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Acknowledgment Landscape with Figures Vocal Music of Tom Cipullo The composer would like to express his deepest gratitude to Mary Ann Hart, Robert Osborne, and Paul Sperry for immense contributions (beyond their extraordinary performances) to this project. Landscape with Figures: Vocal Music of Tom Cipullo was funded, in part, with a PSC-CUNY grant from the City University of New York. The disc is dedicated to the memory of Bernadette Gordon, a woman of integrity, spirit, warmth, and incredible humor. Her untimely passing is a wound that even music can only partly assuage. Cover Drawing: Detail from Magazine Figures — VS 1996-2006 by Hedwig Brouckaert (2006) WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM TROY1145 ALBANY RECORDS U.S. Monica Harte, soprano | Mary Ann Hart, mezzo-soprano 915 BROADWAY, ALBANY, NY 12207 TEL: 518.436.8814 FAX: 518.436.0643 Paul Sperry, tenor | Robert Osborne, baritone | Benjamin Ungar, boy soprano ALBANY RECORDS U.K. BOX 137, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA8 0XD Colette Valentine & Tom Cipullo, piano | Sheryl Henze flute | Tina Pelikan, viola TEL: 01539 824008 Margery Fitts, harp | Jorge Ávila, violin © 2009 ALBANY RECORDS MADE IN THE USA DDD WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL. Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble David Stock, conductor The Music The Texts It’s for sure, one thing we could all agree: she had it coming. What a nasty character, The works on this disc go back almost two decades. The first, The Land of Nod owes its genesis to tenor The Land of Nod needlessly obnoxious. Egregiously unloving, always unfortunate with children. Paul Sperry. In 1993, Paul called me and exclaimed, “I’ve just read a new book of poetry and thought The Land of Nod immediately of you.” I was quite flattered until I read the poems and discovered their subject matter Dreams of pure spirit Quarrelsome, hostile, insistently unattractive, are other people’s dreams. not pleasant, no way. And so ranged from a hitch-hiking Manson-family devotee to matricide. Still, I had to admit that Paul was right. Animal animas appear as guides. (snarling, twisted, jealous, plain mean) Lobsters befriend them in rocky times, two cups on the kitchen counter are the way to go. Alice Wirth Gray’s quirky sense of humor was right up my alley. The Land of Nod was commissioned by, or their dreams are in French, There were no guilt feelings involved. or painted in archaic style on vases: and is dedicated to, my good friend Paul Sperry. We premiered the work together at Merkin Hall in 1994. I left the two glasses on the sideboard: objets d’art. You couldn’t hire a guide one plain, one in which poison was dissolved, In the early 1990s, I discovered William Carpenter’s book Rain while browsing in the Mid-Manhattan the hot spots my dreams go. and she, always greedy, drank up both and died. library. For several years, I was infatuated with the elegant craft and magical sensibility of his powerful I don’t go my nightly journey with friendly totems. I was perfectly safe, no one suspected me. poetry. Ultimately, I set five of his works to music, three of which appear on this disc. The Ecuadorian There are no areas of abstract color, But nothing’s easy: I had attitudinal problems. pure form. Along my way I worried I would betray myself unnecessarily. Sailors seemed to me the most tender of lyrics, with its reference to an enchanted place “where the heart to dreamland are gas stations Perhaps I’d get drunk and blurt out everything. is everything.” Rain is another work that I composed with Paul Sperry in mind, and we premiered the you need keys to use the rest room. You wouldn’t want to get out of the car, I reasoned, piece together at Greenwich House in New York in 1992. Paul’s interpretation of the slightly eccentric not even run down the window I wouldn’t like prison. in my dreams. I saw a gray, lonely cell and myself middle-aged protagonist was dead-on, and that night lives in my memory as a grand occasion. Finally, Alice Wirth Gray like Mrs. Harris, looking irritably at my watch to see how long till I got out. Landscape with Figures was written for the dynamic bass-baritone Robert Osborne and premiered in New from What the Poor Eat (Cleveland State University Poetry Center: 1993) Copyright ©1993 by Alice Wirth Gray. Used with the permission of I reasoned the author. York in 1997. I could write a lot in there. Art song enthusiasts know Elizabeth Ellis Hurwitt as Executive Director of the New York Festival of A Death in the Family I would manage, but I would not like it. I dreamed last night I murdered Mother. I reasoned Song. She is also an accomplished poet with an assured and individual voice. It was a pleasure to set Something with poison in it, I think, if I lived an exemplary life although I was determined, had she refused to drink, from then on, never did anything naughty again, three of her poems in the cycle Going. if no luck with one method to try another. no one would turn me in. —Tom Cipullo No one wanted me punished or put in jail. I just have to keep calm, be careful, Stags in the winter orchard for an impatiens or a cineraria. and redden our teeth on her. keep my psyche under control, bear their bare branches And that basket with the bottle They sent me here. watch my little quirks, past the almonds’ antlers, of Bordeaux sticking out. Explain that. They must have known not go confessing for the excitement of it, float above the white; This is a German forest if ever one was: the way the world is. and life will go on as usual. great inflexible crafts of zinc. grim Grimm, blacker than Black. That’s what I’ll do. Before sunset the sky is icy pink. Don’t you tell us about Perrault: Myself, I would like to get past Alice Wirth Gray for you all stories with fear in them all that little-girl-and-the-wolf thing What a peculiar person I am. from What the Poor Eat (Cleveland State University Poetry Center: 1993) will always be German. Your mom into the dark beyond them both. It’s a wonder my life has gone Copyright ©1993 by Alice Wirth Gray. Used with the permission of is sending you through these woods as well as it has. Honestly, I thought it must be the author. by yourself with a bottle of imported wine? a rite of passage. That the solution Alice Wirth Gray You expect us to buy that? What the Poor Eat On a Nineteenth Century Color Lithograph might be hidden in the basket from (Cleveland State University Poetry Center: 1993) Save us all time. Copyright ©1993 by Alice Wirth Gray. Used with the permission of of Red Riding Hood by the Artist J.H. under the white cloth. You knew that wolf. the author. The wolf makes a funny face When I peeked, I found not to be taken seriously as evil, You’ve been encouraging him. she’d sent me off in the dark Deer in Mist and Almonds but as if there’s something wrong without so much as a flashlight. It’s rained for months I’ve always loved that picture with his eyes. He’s old because there’s Riding Hood far left The Report of the NIGHT POLICE continues: and the deer step delicately, and getting cataracts or he’s trying to shake dry their hooves. and the wolf far right We picked the girl up in the woods. trying to start a conversation and the center absolutely empty. Rather, what we mean to say is It’s so muddy down by the creek, by winking at Riding Hood, they’ve come up close to the house. So much space between girl and wolf that’s where we took her into custody. where she stands by a cheery spread that is so much more interesting She looks like an angel, They stand in the mustard, of amanita phalloides, wondering it’s flowered early this year, than either of them. You can see but you just can’t tell how to get back to her basket of goodies into and into the woods What was in the basket, when a sudden fog, thigh-high, which she left on the other side eradicates all below, until it’s so dark you can’t. we wanted to know. Was she of the clearing while gathering flowers, You can see such a long way trying to get rid of something? and all colors not grave go. and now of course the wolf blocks her way. Only metal stays: pewter, silver, steel into the story. We asked her to explain herself, Some people have a crucifix over the bed: and she says her mother stainless sight, lodestones, I have a wolf. What RIDING HOOD Told the Cops: black holes in the light, Of course I talked to him, hung the lithograph of a wolf great tin gods, pinchbeck The NIGHT POLICE Interrogate Riding Hood: it’s what the books say to do: over her bed. A likely story. on a damask cloth of white, Nice try, kid, but daisies don’t grow try to keep them talking. What woman would do a thing like that? eating the hips off the roses in that woods. Look at those trees, Reason with them. Look, Mr. Wolf, There may be enough evidence near the road.

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