, "A Prayer to St. Catherine," is such a gem one might be tempted to call it a masterpiece; our hesitation comes from the image of Thomson eyeing the dreaded "M" word disapprovingly from the grave.
Very different from the other cycles is "Tres Estampas de Ninez," (1957) with Spanish texts by Venezuelan poet and mezzo-soprano Reyna Rivas. The poems are spare narratives of children living in poverty. Thomson's vocal lines avoid dramatic leaps, moving instead by steps and thirds to create a childlike purity. Most unusual of these is the first song, a study in three-part counterpoint, where inexorable eighth notes and constantly shifting tonality are the composer's expressive devices for depicting a bleak landscape. The cycle is one of his most moving and effective.
In "Two by Marianne Moore" (1963) Thomson is again working primarily with "abstractions," and there is a striking resemblance to his setting of "Susie Asado," written almost forty years earlier. The recitative-like vocal line of "English Usage" is punctuated by piano chords marching all over the harmonic map. The piano part of "My Crow Pluto," consists of scales and arpeggios, often in bitonal relation to the vocal line, which eschews any real melody. Both settings adroitly captures the poet's sophisticated wit and are highly instructive composers often kill humor in their over-strenuous attempts to capture it. In these songs, Thomson makes it seem easy.
A year after Thomson's centenary he remains unjustly neglected by an American music establishment sorely in need of rejuvenation. Not entirely neglected, of course recent productions of the Gertrude Stein operas and a new biography by Anthony Tommassini helped commemorate this landmark year. Yet one prominent critic reviewing a 1996 production of "Four Saints in Three Acts" found the work "irritating." Surely, Thomson and Stein would regard this comment as more complimentary than not, since it implies that the opera still provokes and stimulates sixty years after its premiere. One likes to imagine the two of them, post-mortal but still "getting on like Harvard men," having a good chuckle over reviews like this.
Thomson's music does have beauty, and in the current musical climate, it also has relevance. Composers today, like Thomson, want the freedom to treat all previous musical material as their own, and refuse to value only academically-approved styles. In his sure command of eclecticism, strict avoidance of cliché, and unwillingness to succumb to grandiosity, he is a valuable model. His music still reminds us to stay pure, to trust our subtler instincts, have faith in our native sources; if it does so at times self-consciously and insistently, that should not obscure the countless other pleasure
it provides. Now that the "complexity boys" have ceased to dominate the music world, perhaps we can hear the beauty of his music along with the exhortations.
Notes by Dora Ohrenstein
1Virgil Thomson, Virgil Thomson, 1996, reprinted by Da Capo Press
2Virgil Thomson: His Life and Music, Katherine Hoover, John Cage, 1959, T. Yoseloff
3Music with Words, Virgil Thomson, 1989 Yale University Press
4Ibid
5Ibid
6Ibid
Dora Ohrenstein
Soprano Dora Ohrenstein has been widely hailed as a gifted interpreter of contemporary vocal music. For over a decade she was solo vocalist of the Philip Glass Ensemble, appearing at major halls and festivals around the globe. She produced and featured in Urban Diva, a music theater work with newly commissioned pieces by outstanding American composers which premiered in Holland and toured extensively in the U.S. Ms. Ohrenstein has been presented at numerous festivals, including Bang On A Can, Spoleto USA, Cabrillo, Cultures Canada, Monadnock, North American New Music, and Lincoln Center's Serious Fun! and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, MayMusic in Charlotte Festival, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Brentano Quartet, and many other notable ensembles. An ardent champion of American art song, Ms. Ohrenstein was Executive Producer and one of the performers Albany Records' four-disc set of the Complete Songs of Charles Ives.
Glenn Siebert
The Washington Times has called tenor Glenn Siebert "quite a find: A natural, dashing actor as well as an imensely satisfying coloratura tenor." He performs a wide range of operatic and orchestral works. His opera roles include Tonio in La Fille du Régiment, Ramiro in La Cenerentola, Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw; he is also a noted soloist in Carmina Burana, Elijah, Messiah, Rossini's Stabat Mater, and Berlioz' Lélio, which he has recorded with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra on the Koss label. Mr. Siebert has appeared in leading roles with Santa Fe Opera, Hamburg Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and the Washington Opera, and as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. He has also sung with the Ravinia Festival, the Bard Festival, the Grant Park Festival, and the Flanders Festival.
William Sharp
Baritone William Sharp is a consummate artist possessing the rare combination of vocal beauty, sensitivity and charisma. Praised by The New York Times as a "sensitive and subtle singer" who is able to evoke "the special character of every song that he sings," Mr. Sharp has earned a reputation as a singer of great versatility and continues to garner critical acclaim in concert, recital and recordings. He appears regularly as soloist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York Festival of Song, Bard Music Festival, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Bethlehem Bach Festival and St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, and he has also appeared in recent seasons as soloist with the Handel & Haydn Society and the American Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of William Sharp's career include his Carnegie Hall solo recital debut in 1989, his recording on the Koch label of Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles with the New York Festival of Song, which received a 1990 Grammy award; and his 1989 Grammy Award-nominated solo recital recording (Best Classical Vocal Performance) on the New World Records label.
Phillip Bush
Since his 1984 New York debut at the Metropolitan Museum, pianist Phillip Bush has maintained an active career as both soloist and chamber musician, with a particular devotion to the music of our time. Along with numerous recital appearances, he has been guest soloist with the orchestras of Houston, Cincinnati, and Charlotte, among others. He has performed and recorded with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has appeared at festivals throughout America and Europe, including ten seasons as a resident artist at the Newport Music Festival. He is currently artistic director of MayMusic in Charlotte, a festival in North Carolina. In the past five seasons he has performed over 130 concerts of solo and chamber music in Japan. Since 1987 Mr. Bush has performed worldwide with the ensembles of composers Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Scott Johnson. Recently Mr. Bush made guest appearances with the New Music Consort and Essential Music in New York, and Milwaukee's Present Music. Mr. Bush is the recipient of grants from the NEA, the Cary Charitable Trust, and the Copland Fund for New Music. He can be heard on the Epic/Sony, Virgin Classics, CRI, Point, and Albany recording labels. His recording of solo piano works by the American composer Ben Johnston was released in 1997 by Koch International Classics.
Cassatt String Quartet
The Cassatt String Quartet has been hailed as one of America's outstanding young ensembles, earning critical raves throughout North America, Europe and the Far East. With both the Juilliard Quartet and the Tokyo Quartet as their early mentors, the group won fellowships at Tanglewood and Yale, subsequently capturing top prizes at the Fischoff, Coleman and Banff Competitions and receiving the 1995 Chamber Music America/ASCAP First Prize Award for Adventurous Programming. The Cassatts frequently commission new works from outstanding contemporary composers while also performing a wide range of the standard repertory. It is from the pioneering American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt that the Quartet takes its name.
Texts and Translations
Preciosilla
Gertrude Stein
Cousin to Clare washing.
In the win all the band beagles which have cousin lime sign and arrange a weeding match to presume a certain pass lint to exstate a lean sap prime lo and shut shut is life.
Bait, bait, tore, tore her clothes, toward it, toward a bit, to ward a sit, sit down in, in vacant surely lots, a single mingle, bait and wet, wet a single establishment that has a lily lily grow. Come to the pen come in the stem, come in the grass grown water.
Lily wet lily wet while. This is so pink so pink in stammer, a long bean which shows bows is collected by a single curly shady, shady get, get set wet bet.
It is a snuff a snuff to be told and have can wither, can is it and sleeps sleeps knot, it is a lily scarf the pink and blue yellow, not blue not odour sun, nobles are bleeding two seats on end. Why is grief. Grief is strange black. Sugar is melting. We will not swim.
Preciosilla.
Please be please be get, please get wet, wet naturally, naturally in weather. Could it be fire more firier. Could it be so in ate struck. Could it be gold up, gold up stringing in it while while which is hanging, hanging in dingling, dingling in pinning, not so. Not so dots large dressed dots, big sizes, less laced, less laced diamonds, diamonds white, diamonds bright, diamonds in the in the light, diamonds light diamonds door diamonds hanging to be four, two four, all before, this bean, lessly, all most, a best, willow, vest, a green guest, guest, go go go go go go, go. Go go. Not guessed. Go go.
Toasted susie is my ice cream.
Susie Asado
Gertrude Stein
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado
Susie Asado which is a told tray sure.
A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers.
When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a
silver seller.
This is a please this is a please these are the saids to jelly.
These are the wets these say the sets to leave a crown to Incy.
Incy is short for incubus.
A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees
tremble, the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and
shove and render clean, render clean must.
Drink pups.
Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it shine and a
bobolink has pins. It shows a nail.
What is a nail. A nail is unison.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
La Belle en dormant
Georges Hugnet
Pour chercher sur la carte des mers
Pour chercher sur la carte des mers.
sur la carte des vacances ton nom,
ton nom sur la carte des chansons,
pour me taire quand je te prends au monde,
pour faire de toi ma mémoire.
To seek on the map of seas,
On the map of vacations your name,
Your name on the map of songs,
To remain silent when I take you from the world,
And fashion of you my remembrance.
La première de toutes
La première de toutes n'a pas chanté
le premier jour ni le second jour ni le troisième.
Le quatrième j'ai pleuré.
Elle a tourné les remparts avec un bruit de bracelets.
Elle est venue d'abord chez moi
avec un grand chapeau blanc,
et puis elle a mangé aprés m'avoir dit bonjour,
et puis il n'y avait plus personne
et j'ai inventé son nom,
son nom, ma géographie.
The first among them did not sing
The first day, nor the second day, nor the third.
On the fourth day I wept.
She surmounted my ramparts with the sound of bracelets.
She first came to me
wearing a large white hat
And then after saying “bonjour,”she dined.
And then there was no one
and I invented her name,
Her name, my geography.
Mon amour est bon à dire
Mon amour est bon à dire,
comme un mensonge et comme la vérité
à voix haute ma nouvelle du monde.
Que la poésies lui ressemble,
la poésie ressemblante qu'il détient.
Loin de la mort qui ne révèlent que les vivants
et de son respect haissable
ce faux sommeil où rien ne se déroule.
Mon amour est bon à dire
parce qu'il vit et dort,
si mes mots sont de sa forme, à sa mesure.
My love is good to tell about
Like a falsehood and yet like a truth
Loudly I announce my news.
Let it resemble poetry,
Let it retain poetry!
Far from death which reveals only the living
And from hateful respect,
That false sleep where nothing ever happens.
My love is good to tell about,
For it both lives and sleeps
If my words are true to its form and metre.
Partis les vaisseaux
Partis les vaisseaux apprendre du nouveau sur les hommes.
Les chaines ont lâché leurs voyages enchainés.
Désertes les encâblures.
Par dessus bord ceux qui commandent et d'invisible pontons.
Où allez vous, pontons à barbe?
L'enfance au gouvernail!
The ships have gone to learn about mankind
The chains have released their enchained voyages.
Deserted are the cables.
Gone overboard are the commanders in invisible pontoons.
Where are you bound, bearded boatmen?
Childhood to the helm!
Translated by Newell Bush
Stabat Mater
Max Jacob
Ne pleurez pas, Madame.
Si votre fils est condamné, il ressuscitera par miracle
après l'enterrement.
Comment ne pas pleurez un tel fils.
Ne pleurez pas si vous pouvez
vous empêchez.
Laissez-moi passer.
Je veux aller près de lui.
Je veux mourir avec mon fils.
Vous mourrez à votre heure, Madame,
et vous ressusciterez pour L'Assomption.
Ne pleurez pas, ma mère,
disait le fils unique
Je sais ce que j'ai a faire.
Gardez mon sang. C'est un tresor.
On ne l'aura que par ma mort.
Quelle mère s'arrêterait de pleurer
en perdant un fils de trente ans.
Croyez en moi, ma mère.
Vous êtes Dieu sur terre.
Obéissez à votre père.
Je resterai sous le poteau à pleurer.
Consolez ma mère, Saint Jean.
Et qui me consolera, Seigneur?
Je vous consolerai avec les Sacrements.
Angel: O, lady, do not cry.
Although your son must die today,
by a miracle he will arise from the sepulcher.
Mary: How could I nor mourn such a son?
Angel: Hold back your tears if you can.
Mary: Let me go by.
I want to stand beside him.
I want to die with my son.
Angel: You shall die in your own time, lady;
and you yourself will arise for Assumption Day.
Jesus: O Mother, do not cry
(Thus spake the only son.)
I do what I have to do.
Preserve my blood. It is a treasure.
It cannot be had excepting through my death.
Mary: What mother could hold back her tears
to behold her son of thirty dying?
Jesus: O Mother, believe me.
Mary: You are God on earth.
Do what your father bids you do.
I shall stay by the cross and mourn.
Jesus: Comfort her despair, Saint John.
St. John: And who, my Lord, shall comfort me?
Jesus: I shall console you with the Sacraments.
Translated by Virgil Thomson
Five Songs from William Blake
The Divine Image
To Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
All pray in their distress:
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is God our father dear:
And Mercy Pity Peace and Love,
Is Man his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine
Love Mercy Pity Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.
Tiger! Tiger!
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright!
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when the heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the cain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heav'n with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Land of Dreams
Awake awake my little Boy
Thou wast thy Mothers only joy
Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep
Awake thy Father does thee keep
O what Land is the Land of Dreams
What are its Mountains & what are its Streams
O Father I saw my Mother there
Among the Lillies by waters fair
Among the Lambs clothed in white
She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight
I wept for joy like a dove I mourn
O when shall I again return
Dear Child I also by pleasant Streams
Have wander'd all Night in the Land of Dreams
But tho calm & warm the waters wide
I could not get to the other side
Father O Father what do we here
In this Land of unbelief & fear
The Land of Dreams is better far
Above the light of the morning Star
The Little Black Boy
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say.
Look on the rising sun: there God does live
And gives his light, and gives his heat away.
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning joy in the noon day.
And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.
For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.
Thus did my mother say and kissed me,
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear,
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me.
And did those feet
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among those dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot fire!
I will not cease from mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Four Songs to Poems of Thomas Campion
Follow Your Saint
Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet,
Haste you sad notes, fall at her flying feet:
There, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love.
But if she scorns my never ceasing pain,
Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again.
All that I sang still to her praise did tend,
Still she was first; still she my songs did end.
Yet she my love and music both did fly,
The music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy.
Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight:
It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight.
There is a Garden in Her Face
There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heav'nly paradise is that place
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
There cherries grow which none may buy
Till “Cherry ripe” themsleves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of Orient pearl a double row;
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds filled with snow.
Yet them no peer nor prince can buy
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.
Rose Cheek'd Laura, Come
Rose cheek'd Laura, come!
Sing thou sweetly with thy beauty's silent music,
either other Sweetly gracing.
Lovely forms do flow
From consent divinely framed,
Heav'n is music, and thy beauty's Birth is heav'nly.
These dull notes we sing
Discords need for help to grace them;
Only beauty purely loving
Knows no discord,
But still moves delight,
Like clear springs renewed by flowing,
Ever perfect, ever in themselves eternal.
Follow Thy Fair Sun
Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,
Though thou be black as night,
And she made all of light,
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow.
Follow her whose light thy light depriveth,
Though here thou liv'st disgraced
And she in heav'n is placed,
Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth.
Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth,
That so have scorched thee,
As thou still black must be,
Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.
Follow her while yet her glory shineth:
There comes a luckless night
That will dim all her light;
And this the black unhappy shade divineth.
Follow still since so they fate ordained;
The sun must have its shade
Till both at once do fade,
The sun still proud, the shadow still disdained.
Mostly About Love
Kenneth Koch
Koch's poems, with their original titles, are printed in their entirety.
Those portions ommitted by Thomson are in italics.
To You (Love Song)
I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
That will solve a murder case unsolved for years
Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
Through which he saw her head, connecting with
Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;
For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not
Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a
Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails
In the wind, when you're near, a wind that blows from
The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;
I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields
Always, to be near you, even in my heart
When I'm awake, which swims, and also I believe that you
Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to
The place where I again think of you, a new
Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow
Of a ship which sails
From Hartford to Miami, and I love you
Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun
Receives me in the questions which you always pose.
Down at the Docks
Down at the docks
Where everything is sweet and inclines
At night
To the sound of canoes
I planted a maple tree
And every night
Beneath it I studied the cosmos
Down at the docks.
Sweet ladies, listen to me.
The dock is made of wood
The maple tree's not made of wood
It is wood
Wood comes from it
As music comes from me
And from this mandolin I've made
Out of the maple tree.
Jealous gentlemen, study how
Wood comes from the maple
Then devise your love
So that it seems
To come from where
All is it yet something more
White spring flowers and leafy bough
Jealous gentlemen.
Arrogant little waves
Knocking at the dock
It's for you I've made this chanson
For you and that big dark blue.
Spring (Let's Take A Walk)
Let's take a walk
In the city
Till our shoes get wet
(It's been raining
All night) and when
We see the traffic
Lights and the moon
Let's take a smile
Off the ashcan, let's walk
Into town (I mean
A lemon peel)
Let's make music
(I hear the cats
Purply beautiful
Like hallways in summer
made of snowing rubber
Valence piccalilli and diamonds)
Oh see the arch ruby
of this late March sky
Are you less intelligent
Than the pirate of lemons
Let's take a walk
I know you tonight
As I have never known
A book of white stones
Or a bookcase of orange groans
Or symbolism
I think I'm in love
With those imaginary racetracks
of red traced grey in
The sky and the gimcracks
Of all you know and love
Who once loathed firecrackers
And license plates and
Diamonds but now you love them all
And just for my sake
Let's take a walk
Into the river
(I can even do that
Tonight) where
If I kiss you please
Remember with your shoes off
You're so beautiful like
A lifted umbrella orange
And white we may never
Discover the blue over-
Coat maybe never never O blind
With this (love) let's walk
Into the first
Rivers of morning as you are seen
To be bathed in a light white light
Come on
A Prayer to Saint Catherine
If I am to be preserved from heartache and shyness
By Saint Catherine of Sienna,
I am praying to her that she will hear my prayer
And treat me in every way with kindness.
I went to Sienna to Saint Catherine's own church
(It is impossible to deny this)
To pray to her to cure me of my heartache and shyness.
Which she can do, because she is a great saint.
Other saints would regard my prayer as foolish.
Saint Nicolas, for example, he would chuckle,
"God helps those who help themselves,
Rouse yourself! Get out there and do something about it!"
Or Saint Joanna. She would say, "It is not shyness,
That bothers you. It is sin. Pray to Catherine of Sienna."
But that is what I have done. And that is why I have come here
to cure my heartache.
Saint Catherine of Sienna, If this song pleases you,
then be good enough to answer the prayer it contains.
Make the person that sings this song less shy than that person is,
And give that person some joy in that person's heart.
Tres Estampas de Niñez "Three Sketches of Childhood"
Reyna Rivas
Todas las Horas
Todas las horas las pasa en la ventana.
Su mirada extraviada
hace mas aguda la soledad de la calle.
Y parece que cae de un mundo distinto
porque nunca se han visto las manos que lo abandonan
ni se ha podido saber el preciso momento
en que deja de estar alli sentado.
Tan ancha su mirada, tan azul!
Sobre la acera están siempre los zapatos,
las golosinas, los juguetes.
Se duerme a veces y su cuerpo,
recostado contra la luz del postigo,
entre el azul intenso de las rejas,
es todo mansedumbre como un cordero encarcelado.
All Through the Day
He spends all hours in the window.
His faraway gaze renders the solitude
of the street even more acute.
And it seems that he comes from a different world,
for the hands that leave him there
have never been seen;
neither has the precise moment been known
at which he stops sitting there.
How wide-eyed his gaze, how blue!
On the window sill, there are always the shoes,
the tidbits, the toys.
At times, he sleeps, and his body,
resting against the opening of the shutter,
amidst the intense blue of the grille,
is all meekness like an imprisoned lamb.
Son Amigos de Todos
Son Amigos de Todos
Son amigos de todos.
El policia les trae caramelos y ellos,
después de mirarlo, le sonríen.
Los Domingos, entre la ronda,
en la placíta de la iglesia,
el policia canta y juega como un niño más.
El panadero les regala cada tarde dorados biscochos
y sólo por oírlos hablar se queda
un rato junto á ellos.
They are Everybody's Friends
They are everybody's friends.
The policeman brings them candy, and they,
after looking at him, smile at him.
On Sundays, between rounds,
in the little square in front of the church,
the policeman sings and plays
like just another child.
Every afternoon, the baker
treats them to golden brown cookies,
and just to hear them talk,
he stays near them for a while.
Nadie lo Oye como Ellos
Nadie lo Oye como Ellos
Nadie lo oye como ellos.
Saben que viene cuando le falta
más de media hora para llegar.
Y él sabe también que en las ventanas,
los niños lo esperan cada tarde.
Llega primero su voz con el pregón.
Una voz que invada las calles,
las plazas, las esquinas, los postigos abiertos.
La madre salió un día y no dejó dinero para la merienda.
El dulcero llamó a todos los niños
y los dejó comer cuanto quisieron
hasta que déjaron la cestra vacía.
Su sonrisa se abría por encima de las cabezas de los niños
igual que el sol más allá de las torres.
Uno de los niños corrió,
entró en la casa y regresó con algo entre las manos.
Calle arriba, el dulcero camina con un caballo de madera
apretado contra su corazón,
mientras la tarde, con su sombra,
envuelve la cesta vacía, las ventanas abiertas.
Nobody Hears Them Like They Do
Nobody hears them like they do.
They know he is coming even
if it will be a good half hour before he arrives
And he, too, knows that every aftrnoon,
the children are waiting or him in the windows.
First comes his voice praising his wares,
a voice that invades the streets,
the squares, the corners, the open shutters.
One day, the mother went out and left no money
for the afternoon snack.
The candyman called all the children
and let them eat as much as they wanted
until they left the basket empty.
his smile spread above the heads
of the children just like the sun beyond the towers.
One of the children ran, went into the house
and came back with something in his hands.
Up the street the pastryman walks
with a wooden horse pressed against his heart,
while the afternoon, with its shadows,
envelopes the empty basket, the open windows.
Translations by Ingeborg Bush
Two by Marianne Moore
To Victor Hugo of My Crow Pluto
"Even when the bird is walking we know that it has wings."
Victor Hugo
Of:
my crow
Pluto,
the true
Plato,
azzurro-blue-
negroblack
green-blue
rainbow —
Victor Hugo,
it is true
we know
that the crow
“has wings,” how-
ever pigeon-toe-
inturned on grass. We do.
(adagio)
Vivo-lively
rosso
“corvo”crow
although
con dizio-with dictionary
nario
io parloI speak
Italiano —Italian
this pseudo
Esperanto
which, saviowise
ucellobird
you speak too —
my vow and motto
(botto e totto)vow and motto
io giuroI swear
è questois this
credo:
lucroprofit is
è peso morto.Dead weight
And so
dear crow —
gioièllomy jewel
mio —
I have to
let you go;
a bel boscoto beautiful woods
generoso,generous
tuttutoaltogether
vagabondo,like a tramp
serafinoseraph
uvaceogrape-colored
Sunto,In sum,
Oltremarinoultramarine
verecondomodest
Plato, addio.Plato, goodbye
I've been thinking . . . (English Usage)
Make a fuss
and be tedious.
I'm annoyed?
yes; am — avoid
“adore”
and “bore”;
am, I
say, by
the word
bore, bored;
refuse
to use
“divine”
to mean
something
pleasing;
“terrific color”
for some horror.
Though flat,
myself, I'd say that
“Atlas”
(pressed glass)
looks best
embossed.
I refuse
to use
“enchant”
“dement”;
even “fright-
ful plight”
(however justified)
or “frivol-
ous fool”
(however suitable).
I've escaped?
am still trapped
by these
word diseases.
No pauses
the phrases
lack lyric
force; sound capric-
like Attic
capric-Alcaic,
or freak
calico-Greek.
(Not verse
of course)
I'm sure of this:
Nothing mundane is divine;
Nothing divine is mundane.
This recording was made possible by grants from the Virgil Thomson Foundation, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts Foundation. Phillip Bush is a Yamaha Artist.
Producer and Engineer: Silas Brown
Executive Producer: Dora Ohrenstein for Re: Soundings, Inc.
Recording Venue: American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York
Recording Dates: August and November, 1996
Mastering: Adam Abeshouse
Piano Technician: Thomas A. Sheehan
Cover Photo of Virgil Thomson © Thomas Victor, courtesy of the Yale University Music Library · ©Thomas Victor, Photographer
Texts reprinted by permission of G. Schirmer, Inc., Boosey & Hawkes, and Peermusic.
Nothing Divine is Mundane
Songs of Virgil Thomson
Dora Ohrenstein, soprano · Glenn Siebert, tenor · William Sharp, baritone
Phillip Bush, piano ·Cassatt Quartet
1 Preciosilla (3:53)
Dora Ohrenstein, Phillip Bush
2 Susie Asado (1:30)
Glenn Siebert, Phillip Bush
La Belle en Dormant
3 Pour chercher sur la carte des mers (1:22)
4 La première de toutes (1:23)
5 Mon amour est bon à dire (1:34)
6 Partis les vaisseaux (1:00)
Glenn Siebert, Phillip Bush
7 Stabat Mater (5:47)
Dora Ohrenstein, Cassatt Quartet
Five Songs from William Blake
8 The Divine Image (2:32)
9 Tiger!Tiger! (2:42)
10 The Land of Dreams (3:09)
11 The Little Black Boy (4:10)
12 "And did those feet" (3:03)
William Sharp, Phillip Bush
Four Songs to poems of Thomas Campion
13 Follow Your Saint (2:15)
14 There is a Garden in Her Face (2:10)
15 Rose Cheek's Laura, Come (2:30)
16 Follow Thy Fair Sun (2:17)
Glenn Siebert, Phillip Bush
Mostly About Love
17 Love Song (2:17)
18 Down at the Docks (2:02)
19 Let's Take a Walk (1:20)
20 A Prayer to Saint Catherine (2:38)
Dora Ohrenstein, Phillip Bush
Tres Estampas de Niñez
21 Todas las Horas (2:14)
22 Son Amigos de Todos (:54)
23 Nadie lo Oye como Ellos (3:23)
Glenn Siebert, Phillip Bush
Two by Marianne Moore
24 English Usage (2:31)
25 My Crow Pluto (1:02)
William Sharp, Phillip Bush
Total Time = 62:34
|
