Measha Brueggergosman & Simon Lepper - Barbican
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Measha
Brueggergosman
& Simon Lepper
Wednesday 8 May 2019 7.30pm,
Milton Court Concert Hall
Ravel Shéhérazade
Debussy Chansons de Bilitis
Duparc Chanson triste; L’invitation au voyage; Phidylé;
La vie antérieure
interval 20 minutes
Cage The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs
Lisa MacIntosh
Montsalvatge Cinco canciones negras
William Bolcom Cabaret Songs:
Surprise; The total stranger in the garden;
Toothbrush time; Song of Black Max; George;
Amor
Measha Brueggergosman soprano
Simon Lepper piano
Part of Barbican Presents 2018–19
Programme produced by Harriet Smith; printed
by Trade Winds Colour Printers Ltd; advertising by
Cabbell (tel 020 3603 7930)
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the Barbican Centre
online.Welcome
A warm welcome to tonight’s recital longing in Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis
given by an artist who delights in defying to the extraordinarily distilled world of
expectation. The Canadian soprano Duparc, who left only a handful of songs.
Measha Brueggergosman made a big
impact when she participated in Jeremy From here we move to the piquancy of
Denk’s residency last season so we’re Montsalvatge and his Five Negro Songs.
delighted that she is tonight giving a We also travel to America, with John
complete recital. Cage’s strikingly original setting of James
Joyce in The Widow of Eighteen Springs,
She’s an artist who doesn’t believe in before ending with a sequence of William
barriers between different genres, which Bolcom’s brilliantly observed Cabaret
is why she is equally at home as a mentor Songs – by turns acerbic, poignant and
on Canada’s Got Talent and singing in the even surreal.
UK premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man
Walking at the Barbican last year. It promises to be a remarkable evening;
I hope you enjoy it.
As a recitalist she has wide-ranging
tastes, from the exotic beauty of Ravel’s Huw Humphreys, Head of Music, Barbican
Shéhérazade and the sense of erotic
2Programme note
Toothbrushes and wonderful
widows: the art of song
For texts, see page 7 some of his poems Ravel was at once seduced
by them.
If recitals were only designed to show off a
particular singer’s vocal artistry then we should He decided to set three of the poems and,
be disappointed. The most satisfying concerts hoping to capture the rhythms of French speech-
are about the repertoire as much as the voice, patterns, insisted that the poet should re-read
about how a singer negotiates what are often the lines aloud to him repeatedly. (Both men
very different kinds of song. Above all, it’s about were admirers of the scrupulous way in which
hearing a familiar repertoire in a new context, Debussy had set Materlinck’s text for Pelléas
old favourites surrounded by unexpected et Mélisande.) Ravel also asked for changes,
choices from singers and their pianist partners. notably in the first of the three songs, ‘Asie’.
In the original poem a line in the final section
So to hear William Bolcom’s cabaret songs reads, ‘En conservant comme Sindbad ma
in the same programme as Henri Duparc’s vieille pipe arabe de temps en temps entre mes
exquisite miniature masterpieces, as we shall lèvres’ (‘Like Sinbad, putting my old Arab pipe
tonight, or the combination of John Cage and between my lips from time to time’). However,
Maurice Ravel, is both a measure of Measha in Parisian slang, ‘pipe’ had a phallic meaning,
Brueggergosman’s talents as an artist and so Klingsor was persuaded to change the line
precisely what a carefully chosen programme to Sinbad raising an old Arab cup to his lips!
ought to be. It’s no surprise, though, given
that Brueggergosman is as much at home Nevertheless, ‘Asie’ with its languorous half-
singing contemporary works such as Jake awake-half-dreaming opening is an erotically
Heggie’s Dead Man Walking – here at the charged catalogue of the delights that await
Barbican last season – as she is in Verdi’s the traveller to the Orient. But as the repeated
Requiem, Strauss’s Elektra and Brecht/Weill’s phrase ‘Je voudrais voir…’ (‘I would like to see …’)
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. tells us, this is armchair travelling. So as this richly
imagined world slumps back into the everyday
Ravel’s song cycle Shéhérazade has its roots the music gently strokes the cushions of the chair.
in the French obsession with all things oriental
that began in the late 19th century and was In ‘La flûte enchantée’ a slave watching over a
subsequently fed by both Diaghilev’s Ballets sleeping master hears her lover playing a flute
Russes and cultural memories of Napoleon’s outside, seemingly sending a kiss. It is music that
Egyptian expedition at the end of the 18th century. unites the two lovers who yearn for each other
Both flowed into Ravel’s song-cycle, which took but are separated by their circumstances.
its immediate cue from the collection of Middle
Eastern folk-tales, 1,001 Nights, which had ‘L’indifférent’ is the most erotically ambiguous
been recently translated into French, and from of the three songs. The poet is enticed by the
Rimsky-Korsakov’s concert suite Scheherazade. charms of an androgynous youth, but fails to
persuade him to visit his home to drink wine.
In 1903 the poet Tristan Klingsor (Léon Leclère) There’s the feeling of twilight around the song,
published a collection of 100 poems inspired by underlined by hints of Debussy’s Nocturnes, but
Rimsky-Korsakov’s music and stories from the is the boy’s evening admirer male or female?
1,001 Nights. Ravel and Klingsor belonged to
a group of young artists who called themselves Shéhérazade was originally composed for
Les Apaches, and when the poet read the group piano and either a soprano or tenor; however,
3it is almost always sung by a woman, either of ice, a tomb for the water nymphs. There is
in the first version for piano and soloist which naught for our comfort in the line ‘Depuis trente
we hear tonight or the orchestral version ans il n’a pas fait un hiver aussi terrible’ (For thirty
which was planned to follow it. (It was Ravel’s years there has not been so harsh a winter).
frequent practice to create orchestral versions
of works first written for piano.) So the first The drama in these songs is as much in the piano
performance of the cycle given in May 1904 part as in the vocal line and, throughout, the
at a Société Nationale concert in Paris was latter aspires to the condition of spoken French
for orchestra and mezzo-soprano with Alfred with hints of the classical world in the piano part,
Cortot conducting and Jeanne Hatto as soloist. which uses a version of the ancient Lydian mode.
As members of Les Apaches Ravel and If Debussy spent his later years endeavouring
Klingsor were both cheerleaders for the music to banish the influence of Richard Wagner from
of Debussy. It was said that they attended his work, then Henri Duparc willingly embraced
every one of the 14 performances of the it. He was a pupil of César Franck, leader of
intitial run of Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902. the French Wagnerians, and in 1887 went on a
pilgrimage to the Festspielhaus with Emmanuel
While working on the opera, Debussy found Chabrier, who took against the composer’s
time to set three poems from Chansons de widow Cosima after she gave a long lecture on
Bilitis, a collection of 143 poems and epigraphs her late husband’s greatness, and apparently
by his friend Pierre Louÿs. He had passed off disposed of an unwanted prune tart in a drawer
the collection as translations of verses from containing the late master’s silk underwear!
the ancient world, composed by a fictional
Greek priestess who was a friend of the poet Duparc’s career as composer lasted for just
Sappho. No-one was fooled for long, but the 16 years and its harvest is effectively just 17
poems, which circled the subjects of sacred songs, the last of which was composed in 1884,
and profane love, were greatly admired for although he would live on until 1933. But what
their subtle blending of ancient and modern. songs! ‘Chanson triste’, a setting of a poem
by Henri Cazalis, known as Jean Lahor, was
The three poems that Debussy chose can be the composer’s first mélodie and published in
heard as a shortened biography of Bilitis from her 1869, with four other songs, and then revised
adolescence, growing up on Lesbos, to her sexual in 1902. The poet dreams of his heart and
awakening and life as a celebrated courtesan in thoughts being cradled in his beloved’s arms
Cyprus. In ‘La flûte de Pan’ an adolescent Bilitis and Duparc sets an exquisite melody above the
is strongly attracted to her flute teacher Lykas: lightest of arpeggios to bear the promise of the
clearly there are more than music lessons on the poem that love is possible and that such love will
curriculum, and no prizes for guessing what the heal. Life may be sad but there can be hope.
flute signifies! By the time of ‘La chevelure’ Lykas
has become Bilitis’s lover, and his dream of her ‘L’invitation au voyage’, dedicated to his wife Ellen,
hair is a metaphor for their relationship, now is possibly Duparc’s masterpiece. It sets a poem
consummated. The tempo grows faster until it by Baudelaire that proved irresistible to a whole
reaches a climax on the line ‘entering into me generation of 19th-century French composers. The
like a dream’. ‘Le tombeau des naïades’ tells of poet may seek to evoke the watery landscape of
the end of the affair. Winter has fallen on Bilitis’s Holland but Duparc shakes the text free from its
heart and over the landscape: this is the season geography to create a song that is simultaneously
4Programme note
mysterious and nostalgic, that within its lilting The ‘melody’ that Cage writes for his soloist is a
melodic line yearns for what has been lost. kind of hypnotic chant based on three separate
Nothing is quite what it seems, underlined by pitches, but it’s the piano part where Cage reveals
ambiguous harmonies and unstable rhythms. his radical approach. The piano is closed, and the
pianist produces a sound by hitting the outside of
Wagnerian chromaticism stalks through ‘Phidylé’, the instrument with fingers, knuckles and so on.
which Duparc dedicated to his friend and fellow
composer Ernest Chausson. There’s a Tristan- This is a work that confronts its audience.
esque feel to this setting of Leconte de Lisle’s What is a song? What is the relationship
poem, with its sensual yearning and ecstatic between the singer and that song? Who is
climax. Asleep in the grass the shepherdess the ‘author’? And, given that Cage puts every
Phidylé will awake and greet her lover with word in his prepared text in capital letters,
a kiss. And as the piano part imperceptibly the result, as one commentator has observed
fades in a postlude, the rest is silence. ‘is a depersonalisation of Joyce’s literary
“voice”, an early intimation perhaps of Cage’s
‘La vie antérieure’ was composed in 1884. The desire to release art from the constraints
poem by Baudelaire evokes an ideal existence of individual taste and self-expression’.
laced with happiness that proffers liberation and
fulfilment, but there is a worm in the bud, there Possibly wishing to escape the constraints imposed
in the final line, ‘the secret grief which made on composing in Catalonia during the Franco
me languish’. Here is a place that cannot be period, the Barcelona-trained composer Xavier
reached. So Duparc suffuses his setting with a Montsalvatge looked across the Atlantic for
heartsore yearning for what cannot be. Honeyed inspiration when be began what has become
nostalgia drips through every phrase, particularlyhis best-known work, Cinco canciones negras.
in the extended postlude. This is Duparc’s last Written in 1945–6 these five songs relish the
magnificent word. One can only regret that insistent rhythms and bold colours of the West
there were to be no more new mélodies. Indies. Montsalvatge delights in jazz chords,
Cuban dance rhythms and Caribbean percussion,
Melody in any traditional sense was not something all of which are given a subtle Spanish accent.
that greatly troubled the American composer
John Cage, yet he and Duparc both embraced ‘Cuba dentro de un piano’ is a setting of a text
a radical aesthetic in their music. Cage’s The by the surrealist poet Rafael Alberti, which has
Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, a song sharp things to say about how the USA treated
for voice and closed piano with a text from Cuba before the Castro Revolution. ‘Punto de
James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake – a novel that Habanera’ sets a teasing poem by Néstor
Cage once described as ‘endless and attractive’ Luján. A pretty Creole girl in a hooped skirt is
– has earned itself the status of a classic, but watched by sailors. Gentle dissonances in the
in 1942 when it was commissioned by the non- piano part tell us that she knows exactly what
professional soprano Janet Fairbank it was she is doing. Then comes Nicolás Guillén’s
surely on the far frontier of Modernism. It also ‘Chévere’, a frightening encounter with a knife-
marked the beginning of Cage’s lifelong interest waving cut-throat who slashes at the shadows
in James Joyce, though he undermines the text and the moonlight before returning to slash
in The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs by at his woman. Again Montsalvatge deploys
abandoning its original punctuation and imposing a subtle dissonance at the end of the song to
a kind of narrative on Joyce’s fragments. hint at a grim end for the woman. ‘Canción de
5cuna para dormir a un negrito’ is a lullaby by an office worker who, after 25 years with
Ildefonso Pereda Valdés. A mother rocks her the company, would rather kill herself than
child and promises that in sleep he will no longer party. If there are hints of Emily Dickinson
be a slave. The mother may caressingly sing her in this bleak little tale, it’s a cousin of Edgar
child to sleep but the piano part reminds us that Allen Poe’s doppelgänger whom we meet in
this cannot be an all-is-well lullaby. In the final ‘The total stranger in the garden’. A middle-
song, ‘Canto negro’, a setting of another poem aged woman whose husband has become
by Guillén, there’s drunken dancing and singing a stranger finds a genuine stranger across
with jubilant cries of ‘Yambambó, yambambé’. her garden table. ‘Toothbrush time’ is a jazzy
number about a woman desperate for an
The American composer William Bolcom learnt unwanted lover from the night before to exit
his music on both sides of the Atlantic studying her life. On the other hand no-one, however
first at the University of Washington and then with desperate, would want to mix with Black Max,
Milhaud, Messaien and Boulez. As eclectic in his ‘always dressed in black, long black jacket,
tastes as Charles Ives, his youthful hero, Bolcom broad black hat, sometimes a cape’. Here’s an
has happily commuted between the concert hall, American cousin of Brecht and Weill’s Mackie
opera house and less formal venues, writing a Messer. It’s a knowing ballad that snakes its
cluster of songs for cabaret. And he is in good way through an urban dystopia. ‘George’ is a
company: Poulenc, Britten and Schoenberg also scream – ‘Oh call me Georgia, hon, get yourself
all wrote cabaret songs. Arnold Weinstein, a poet a drink,’ – who ‘sang the best soprano in our
and the librettist for two of Bolcom’s operas, wrote part of town’ and is knifed by a casual trick.
the texts for these songs and said: ‘We wrote these There’s Puccini in the piano part and lilting
songs as a cabaret in themselves, no production ragtime before they bury him ‘at the cocktail
values to worry about [unlike in the operas]. hour.’ ‘Amor’ is perhaps one of Bolcom’s most
The scene is the piano, the cast is the singer.’ familiar songs with a tender melody wrapped
around a distinctly Latin beat from Chile as
The collaboration between Weinstein and a young woman turns every head in town.
Bolcom produced some two dozen songs which
have often been performed by the composer William Bolcom’s cabaret songs surprise and
and his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris. As delight, but with consummate skill they weave
one American commentator observes, ‘These together the popular and the serious. It’s said
24 songs’ fascinating blend of sophisticated that Bolcom particularly likes a remark made by
rhetoric and seeming unrefinement have led John Cage: ‘some people divide the world into
to their frequent inclusion in both vocal recitals things that are good and things that are bad.
and theatrical revues. Rarely predictable but Others take it all in and let their inner organism
always pleasing, the songs tread a most delicate decide.’ In other words, as Cole Porter tells us,
balance between pathos and bathos.’ ‘anything goes’. And that perhaps is how you
begin to programme a good song recital.
‘Surprise’, wrapped about an unsettling
chromaticism, springs a surprise party on Programme note © Christopher Cook
6Texts
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Shéhérazade
1 Asie Asia
Asie, Asie, Asie, O Asia, Asia, Asia,
Vieux pays merveilleux des contes de nourrice, magic land of nursery tales,
Où dort la fantaisie comme une impératrice where fantasy, like an empress, sleeps
En sa forêt tout emplie de mystère. in her forest full of mystery.
Je voudrais m’en aller avec la goëlette I would like to set sail with the schooner
Qui se berce ce soir dans le port, that lies rocking in the harbour this night.
Mystérieuse et solitaire, Mysterious and alone,
Et qui déploie enfin ses voiles violettes it unfurls at last its purple sails
Comme un immense oiseau de nuit dans le ciel like a huge night-bird in the golden sky.
d’or.
Je voudrais m’en aller vers les îles de fleurs, I would like to set sail for the isles of flowers,
En écoutant chanter la mer perverse listening to the song of the brutal sea
Sur un vieux rythme ensorceleur. to an ancient spell-like beat.
Je voudrais voir Damas et les villes de Perse I would like to see Damascus and the towns of
Persia,
Avec les minarets légers dans l’air; their dainty minarets tall in the air;
Je voudrais voir de beaux turbans de soie I would like to see fine turbans of silk
Sur des visages noirs aux dents claires; above black faces with gleaming teeth;
Je voudrais voir des yeux sombres d’amour I would like to see eyes dark with love
Et des prunelles brillantes de joie and pupils bright with joy
En des peaux jaunes comme des oranges; against skins colourful as oranges;
Je voudrais voir des vêtements de velours I would like to see velvet clothes
Et des habits à longues franges. and fringed dresses.
Je voudrais voir des calumets entre des bouches I would like to see pipes in mouths
Tout entourées de barbe blanche; encircled by white beards;
Je voudrais voir d’âpres marchands aux regards I would like to see greedy merchants with
louches, scheming eyes,
Et des cadis, et des vizirs cadis and viziers
Qui du seul mouvement de leur doigt qui se who with a snap of their fingers
penche
Accorde vie ou mort au gré de leur désir. dispense at will life or death.
Je voudrais voir la Perse, et l’Inde, et puis la I would like to see Persia, India and China too,
Chine,
Les mandarins ventrus sous les ombrelles, pot-bellied mandarins beneath parasols,
Et les princesses aux mains fines, princesses with slender hands
Et les lettrés qui se querellent and scholars debating
Sur la poésie et sur la beauté; poetry and beauty;
Je voudrais m’attarder au palais enchanté I would like to linger in the enchanted palace
Et comme un voyageur étranger and like a foreign wayfarer
Contempler à loisir des paysages peints contemplate at my ease landscapes daubed
Sur des étoffes en des cadres de sapin on canvases in frames of pine,
Avec un personnage au milieu d’un verger; a lone person in an orchard’s midst;
Je voudrais voir des assassins souriant I would like to see assassins smiling
Du bourreau qui coupe un cou d’innocent as the executioner slices off an innocent’s head
Avec son grand sabre courbé d’Orient. with the great curved sabre of the East.
7Je voudrais voir des pauvres et des reines; I would like to see paupers and queens;
Je voudrais voir des roses et du sang; I would like to see roses and blood;
Je voudrais voir mourir d’amour ou bien de I would like to see men die of love or of hate.
haine.
Et puis m’en revenir plus tard And then later, homeward bound,
Narrer mon aventure aux curieux de rêves my tale narrate to those who thrive on dreams,
En élevant comme Sindbad ma vieille tasse raising like Sinbad my old Arab cup
arabe
De temps en temps jusqu’à mes lèvres to my lips now and then
Pour interrompre le conte avec art … in an adroit interruption of my tale …
2 La flûte enchantée The enchanted flute
L’ombre est douce et mon maître dort, The shade is cool and my master sleeps,
Coiffé d’un bonnet conique de soie a cone-shaped cap of silk upon his head,
Et son long nez jaune en sa barbe blanche. his long yellow nose thrust in his white beard.
Mais moi, je suis éveillée encor But I, awoken once more,
Et j’écoute au dehors hear from afar
Une chanson de flûte où s’épanche a flute song spreading
Tour à tour la tristesse ou la joie, in turn sadness and joy,
Un air tour à tour langoureux ou frivole, a tune, now languorous, now shallow,
Que mon amoureux chéri joue, that my dear love plays,
Et quand je m’approche de la croisée and when I near the casement
Il me semble que chaque note s’envole each note seems to fly
De la flûte vers ma joue from the flute to my cheek
Comme un mystérieux baiser. like a mysterious kiss.
3 L’indifférent The indifferent one
Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d’une fille, Your eyes are as gentle as a girl’s,
Jeune étranger, O unknown youth,
Et la courbe fine and the soft curve
De ton beau visage de duvet ombragé of your exquisite face shaded with down
Est plus séduisante encor de ligne. is in its contours more seductive still.
Ta lèvre chante sur le pas de ma porte On my doorstep your lips sing
Une langue inconnue et charmante in a strange yet beguiling tongue,
Comme une musique fausse … like music out of tune …
Entre! Enter!
Et que mon vin te réconforte … Let my wine refresh you …
Mais non, tu passes But no, you go,
Et de mon seuil je te vois t’éloigner and from my threshold I watch you leave,
Me faisant un dernier geste avec grâce, a last graceful wave in my direction,
Et la hanche légèrement ployée your hips slightly swaying
Par ta démarche féminine et lasse … in your languid, feminine gait …
Tristan Klingsor (Léon Leclère, 1874–1966), Translations reproduced by kind permission of Virgin
reproduced by permission of Editions Durand SA, Classics
Paris/United Music Publishers Ltd
8Texts
Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
Chansons de Bilitis
1 La flûte de Pan The flute of Pan
Pour le jour des Hyacinthies, il m’a donné une For Hyacinthus day he gave me a syrinx made of
syrinx
faite de roseaux bien taillés, unis avec la blanche carefully cut reeds, bonded with white wax which
cire tastes
qui est douce à mes lèvres comme le miel. sweet to my lips like honey.
Il m’apprend à jouer, assise sur ses genoux; mais He teaches me to play, as I sit on his lap; but I am
je
suis un peu tremblante. Il en joue après moi, si a little fearful. He plays it after me, so gently that I
doucement que je l’entends à peine. scarcely hear him.
Nous n’avons rien à nous dire, tant nous sommes We have nothing to say, so close are we one to
près l’un de l’autre; mais nos chansons veulent se another, but our songs try to answer each other,
and
répondre, et tour à tour nos bouches s’unissent sur our mouths join in turn on the flute.
la flûte.
Il est tard; voici le chant des grenouilles vertes qui It is late; here is the song of the green frogs that
commence avec la nuit. Ma mère ne croira jamais begins with the night. My mother will never
que believe
je suis restée si longtemps à chercher ma ceinture I stayed out so long to look for my lost sash.
perdue.
2 La chevelure The tresses of hair
Il m’a dit: ‘Cette nuit, j’ai rêvé. J’avais ta chevelure
He said to me: ‘Last night I dreamed. I had your
autour de mon cou. J’avais tes cheveux comme un tresses around my neck. I had your hair like a
black
collier noir autour de ma nuque et sur ma poitrine. necklace all round my nape and over my breast.
‘Je les caressais, et c’étaient les miens; et nous ‘I caressed it and it was mine; and we
étions liés pour toujours ainsi, par la même were united thus for ever by the same tresses,
chevelure
la bouche sur la bouche, ainsi que deux lauriers mouth on mouth, just as two laurels
n’ont
souvent qu’une racine. often share one root.
‘Et peu à peu, il m’a semblé, tant nos membres ‘And gradually it seemed to me, so intertwined
étaient confondus, que je devenais toi-même ou were our limbs, that I was becoming you, or you
que were
tu entrais en moi comme mon songe.’ entering into me like a dream.’
Quand il eut achevé, il mit doucement ses mains When he had finished, he gently set his hands on
sur
mes épaules, et il me regarda d’un regard si my shoulders and gazed at me so tenderly that I
tendre, lowered
que je baissai les yeux avec un frisson. my eyes with a shiver.
93 Le tombeau des naïades The tomb of the Naiads
Le long du bois couvert de givre, je marchais; mes Along the frost-bound wood I walked; my hair
cheveux across
devant ma bouche se fleurissaient de petits my mouth, blossomed with tiny icicles, and my
glaçons, et
mes sandales étaient lourdes de neige fangeuse sandals were heavy with muddy, packed snow.
et tassée.
Il me dit: ‘Que cherches-tu?’ – ’Je suis la trace du He said to me: ‘What do you seek?’ ‘I follow the
satyre. satyr’s track.
Ses petits pas fourchus alternent comme des trous His little cloven hoof-marks alternate like holes in
dans
un manteau blanc.’ Il me dit: ‘Les satyres sont a white cloak.’ He said to me: ‘The satyrs are
morts. dead.
‘Les satyres et les nymphes aussi. Depuis trente ‘The satyrs and the nymphs too. For thirty years
ans il there
n’a pas fait un hiver aussi terrible. La trace que tu has not been so harsh a winter. The tracks you
vois est see are those
celle d’un bouc. Mais restons ici, où est leur of a goat. But let us stay here, where their tomb
tombeau.’ is.’
Et avec le fer de sa houe il cassa la glace de la And with the iron head of his hoe he broke the ice
source of
où jadis riaient les naïades. Il prenait de grands the spring, where the naiads used to laugh. He
picked up
morceaux froids, et les soulevant vers le ciel pâle, some huge cold fragments, and, raising them to
the pale sky,
il regardait au travers. gazed through them.
Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925) Translations © Richard Stokes
Henri Duparc (1848–1933)
Chanson triste Song of sadness
Dans ton cœur dort un clair de lune, Moonlight slumbers in your heart,
Un doux clair de lune d’été, a gentle summer moonlight,
Et pour fuir la vie importune and to escape the cares of life
Je me noierai dans ta clarté. I shall drown myself in your light.
J’oublierai les douleurs passées, I shall forget past sorrows,
Mon amour, quand tu berceras my sweet, when you cradle
Mon triste cœur et mes pensées my sad heart and my thoughts
Dans le calme aimant de tes bras. in the loving calm of your arms.
Tu prendras ma tête malade, You will rest my poor head,
Oh! quelquefois sur tes genoux, ah! sometimes on your lap,
Et lui diras une ballade and recite to it a ballad
Qui semblera parler de nous, that will seem to speak of us;
Et dans tes yeux pleins de tristesses And from your eyes full of sorrow,
Dans tes yeux alors je boirai from your eyes I shall then drink
Tant de baisers et de tendresses so many kisses and so much love
Que peut-être je guérirai. that perhaps I shall be healed.
Jean Lahor (Henri Cazalis, 1840–1909)
10Texts
L’invitation au voyage Invitation to journey
Mon enfant, ma sœur, My child, my sister,
Songe à la douceur think of the sweetness
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble. of going to live there together.
Aimer à loisir, To love at leisure;
Aimer et mourir to love and to die
Au pays qui te ressemble! in the land which resembles you.
Les soleils mouillés The watery suns
De ces ciels brouillés of those hazy skies
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes have, for me, the charms,
Si mystérieux so mysterious,
De tes traîtres yeux, of your treacherous eyes
Brillant à travers leurs larmes. shining through their tears.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, There, all is naught but order and beauty,
Luxe, calme et volupté! comfort, peace and pleasure.
Vois sur ces canaux See, on those waterways,
Dormir ces vaisseaux how the ships slumber,
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde; though wanderers by nature;
C’est pour assouvir it is to satisfy
Ton moindre désir your smallest desire
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde. that they come from the ends of the earth.
Les soleils couchants The setting suns
Revêtent les champs, clothe the fields,
Les canaux, la ville entière, the waters, all the town,
D’hyacinthe et d’or; in hyacinth and gold;
Le monde s’endort the world falls asleep
Dans une chaude lumière in a warm light.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, There, all is naught but order and beauty,
Luxe, calme et volupté! comfort, peace and pleasure.
Charles Baudelaire (1821–67)
Phidylé Phidylé
L’herbe est molle au sommeil sous les frais The grass is soft for sleep beneath the cool
peupliers, poplars
Aux pentes des sources moussues On the banks of the mossy springs
Qui dans les prés en fleurs germant par mille That flow in flowering meadows from a thousand
issues, sources,
Se perdent sous les noirs halliers. And vanish beneath dark thickets.
Repose, ô Phidylé. Midi sur les feuillages Rest, O Phidylé! Noon on the leaves
Rayonne, et t’invite au sommeil. is gleaming, inviting you to sleep.
Par le trèfle et le thym, seules, en plein soleil, By the clover and thyme, alone, in the bright
sunlight,
Chantent les abeilles volages. The fickle bees are humming.
Un chaud parfum circule au détour des sentiers, A warm fragrance floats about the winding paths,
La rouge fleur des blés s’incline, The red flowers of the cornfield droop;
Et les oiseaux, rasant de l’aile la colline, And the birds, skimming the hillside with their
wings,
Cherchent l’ombre des églantiers. Seek the shade of the eglantine.
11Mais quand l’Astre, incliné sur sa courbe éclatante, But when the sun, low on its dazzling curve,
Verra ses ardeurs s’apaiser, sees its brilliance wane,
Que ton plus beau sourire et ton meilleur baiser let your loveliest smile and finest kiss
Me récompensent de l’attente! reward me for my waiting!
Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818–94)
La vie antérieure A previous life
J’ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques For long I lived beneath vast colonnades
Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux, tinged with a thousand fires by ocean suns,
Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux, whose giant pillars, straight and majestic,
Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques. made them look, at evening, like basalt caves.
Les houles, en roulant les images des cieux, The sea-swells, mingling the mirrored skies,
Mêlaient d’une façon solennelle et mystique solemnly and mystically interwove
Les tout-puissants accords de leur riche musique the mighty chords of their mellow music
Aux couleurs du couchant reflété par mes yeux. with the colours of sunset reflected in my eyes.
C’est là que j’ai vécu dans les voluptés calmes It is there that I have lived in sensuous repose,
Au milieu de l’azur, des vagues, des splendeurs, with blue sky about me and brightness and waves
Et des esclaves nus, tout imprégnés d’odeurs, and naked slaves, all drenched in perfume.
Qui me rafraîchissaient le front avec des palmes, Who fanned my brow with fronds of palm,
Et dont l’unique soin était d’approfondir and whose only care was to fathom
Le secret douloureux qui me faisait languir. the secret grief which made me languish.
Charles Baudelaire Translations © Richard Stokes
interval 20 minutes
12Texts
John Cage (1912–92)
The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs
NIGHT BY SILENTSAILING NIGHT …
ISOBEL …
WILDWOODS’ EYES AND PRIMAROSE HAIR,
QUIETLY,
ALL THE WOODS SO WILD, IN MAUVES OF
MOSS AND DAPHNEDEWS,
HOW ALL SO STILL SHE LAY NEATH OF THE
WHITETHORN, CHILD OF TREE,
LIKE SOME LOSTHAPPY LEAF,
LIKE BLOWING FLOWER STILLED,
AS FAIN WOULD SHE ANON,
FOR SOON AGAIN ’TWIL BE,
WIN ME, WOO ME, WED ME,
AH WEARY ME!
DEEPLY,
NOW EVENCALM LAY SLEEPING; NIGHT
ISOBEL
SISTER ISOBEL
SAINTETTE ISOBEL
MADAME ISA
VEUVE LA BELLE
Adapted from James Joyce’s ‘Finnegans Wake’
Copyright © 1939 by James Joyce.
Xavier Montsalvatge (1912–2002)
Cinco canciones negras Five Negro Songs
1 Cuba dentro de un piano Cuba in a piano
Cuando mi madre llevaba un sorbete de fresa When my mother wore a strawberry ice for a hat
por sombrero
y el humo de los barcos aún era humo de and the smoke from the boats was still Havana
habanero. smoke.
Mulata vuelta bajera … Mulato from Vuelta Abajo …
Cádiz se adormecía entre fandangos y Cadiz was falling asleep to fandango and
habaneras habanera
y un lorito al piano quería hacer de tenor. and a little parrot at the piano tried to sing tenor.
… dime dónde está la flor … tell me, where is the flower
que el hombre tanto venera. that a man can really respect.
Mi tío Antonio volvía con su aire de insurrecto. My uncle Anthony would come home
in his rebellious way.
La Cabaña y el Príncipe sonaban por los patios The Cabaña and El Príncipe resounded in the
del Puerto. patios of the port.
(Ya no brilla la Perla azul del mar de las Antillas. (But the blue pearl of the Caribbean shines no
more.
Ya se apagó, se nos ha muerto.) Extinguished. For us no more.)
Me encontré con la bella Trinidad … I met beautiful Trinidad …
Cuba se había perdido y ahora era verdad. Cuba was lost, this time it was true.
Era verdad, True
no era mentira. and not a lie.
Un cañonero huido llegó cantándolo en guajira. A gunner on the run arrived, sang Cuban songs
about it all.
La Habana ya se perdió. Havana was lost
Tuvo la culpa el dinero … and money was to blame …
13Calló, The gunner went silent,
cayó el cañonero. fell.
Pero después, pero ¡ah! después But later, ah, later
fue cuando al Sí they changed Sí
lo hicieron YES. to YES.
Rafael Alberti (1902–99)
2 Punto de Habanera Habanera rhythm
La niña criolla pasa con su miriñaque blanco. The Creole girl goes by in her white crinoline.
¡Qué blanco! How white!
¡Hola! Crespón de tu espuma; The billowing spray of your crepe skirt!
¡Marineros, contempladla! Sailors, look at her!
Va mojadita de lunas She passes gleaming in the moonslight
que le hacen su piel mulata. which darkens her skin.
Niña no te quejes, Young girl, do not complain,
tan sólo por esta tarde. only for tonight
Quisiera mandar al agua do I wish the water
que no se escape de pronto not to suddenly escape
de la cárcel de tu falda. the prison of your skirt.
Tu cuerpo encierra esta tarde In your body this evening
rumor de abrirse de dalia. dwells the sound of opening dahlias.
Niña, no te quejes, Young girl, do not complain,
tu cuerpo de fruta está your ripe body
dormido en fresco brocado. sleeps in fresh brocade,
Tu cintura vibra fina your waist quivers
con la nobleza de un látigo, as proud as a whip,
toda tu piel huele alegre every inch of your skin is gloriously fragrant
a limonal y naranjo. with orange and lemon trees.
Los marineros te miran The sailors look at you
y se te quedan mirando. and feast their eyes on you.
La niña criolla pasa con su miriñaque blanco. The Creole girl goes by in her white crinoline.
¡Qué blanco! How white!
Néstor Luján (1922–95)
3 Chévere The dandy
Chévere del navajazo, The dandy of the knife thrust
se vuelve él mismo navaja: himself becomes a knife:
Pica tajadas de luna, he cuts slices of the moon,
mas la luna se le acaba; but the moon is fading on him;
pica tajadas de canto, he cuts slices of song,
mas el canto se le acaba; but the song is fading on him;
pica tajadas de sombra, he cuts slices of shadow,
mas la sombra se le acaba, but the shadow is fading on him,
y entonces pica que pica and then he cuts up, cuts up
carne de su negra mala. the flesh of his evil black woman!
Nicolás Guillén (1902–89)
4 Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito Lullaby for a little black boy
Ninghe, ninghe, ninghe, Lullay, lullay, lullay,
tan chiquito, tiny little child,
14
el negrito little black boyTexts
que no quiere dormir. who won’t go to sleep.
Cabeza de coco, Head like a coconut,
grano de café, head like a coffee bean,
con lindas motitas, with pretty freckles
con ojos grandotes and wide eyes
como dos ventanas like two windows
que miran al mar looking out to sea.
Cierra tus ojitos, Close your tiny eyes,
negrito asustado; frightened little boy,
el mandinga blanco or the white devil
te puede comer. will eat you up.
¡Ya no eres esclavo! You’re no longer a slave!
Y si duermes mucho, And if you sleep soundly,
el señor de casa the master of the house
promete comprar promises to buy
traje con botones a suit with buttons
para ser un ‘groom’. to make you a ‘groom’.
Ninghe, ninghe, ninghe, Lullay, lullay, lullay,
duérmete, negrito, sleep, little black boy,
cabeza de coco, head like a coconut,
grano de café. head like a coffee bean.
Ildefonso Pereda Valdés (1899–1996)
5 Canto negro Negro song
¡Yambambó, yambambé! Yambambó, yambambé!
Repica el congo solongo, The congo solongo is ringing,
repica el negro bien negro. the black man, the real black man is ringing;
Congo solongo del Songo congo solongo from the Songo
baila yambó sobre un pie. is dancing the yambó on one foot.
Mamatomba, Mamatomba,
serembé cuserembá. serembé cuserembá.
El negro canta y se ajuma. The black man sings and gets drunk,
el negro se ajuma y canta. the black man gets drunk and sings,
el negro canta y se va. the black man sings and goes away.
Acuememe serembó Acuememe serembó
aé, aé,
yambó yambó
aé. aé.
Tamba, tamba, tamba, tamba, Bam, bam, bam bam,
tamba del negro que tumba, bam of the black man who tumbles;
tamba del negro, caramba, drum of the black man, wow,
caramba, que el negro tumba, wow, how the black man’s tumbling!
¡Yambá, yambó, yambambé! Yambá, yambó, yambambé!
Nicolás Guillén Translations © Jacqueline Cockburn and Richard
Stokes from ‘The Spanish Song Companion’
15
(Gollancz)William Bolcom (born 1938) Toothbrush time
Cabaret Songs It’s toothbrush time,
Surprise Ten a.m. again
Surprise! And toothbrush time.
Her twenty-fifth year at the office!
They threw her a surprise party! Last night at half-past nine
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! It seemed OK.
But in the light of day
And they were surprised Not so fine
when she tried to drink At toothbrush time.
iodine
from the paper cup Now he’s crashing round my bathroom,
at the water cooler Now he’s reading my degree,
of cool Perusing all my pills
spring water. Reviewing all my ills
And he comes out smelling like me.
The total stranger in the garden Now he advances on my kitchen,
Sitting across the table Now he raids every shelf
In the garden of our garden apartment Till from the pots and pans
I stared at the paper my husband was reading And puddles and debris
And I said to him: Emerges three eggs all for himself.
You’re a stranger Oh, how I’d be ahead
A total stranger If I’d stood out of bed!
Always have been I wouldn’t sit here grieving,
Always will be Waiting for the wonderful
Sitting there Moment of his leaving
Hiding there At toothbrush time,
Behind that printed mask. Toothbrush time
Ten a.m. again
Stop reading, stop reading me out of house and And toothbrush time.
home
Must I ask till my mouth fills up with foam? I know it’s sad to be alone
You total stranger It’s so bad to be alone,
You stranger, you! Still I should’ve known
That I’d be glad to be alone.
Then he lowered the paper I should’ve known, I should’ve known!
And I saw it was not my husband Never should’ve picked up the phone
But a total stranger And called him.
A total stranger who said to me:
Hey – uh, listen, uhm,
‘I am a kind of hobo of space (trying to remember his name)
Trying to find a mask to erase Uh, I’ve got to, uh,
The mask behind Oh, you gotta go too?
The mask behind So glad you undersand.
The mask behind And by the way,
The face.’ Did you say,
Nine tonight again?
See you then.
(piano slams door)
Toothbrush time!
16Texts
Song of Black Max Long black jacket, broad black hat,
(As told by the de Kooning Boys) Playing the harmonica, one hand free,
He was always dressed in black, To lift that hat to me:
Long black jacket, broad black hat, Black Max, Black Max, Black Max.
Sometimes a cape,
And as thin, and as thin as rubber tape:
Black Max. George
My friend George
He would raise that big black hat Used to say ‘Oh, call me Georgia, hon,
To the big shots of the town Get yourselves a drink.’
Who raised their hats right back, And sang the best soprano
Never knew they were bowing to In our part of town.
Black Max.
In beads, brocade and pins
I’m talking about night in Rotterdam He sang if you happened in
When the right night people of all the town Through the door he never locked
Would find what they could And said, ‘Get yourselves a drink’.
In the night neighborhood of And sang out loud
Black Max. Till tears fell in the cognac
And in the chocolate milk and gin
There were women in the windows And on the beads, brocade and pins.
With bodies for sale
Dressed in curls like little girls When strangers happened through his open door
In little dollhouse jails. George said, ‘Stay,
When the women walked the street But you gotta keep quiet
With the beds upon their backs While I sing
Who was lifting up his brim to them? And then a minute after,
Black Max! And call me Georgia.’
And there were looks for sale One fine day
The art of the smile – A stranger in a suit
(Only certain people walked that mystery mile: Of navy blue
Artists, charlatans, vaudevillians Took George’s life
Men of mathematics, acrobatics and civilians). With a knife
There was knitting-needle music George had placed
From a lady organ-grinder Beside an apple pie he’d baked
With all her sons behind her, And stabbed him in the middle
Marco, Vito, Benno Of Un bel dì vedremo
(Was he strong! Though he walked like a woman) Which he sang
And Carlo, who was five For this particular stranger
He must be still alive! Who was in the United States Navy.
Ah, poor Marco had the syph, and if The funeral was at the cocktail hour.
You didn’t take the terrible cure those days We knew George would like it like that.
You went crazy and died Tears fell on the beads, brocade and pins
And he did. In the coffin
And at the coffin Which was white
Before they closed the lid, Because George was a virgin.
Who raised his lid? Oh, call him Georgia, hon,
Black Max! Get yourself a drink.
I was climbing on the train ‘You can call me Georgia, hon,
One day going far away Get yourself a drink!’
To the good old USA
When I heard some music
Underneath the tracks.
17
Standing there beneath the bridge,Amor
It wasn’t the policeman’s fault
In all the traffic roar
Instead of shouting halt
When he saw me, he shouted Amor.
Even the ice-cream man
(free ice creams by the score!)
Instead of shouting Butter Pecan
One look at me
He shouted Amor.
All over town it went that way
Everybody took off the day
Even philosophers understood
How good was the good ‘cuz I looked so good!
The poor stopped taking less
The rich stopped needing more
Instead of saying no and yes
Both looking at me shouted Amor.
My stay in town was cut short
I was dragged to court
The judge said I disturbed the peace
And the jury gave him what for!
The judge raised his hand
And instead of Desist and Cease
Judgie came to the stand
Took my hand
And whispered Amor.
Night was turning into day
I walked alone away
Never see that town again.
But as I passed the church-house door
Instead of singing Amen
The choir was singing Amor.
Arnold Weinstein (1927–2005)
18About the performers
About the performers
World Symphony Orchestras, performances as
Elettra at Opera Atelier and concerts with the Los
Angeles Philharmonic under Tilson Thomas.
Her earlier career was focused on the song
recital and she has given innovative programmes
at Carnegie Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center,
the Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus and
Musikverein and Madrid’s Teatro Real, as well
Lisa MacIntosh
as at the Schwarzenberg, Edinburgh, Verbier
and Bergen festivals. Pianists with whom she has
worked include Justus Zeyen, Roger Vignoles,
Measha Brueggergosman Julius Drake and Simon Lepper.
Measha Brueggergosman soprano Her first recording for DG, Surprise, of works
by Schoenberg, Satie and William Bolcom, was
Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman is widely critically acclaimed. Her subsequent disc,
renowned for her musicality and versatility across Night and Dreams, featured songs by Mozart,
a wide range of repertoire. Recent highlights on Brahms, Richard Strauss, Schubert, Debussy,
the opera stage include Giulietta and Antonia Duparc and Fauré, and won several awards,
(Les contes d’Hoffmann), Elettra (Idomeneo), while her recording of Wagner’s Wesendonck
Jenny (Weill’s Mahagonny), Emilia Marty (The Lieder with Welser-Möst and the Cleveland
Makropulos Affair), Hannah (Miroslav Srnka’s Orchestra earned her a Grammy nomination.
Make No Noise) and Sister Rose (Jake Heggie’s
Dead Man Walking). Off stage, she is just as active: she recently
released her memoir Something Is Always On Fire
On the concert platform, she has appeared with (published by Harper Collins), and she appears
the Orchestre de Paris, Philadelphia Orchestra, regularly on primetime television, most recently
and New World and San Francisco Symphony advocating contemporary Canadian literature.
orchestras, working with conductors such as She has also led Canadian children across the
Daniel Barenboim, Sir Andrew Davis, Gustavo country in song, in celebration of the nationwide
Dudamel, Daniel Harding, Michael Tilson campaign for music education.
Thomas and Franz Welser-Möst.
Measha Brueggergosman champions
Highlights this season include her operatic educational projects and the promotion of new
debut at Finnish National Opera as Giulietta, audiences and holds several honorary doctorates.
tonight’s return to Milton Court Concert Hall,
an appearance at Carnegie Hall with the New
19including at the Schubertiade, Hohenhems; and
recitals with Angelika Kirchschlager in Verbier
and at the Wigmore Hall where he has also given
recitals with Christopher Maltman, Sally Matthews
and Lawrence Zazzo.
Last season he gave a European tour with
Stéphane Degout, including performances at the
Matt Madison Clark
opera houses of Dijon, La Monnaie, Lausanne
and Lyon as well as at the Wigmore Hall. He
presented an all-Schubert programme with Ilker
Arcayürek in Barcelona, Zurich, New York, San
Simon Lepper Francisco and at the Wigmore Hall, where further
appearances included recitals with Dame Felicity
Simon Lepper piano Palmer, Karen Cargill and Mark Padmore. He
toured to India with Benjamin Appl, including
Simon Lepper read Music at King’s College, recitals in Mumbai and Chennai. Future highlights
Cambridge. He is a professor of collaborative include a return to Carnegie Hall with Sally
piano and a vocal repertoire coach at the Royal Matthews and the release of a CD of ballads with
College of Music in London, where he is also in Stéphane Degout.
charge of the collaborative piano course. Since
2003 he has been an official accompanist for the His discography includes two volumes of Debussy
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. songs and Richard Strauss disc with Gillian
Keith (Deux-Elles), a disc of Gustav and Alma
Performance highlights include an invitation Mahler songs with Karen Cargill (Linn Records),
from the Wigmore Hall to present three concerts the complete songs of Jonathan Dove with Kitty
exploring the songs of Joseph Marx; a recital tour Whately (Champs Hill) and a CD of contemporary
with baritone Stéphane Degout which included violin works with Carolin Widmann, which
the Ravinia and Edinburgh festivals; his debut received a Diapason d’Or. More recent releases
at Carnegie Hall with mezzo-soprano Karen include a song recital disc with Dame Felicity
Cargill; a recital with Christopher Purves at the Palmer (Resonus Classics), a CD of Schubert Lieder
Frick Collection, New York; performances of with Ilker Arcayürek (Champs Hill) and a live
the Schubert song-cycles with Mark Padmore, recital disc with Stéphane Degout.
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