THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

Context and Commission in Large-Scale Texted Works of Libby Larsen

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of

The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

By

Deborah B. Crall

Washington, D.C.

2013

Context and Commission in Large-Scale Texted Works of Libby Larsen

Deborah B. Crall, Ph.D.

Director: Grayson Wagstaff, Ph.D.

Libby Larsen (b. 1950) is recognized as one of the foremost composers of her generation, as well as one of the most performed. A prolific composer, she produces at least one large-scale piece a year. In an era when classically trained composers conventionally earn their living in an academic environment, Larsen makes her livelihood as a composer in the “classical” or concert field. In this way she exemplifies a shift in composer economics, as many composers have abandoned the academic life in favor of self-promotion.

This dissertation examines musical patronage in the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries by exploring the ways Larsen has developed commissions as an independent artist, incorporating the complex relationships that exist among composer and commissioner in the process of composing large works. Thus patronage, politics, audience, and composition are all intertwined in compelling ways.

These relationships are shown by examining six specific works: three operas,

Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus , Eric Hermannson’s Soul , Barnum’s Bird , one choral symphony, Coming Forth Into Day , one cantata, Eleanor Roosevelt (1996), and one oratorio, The Triptych .

As a group these six works illustrate consistent ideas, such as the power a composer wields in the creative act when commenting on the nature of society, the role of composer in research and development, and favoring topics resonating within

American culture: war and peace, consequences of technological advancement, music as a redemptive force, and art versus entertainment. Larsen uses the commission contract negotiation process to help focus her composition by establishing parameters for performing forces, duration, and text choices.

These works demonstrate various models in her approach towards composition.

They are tailored to each circumstance, such as using a workshop approach to working in near isolation. Larsen uses quotation as a unifying device in these larger works, creating a gloss on the action in order to deepen the meaning of the narrative. Larsen’s music is frequently modal, with harmonies generated from overlapping vocal lines and utilizing contrasting styles to augment the underlying nature of her characters. The overall results are compelling music dramas that deserve to be heard again.

This dissertation by Deborah B. Crall fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in Musicology approved by Grayson Wagstaff, Ph.D., as Director, and by Andrew H. Weaver, Ph.D., and Paul Taylor, Ph.D. as Readers.

______Grayson Wagstaff, Ph.D., Director

______Andrew H. Weaver, Ph.D., Reader

______Paul Taylor, Ph.D., Reader

ii Dedication

This dissertation is dedicated to my father, Dr. Albert M. Crall, who shared with me his tremendous love of opera, for which I am eternally grateful.

iii Table of Contents

Signature Page ii

Dedication iii

Table of Contents iv

List of Examples vi

List of Tables ix

Acknowledgements xii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: The Art of Composing: Influences, Education, and Style 12

Chapter 2: The Business of Composing: Funding, Commissions,

and Repertoire Challenges 43

Chapter 3: Frankenstein — Consequences of Technological

Achievements 82

Chapter 4: Eric Hermannson’s Soul (1998) 144

Chapter 5: Barnum’s Bird (2000) 179

Chapter 6: Coming Forth Into Day (1986) 214

Chapter 7: Conclusion 239

Appendix A: Financial Tables 245

Appendix B: Contracts 248

Appendix C: Comparison between Libby Larsen’s Two-Act version

of Eric Hermannson’s Soul and the Chamber version. 255

Appendix D: Libby Larsen’s Research Bibliography and Tables

for Barnum’s Bird 259

iv Appendix E: List of the Executive and Honorary Committees for the

One World Benefit Premiere of Coming Forth Into Day 270

Appendix F: Libby Larsen Interview by Deborah Crall on 19

November 2005 271

Appendix G: Libby Larsen Interview by Deborah Crall on 20

November 2005 294

Appendix H: Libby Larsen Interview by Deborah Crall on 21

November 2005 304

Bibliography 359

v List of Examples

3.1: The beginning of the excerpt of WMS from Scene 2. The four measures preceding rehearsal number 26 mark the beginning of the excerpt and of the tone poem itself. These pages are from the orchestral score and show how Larsen copied the manuscript from WMS, and inserted the vocal parts. 103-104

3.2: Innocence Theme, mm. 509-532, from Scene 3: Arrogance. 107

3.3: Scene 5 “Insomnia,” mm. 1114-1127, from the piano/vocal score published by Schirmer. Ship Victor is singing until m. 1124, when Stage Victor begins. 110

3.4: Scene 14 “Pursuit to Death and Life,” mm. 2471-2482. 111

3.5: Innocence Theme from Scene 6: “Tragedy,” mm. 1358-1366. 115

3.6: Anger motive. 120

3.7: Scene 3 at rehearsal no. 41, where the “Unpredictable” motive occurs. 121

3.8: In Scene 10 at rehearsal no. 145, where the “unpredictable” motive is quoted. Note that the rehearsal number is printed as “143.” This example is taken from the piano/vocal score published by E. C. Schirmer, which is an imprint of the score Larsen sent to the publisher for review before the first performance, when significant changes were made to the score, and are found in the orchestral score. 122

3.9: Innocence Theme fragment as first found in Scene 13: “Resolve,” mm. 2121-2125. 125

3.10: Innocence Theme fragment as Victor Frankenstein packs in Scene 13: “Resolve,” mm. 2131-2133. 125

3.11: The Innocence Theme played with the Theramin setting by the keyboard, which leads into Henry’s calming words, mm. 2211-2231. 126-127

4.1: The opening measures of both the Chamber Version, Scene 1 and the Full-Length opera, Act 1, Prologue, mm. 1-19, showing Springleik , which becomes an important fiddle tune in the longer opera. 151

vi 4.2: An excerpt from Act 1, Scene 2 (mm. 593-600) where ostensibly Asa Skinner is preaching to his congregation about the evils of fiddle music, when in reality, his sermon is directed towards Eric. 164

4.3: An excerpt towards the end of Act 2, Scene 4, mm. 1111-1113. The chorus, at the top of the score, claps on the higher notes and stomps on the lower notes, as indicated by a “C” or “S” in the score. The part for the Quartet is located in the third system, vocalizing a section of “Going Home.” 166

4.4: From Act I, Scene 2, the Springleik concludes in mm. 688-689 while the Intermezzo emerges in measure 689. Margaret hums along, then tries to begin her letter. 168

4.5: Act 1, Scene 2, mm. 763-774, where Margaret has been flirting with Eric about dancing, while Eric remains transfixed by the “Intermezzo” from Cavallieri Rusticano . Eric begins talking about the music in m. 774. 169

4.6: Act II, Scene 2, mm. 259-266, where Margaret asks Eric to dance with her, over the chorus singing “All the Way My Savior Leads Me.” 171-172

5.1: Act I, Scene 1, mm. 252-254, where Mendelssohn’s “Hear Ye Israel” ends and “The Bonja Song” begins. 194

5.2: Act I, Scene 2, mm. 459-463. Barnum is singing about the different shows that he has put together for American audiences. 196

5.3: In this fragment from Act I, Scene 2, a solo bass from the chorus is singing the lyrics to the “Moustache Man,” while the Minstrel Chorus provides the accompaniment. The “g” in the score in m. 513 is a misprint, and is corrected to show “f-sharp.” 197

5.4: Beginning of Act II, Scene 7: The America Tour. Revelation Motto. 199

5.5: Excerpt from Act II, Scene 7, mm. 866-873, showing “Casta Diva,” Camptown Races , Merchants Refrain, and Revelation Motto. 204-205

6.1: The opening measures of the first movement from Coming Forth Into Day from the piano/vocal score, showing the fanfare in its entirety before the first reading. 225

6.2: The return of the A section in Movement III, mm. 665-669, which is identical to the opening of the movement, with the exception of the drum, shown in the bass clef of the piano reduction. 228

vii 6.3: An excerpt from the coda to Movement III, mm. 722-725, where the children’s choir is singing, ending “Innocence” with a nursery rhyme about shooting. 229

6.4: Measures 753-769 is a section from near the beginning of the fourth movement, which starts on m. 741. 231

6.5: Movement IV, mm. 861-865, one measure after the return of the A section. The vamp derived from the war fanfare is in the piano part, but played by the brass and bells in the orchestral score. 232

viii List of Tables

2.1: A list of works in this study and the approximate number of second performances by organizations other than the commissioning party, in the order of performances. 57

2.2: A comparison of specific items mentioned in the contracts of Libby Larsen with commissioning organizations for each work in this study. 64

2.3: Original deadlines and modified deadlines of materials due to Opera Omaha for Eric Hermannson’s Soul . 70

3.1: A comparison of the sensibilities depicted in Scene 9 with the book chapters from which each is derived. 89

3.2: Scenes found in the finished opera as compared to scenes in the original libretto. 95

3.3: Grouping of scenes into five overarching sections, illustrating the themes, and where music from What the Monster Saw occurs. “WMS” indicates What the Monster Saw . 96

3.4: Comparison between scenes in Larsen’s opera and chapters from Shelley’s novel. 98-99

3.5: Timeline for Scene 10, indicating motives, as well as when individual characters are singing or acting. The Monster has a part in the score, as indicated in the chart, yet he does not sing. The synthesizer articulates his “voice.” 120

4.1: A list of the cast requirements and possible cast members for the April 1996 workshop production of the chamber version of Eric Hermannson’s Soul. 148

4.2: Pieces quoted in the chamber opera, including the scenes in which they occur. 150

4.3: Outline of the Prologue from the Two-Act Version, comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 160

4.4: The text sung by the Quartet in the Prologue to Act I of the full-length opera, along with an indication of its place in the Rondo. 161

4.5: Pieces quoted in the two-act opera and chamber opera, including the scenes in which they occur. 162

ix

5.1: The timeline of when Larsen received drafts of the libretto for Barnum’s Bird , and from whom she received the libretto. 187

5.2: A list of the individual pieces quoted in Barnum’s Bird , their location within the opera, and the performing forces. 192-193

5.3: The occurrences of the Revelation Motto in Barnum’s Bird by Act and Scene, with measure numbers and the first line of the text. 198

5.4: The various drafts of the libretto, the date completed and the author, and details the items written for Act II, Scenes 2-3. 202

5.5: Financial information regarding Lind’s tour of America. 208

6.1: Sources of the texts used in Coming Forth Into Day , their subject matter, and their location within the symphony. 220

6.2: A comparison of the sections and measure numbers from the orchestral interlude of the second movement with the original material from the first movement. 227

A.1: February 1993 Timeline and Expense Sheet for Eleanor Roosevelt 245

A.2: Lila Wallace Readers Digest Grant Budget for Opera Omaha 246

A.3: Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust 1993 Commissioning Grants Recipients 247

B.1: A comparison of contractual items from Coming Forth Into Day , Frankenstein , Eric Hermannson’s Soul , Eleanor Roosevelt, Barnum’s Bird , Praise One , and I It Am . 248

B.2: Contracts with Librettists 252

B.3: Contracts with Publishers 253

C.1: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act I, Scene 1 “The Visitors/The Conversion,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 255

C.2: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act I, Scene 2 “The Parlour,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 255

x C.3: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act I, Scene 3 “The Confrontation,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 256

C.4: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Prologue, comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 256

C.5: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 1 “The Contract,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 256

C.6: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 2 “The Storm,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 257

C.7: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 3 “The Letter,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 257

C.8: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 4 “The Dance,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. 258

D.1: Scenes and scenarios included in eight different drafts of the libretto for Barnum’s Bird , including the published version. 261

xi Acknowledgements

Many people helped me in various direct and indirect ways, and it is impossible to thank everyone. First of all, I wish to thank my parents, Albert and Sarah Crall, for their unfailing support over the years. My siblings, Stewart, Sarah and Penelope, also deserve mention. My mother-in-law Anne Burley has been invaluable in proof-reading many, many drafts, as well as providing organizational insights on a wealth of material. Anne was also instrumental in that much-needed last-minute push to the end. I am extremely grateful to Amy Holbrook for reading early drafts of the first three chapters and for her assistance with an organizational conundrum. I wish to acknowledge and thank three music theory faculty members from The Catholic University who are no longer with us, and without whom my musical analysis and understanding would be woefully inadequate: Robert Ricks, Anthony Stark, and Steven Strunk. I wish to thank my dissertation advisers, Grayson Wagstaff, Andrew Weaver, and Paul Taylor, for being extremely patient with me. Libby Larsen has been extremely generous with her time. In addition, she let me stay at her house for several weeks, gathering information from her personal papers and manuscripts, and opened her home to me again for her interviews.

This dissertation is all the better from having such unstinting access to Libby, and I am grateful for the opportunity of working with her. I also wish to thank Julie Barrows and

Karen and Allister Moon for their support and friendship. And finally, I would be remiss in not thanking my husband, Geoffrey Burley, and everyone else in the household, Ian, Ben, Roland, and the five cats, for putting up with all of my fits and starts and general grumpiness while trying to finish.

xii Introduction

Libby Larsen (b. 1950) has been recognized by critics and scholars as one of the foremost composers of her generation, as well as one of the most performed. 1 A prolific and “much-commissioned composer,” she produces at least one large-scale piece a year. 2 In an era when classically trained composers conventionally earn their living in an academic environment, Larsen does not hold an academic post; rather, she makes her livelihood as a composer in the “classical” or concert field. In this way she exemplifies a shift in composer economics, as many composers have abandoned the academic life in favor of self-promotion. 3 Other well-known composers who also earn their principal income through commissions are John Adams, Ned Rorem, and John Corigliano.

In 1973, as a means of finding performance opportunities, and subsequently a source for commissions, Larsen co-founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, the organization that later became the American Composers Forum. The Forum created new performance venues and thus new sources of funding. Larsen and the composers involved in the Forum have received commissions from a variety of sources.

For Larsen, commissions yield more than just income. The commissioner of a work influences Larsen’s creative process and the finished product by determining in advance such elements as the musical program, texts, subject of the work, forces used, and any limitations placed on the composer. Larsen has said of her work as an artist that

1 Marilyn Perkins Biery, “New Music for Organ at the End of the Twentieth Century: A Series on the Compositions of Six American Composers: Libby Larsen,” The American Organist 34, no. 7 (July 2000): 76. 2 Mary Ann Feldman, “Libby Larsen,” in The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers , ed. Julie Ann Sadie and Rhian Samuel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 267. 3 Randall Craig Speer, “The American Composers Forum and Its Impact on Choral Music in the United States” (D.M.A. diss., University of Cincinnati, 2001), 36. 1 2 she requires the commission process as she enjoys the intellectual puzzle involved with exploring her musical ideas within the framework of a given commission.

The six works that are the focus of the study at hand, Coming Forth Into Day

(1986), Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus (1990), Eleanor Roosevelt (1996), Eric

Hermannson’s Soul (1998), Barnum’s Bird (2000), and The Triptych (2004), illustrate the complex relationships not only between patron and composer, but also with certain political issues that can arise through commissions. For example, Larsen worked intimately with Jehan Sadat, wife of Anwar Sadat, on the choral symphony Coming

Forth Into Day ; indeed, Mrs. Sadat contributed to the text. As a result of the nature of the Sadats’ relationship to the Middle East peace process, the work acquired political connotations that were widely recognized. Coming Forth Into Day and the other five pieces all evolved through such collaboration, with subjects selected with the intent of making a political statement or commenting on society.

This dissertation examines musical patronage in the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries by exploring ways in which the composer

Libby Larsen has developed commissions as an independent artist. Patronage, politics, and composition are all intertwined. Larsen’s working methods, from inception of a commission to the creation of sketches to performance of the work, reveal much about her compositional technique. In Larsen’s works, she has set a number of provocative texts thought by critics to make political statements. Through examining the effect of these political connotations and offering interpretations of these six specific works, the complex relationships among patron, composer, audience, and music will be revealed.

These six works also illustrate the power a composer wields in the creative act when 3 commenting on the nature of society.

The first three of these six works are operas: Frankenstein, the Modern

Prometheus , Eric Hermannson’s Soul , and Barnum’s Bird . Both Frankenstein and Eric

Hermannson’s Soul grew out of earlier commissions, while Barnum’s Bird is a result of a joint commission with the Plymouth Chamber Singers and the Library of Congress.

The fourth and fifth works are a choral symphony, Coming Forth Into Day , and a staged cantata, Eleanor Roosevelt . The last work considered is Triptych , for chorus and orchestra, which is a single piece with three distinct parts that were separately commissioned and premiered; the work to date has not been performed as a whole. In addition to commenting and reflecting upon American culture, each piece demonstrates the flexibilities in the commissioning process and the collaboration among the commissioner, performing organization(s), and composer.

Literature Review

To date, studies of Libby Larsen have focused on small samples of her music and have come primarily from academia. She has been the topic of one Ph.D. dissertation and twelve D.M.A dissertations. In the first, Susan Robinson explores three orchestral works in order to introduce conductors to modern pieces suitable for college or university orchestras. 4 Her dissertation is primarily a conductor’s analysis of the three works, all by women composers: Ellen Taeffe Zwilich’s Celebration for Orchestra

(1984), Joan Tower’s Sequoia (1981), and Libby Larsen’s Symphony: Water Music

4 Susan Louise Bailey Robinson, “Three Contemporary Orchestral Compositions by American Women: A Guide to Rehearsal and Performance for the University Orchestra Conductor” (Ph.D. diss., Texas Tech University, 1991). See Chapter V, pp. 56-94, for the discussion of Larsen’s symphony. 4 (1986). Robinson includes a guide for rehearsal preparation and performance, as well as a formal analysis that takes into consideration structure, orchestration, tonality, meter, tempo, melody, and motivic development. James Ball’s D.M.A. document is also a conductor’s guide to selected contemporary symphonic music, including one of

Larsen’s works, Symphony, Water Music .5

Another D.M.A. document is on Larsen’s compositions for solo bassoon,6 and an M.M. thesis examines Larsen’s Holy Roller for Saxophone and Piano .7 A D.M.A. paper of a different type provides a history of the American Composers Forum, its subsequent impact on choral music, and the influence Larsen had on the organization. 8

The remaining D.M.A. documents focus on either Larsen’s choral or solo vocal works. In a survey of her choral music, Larry Smith provides a brief entry for each work in which he identifies such characteristics as the shape of melodic lines, the phrasing, rhythmic style, and the compositional devices of form, harmony, texture, and voicing. 9

His work includes a short analysis of Eleanor Roosevelt . Mark Wherry includes a composition by Larsen in his work on Magnificats. 10 There is also an M.A. thesis examining choral settings of Emily Dickinson, including one by Larsen. 11 Among the

5 James S. Ball, “A Conductor’s Guide to Selected Contemporary American Orchestral Compositions” (D.M.A. diss., University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1992). 6 Kirsten Marie Nelson, “A Performer’s Guide to Published Music for Unaccompanied Solo Bassoon by Women Composers” (D.M.A. diss., University of Georgia, 1997). 7 Julie Aumen, “An Analysis of Holy Roller for Saxophone and Piano Composed by Libby Larsen” (M.M. thesis, Southwest Missouri State University, 2000). 8 Randall Craig Speer, “The American Composers Forum and its Impact on Choral Music in the United States” (D.M.A. diss., University of Cincinnati, 2001). 9 Larry Smith, “The Choral Music of Libby Larsen and Stephen Paulus: An Examination and Comparison of Styles” (D.M.A. diss., Arizona State University, 1998), 45, 47-56. 10 Mark Emery Wherry, “An Analysis of Magnificat Settings by Selected American Composers Since 1960” (D.A. diss., University of Northern Colorado, 2002). 11 Linda M. Duxbury, “Contemporary Choral Treatment of the Poetry of Emily Dickinson by Five Composers” (M.A. thesis, California State University at Dominguez Hills, 2004). 5 dissertations on Larsen’s solo vocal music are those by Harriet McCleary, Tina

Milhorn, Martha Lu Rowe, Glenda Denise Secrest, and Laurel Ann Thomas. 12

In a brief article in The American Organist , Marilyn Perkins Biery describes

Larsen’s works for organ and discusses the philosophy behind her religious compositions as well as the craftsmanship involved in these works. 13 Biery states that

Larsen looks for spiritual guidance in transmitting her joy in life through music. She uses patterns to “add stability” to the music, juxtaposing traditional elements such as triads with 12-tone pitch groups, and summarizes Larsen’s musical style as

“exhibit[ing] a vibrant, energetic, and at times humorous spirit that is also deeply moving.” 14

Like other recent composers, as Larsen’s career progresses, her name appears with increasing frequency in reference books. The ASCAP Biographical Dictionary of

1980 is the first trade publication to mention Larsen. 15 The entry cites her date of birth, degrees received, important teachers, year joining ASCAP (1976), and her position as director and co-founder of the Minnesota Composers Forum; it also lists four operas as well as other significant compositions, commissions, and awards. The entry is eleven lines long, which is similar to the entries of her contemporaries.

12 Harriet McCleary, “The Solo Vocal Music of Libby Larsen” (D.M.A. diss., University of Minnesota, 1992); Tina M. Milhorn, “Music and Memoir: Libby Larsen’s settings of first-person texts by women: ME (Brenda Ueland) ; Songs from Letters: Calamity Jane to her Daughter Janey ; Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives of Henry VIII ” (D.M.A. diss., University of Cincinnati, 2004); Martha Lu Rowe, “A Poet Revealed: Elizabeth Barrett Browning as Portrayed in Libby Larsen’s ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ and Dominick Argento’s ‘Casa Guidi’” (D.M.A. diss., University of Arizona, 1996); Glenda Denise Secrest, “ Songs From Letters and Cowboy Songs by Libby Larsen: Two Different Approaches to Western Mythological Figures” (D.M.A. diss., The University of Memphis, 2000); Laurel Ann Thomas, “A Study of Libby Larsen’s ‘ME (Brenda Ueland),’ A Song Cycle for High Voice and Piano” (D.M.A. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1994). 13 Perkins Biery, “New Music for Organ,” 76-78. 14 Ibid ., 76. 15 ASCAP Biographical Dictionary , 4th edition (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1980), 288. 6 Another trade publication that includes Larsen in several editions is the

International Who’s Who In Music and Musicians Directory . The entries provide her personal information, degrees and dates of graduation, a list of compositions and one of her recordings, organizations of which she is a member, and her current publisher. 16

As she became more established, Larsen began appearing in reference books dedicated to American music, such as E. Ruth Anderson’s 1982 Contemporary

American Composers . The entry is twenty-six lines long, including a list of works. Her entry seems typical in length compared to the other listings. 17 The 1986 New Grove

Dictionary of American Music includes a brief article about Larsen. In addition to the usual biographical information, the entry alludes to her work with the Minnesota

Composers Forum in Minneapolis, her 1983 appointment as composer-in-residence to the Minnesota Orchestra, the composition grant she received from the Minnesota State

Arts Board in 1977, as well as the 1980 National Opera Institute fellowship. There is also a brief description of her compositional style:

Her music draws on a wide variety of stylistic models, including American popular music. The lyric passages prominent in her works for solo instruments and voices are typically spiced with atonal digressions; the closely packed blocks of pitches characteristic of her orchestral works are generally rooted in clearly defined and often repeated harmonic patterns. 18

The article emphasizes Larsen’s diverse output and compositional styles.

16 International Who’s Who In Music and Musicians Directory , 11th ed. (Cambridge: International Who’s Who In Music, 1988), 527. 17 E. Ruth Anderson, Contemporary American Composers: A Bibliographical Dictionary , 2nd ed. (Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1982), 305. 18 James Wierzbicki, “Libby Larsen,” in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music , vol. 3 ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music, 1986), 14-15. 7 Contemporary Composers (1996) contains an entry longer than those of the other dictionaries, extending to two pages. 19 The author of the entry begins with the usual biographical information but expands upon it somewhat by including information about her marriage and child. Larsen’s positions and awards up to 1987 are also listed.

The nine-year discrepancy between the publication date of the dictionary and the latest award entry is puzzling. That does correspond, however, to the time during which

Larsen relinquished management of the Composers Forum. An extensive list of works to 1991 is provided, which suggests that the editor ceased compiling data five years before publication. Following the catalogue of compositions are four paragraphs providing a descriptive narrative of Larsen’s compositional style. Collins credits

Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus as Larsen’s most significant work, in part because of her sensitive treatment of the original themes of Mary Shelley’s novel, but also due to the way she portrays dramatic elements.20

Larsen is listed in The Oxford Companion to Music (2002) with her biographical information and primary teachers. 21 Paul Griffiths says that “her music is generally bold, clear, and colourful, and includes three symphonies, operas…, chamber music…, and vocal compositions.”

Another category of reference books in which Larsen appears is that relating to women musicians. For example, she is cited in the second edition of Women In Music:

19 Brian Morton and Pamela Collins, eds., Contemporary Composers (Chicago: St. James Press, 1992), 537-538. 20 Brian Morton and Pamela Collins, 538. 21 Paul Griffiths, “Libby Larsen,” in The Oxford Companion to Music ed. Alison Latham (New York: Oxford University, 2002), 672. 8 An Encyclopedic Bibliography (1993).22 The entry in eleven lines describes Larsen as an American composer of sacred music and opera, as well as a music educator, and then provides thirteen sources in which Larsen has been cited. Four of these citations are to the tenth through thirteenth editions of International Who’s Who in Music and

Musicians Directory . Two citations are to the 1983 and 1985 editions of Who’s Who in

American Music: Classical , and two to the 1981 and 1987 editions of International

Encyclopedia of Women Composers . This leaves eight unique sources that are not duplicates; some of the later editions contain updated information on compositions, commissions, and awards.

Another brief entry is found in Gene Claghorn’s Women Composers and

Songwriters .23 All of the entries in this biographical dictionary are concise, listing only one piece per composer. The 1995 Norton/New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers contains an expanded article on Larsen that is three and a half columns long and includes a photograph. 24 The entry begins with the standard biographical information and proceeds to a narrative discussion of her compositions. An extensive list of works follows, ending with a bibliography of seven citations. The article makes particular note of Larsen’s interest in combining electronic sources of sound with acoustic instruments.

Larsen also appears in sources dedicated to a particular genre, such as David

Daniels’s 1996 catalogue of orchestral music, which provides information regarding

22 Don L. Hixon and Don A. Hennessee, Women in Music: An Encyclopedic Bibliography , 2nd ed. (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1993), 1: 618. 23 Gene Claghorn, Women Composers and Songwriters: A Concise Biographical Dictionary (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1996), 121. 24 Mary Ann Feldman, “Libby Larsen,” in The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers ed. Julie Ann Sadie and Rhian Samuel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 266-268. 9 performing forces and duration. 25 Daniels lists two of Larsen’s works: Mary Cassatt,

Seven Songs and Overture for the End of a Century . Curiously, none of her symphonies are mentioned. Larsen also appears in a 1995 literature catalogue for organ. 26 After a biographical summary, two works for organ are cited. The 2000 Baker’s Dictionary of

Opera contains a brief entry that includes the standard biographical information and a list of seven operas produced from 1978 to 1997. 27 In addition, there is one evaluative sentence regarding her compositions: “One of her most impressive scores, the choral sym. Coming Forth into Day (1986), utilizes a text by Jehan Sadat, the widow of the slain leader of Egypt.” 28

The most comprehensive listing of Larsen’s operas in a dictionary is found in

Margaret Ross Griffel’s Opera in English: A Dictionary (1999). 29 In the composer index, nine of Larsen’s operas are listed, all that she composed as of 1997. The list is important, as Larsen tends not to list these very early operas, such as Some Pig (1973),

Emperor’s New Clothes (1979), and Christina Romana (1988). Any operas from the

1997 to 1998 opera season appear in Appendix 4, including Eric Hermannson’s Soul .

The individual listing of each opera provides basic information such as premiere location and date, the librettist, the type of opera (chamber, children’s, etc.), number of acts, and occasionally a brief plot summary.

25 David Daniels, Orchestral Music: A Handbook , 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1996), 225. 26 Richard Arnold Corliss, Organ Literature: A Comprehensive Survey , vol. 2: Biographical Catalogue, 3rd edition (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1995), 491. 27 Laura Kuhn, ed., Bakers’ Dictionary of Opera (New York: Schirmer, 2000), 431. 28 Ibid . 431. 29 Margaret Ross Griffel, Operas in English: A Dictionary (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999), 109, 115- 116, 186, 225, 407, 553, 563, 618, 708. 10 Larsen is also found in the general music reference works such as Grove Music

Online and Grove Opera Online .30 After covering the basic biographical facts, Mary

Ann Feldman discusses Larsen’s work, including a positive style evaluation:

“[Larsen’s] style is noted for its energy, optimism, rhythmic diversity, colourful orchestration, liberated tonality without harsh dissonance, and pervading lyricism.”

Feldman adds that Larsen possesses great sensitivity in setting for the voice, and that her attraction to the voice “betrays the influence of Argento.” In addition, “Larsen incorporates the vernacular into her free-wheeling style.” Feldman maintains that

Larsen is influenced by Dominick Argento in her “lyric-declamatory style” and that she

“followed a searching path in the evolution of her operatic style.” Her prominence on arts panels and boards, as well as awards received, are also mentioned.

Chapter Overview

Despite the growing amount of literature on Libby Larsen, her operas and choral symphony have yet to be discussed in detail. The study at hand is intended to fill this gap by examining six of her large works, including three of her sixteen operas. The first chapter places Larsen in a cultural context by providing details about her upbringing and musical influence, as well as considering how Larsen thinks about music and its place in contemporary society. The chapter ends with an overview of Larsen’s relationships with her publishers. The second chapter consists of a brief background on patronage in the United States, focusing on Larsen’s commissions and their funding sources.

30 Mary Ann Feldman, “Libby Larsen,” Grove Music Online , http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed 7 October 2004). 11 Chapters 3 through 6 discuss specific pieces. Chapter 3 considers Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus and how Larsen addresses the themes of technology and its consequences upon society. Chapter 4 examines Eric Hermannson’s Soul with its themes of religion, music, and redemption. In addition, this chapter explores the challenges faced by a composer when a chamber work is expanded into a full-length opera. Chapter 5 focuses on Barnum’s Bird , in which Larsen explores the conflict between art and business. This piece also exemplifies the difficulties in creating a meaningful libretto without a preexisting literary source as a starting point. Chapter 6 discusses the choral symphony Coming Forth Into Day , with texts on peace selected by

Larsen and Jehan Sadat, and the political ramifications of its premiere. The final chapter provides an overview of the arguments presented and offers a conclusion. Chapter 1

The Art of Composing: Influences, Education, and Style

As Larsen came of age, there was a growing distance between composers and their audience. Throughout the twentieth century, different schools of composition were developing in academia. Larsen was aware of these cultural movements and had to decide what she wanted to take from the musical culture when she began to compose.

Ultimately, Larsen’s approach was to reject what she terms as the “original musical language derived through scientific, invented and defined methodologies,” such as serialism or minimalism, as she found that she could not communicate with people using those techniques. 1

Larsen is quite open about those individuals who influenced her development, including Dominick Argento and Vern Sutton. Less formal musical influences included music Larsen heard around the house. Her father, Robert Larsen, was an amateur clarinetist and played in a Dixieland band. Her mother, Alice Larsen, was fond of

Broadway musicals and boogie-woogie, and possessed an extensive record collection.

The music that Larsen listened to at home was thus a reflection of American musical life and sounds. When Larsen began piano lessons, her teacher, Sister Colette, provided her with a very broad repertoire that included Mozart, Bartók, Stravinsky, Japanese music, and boogie. 2 Larsen’s formal piano instruction was devoid of the “European

Masters,” except for Mozart, which was to have profound ramifications on her composition style as an American composer. Not being grounded in European music

1 Libby Larsen, interview with the Author (21 November 2005), Appendix H. 2 See also www.libbylarsen.com/ResourcesFAQ.html. 12 13 from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras, her musical identity was shaped more by contemporary sounds than by older models.

Larsen sang in the high school choir under the direction of Oscar Dahle, who was trained in the St. Olaf tradition. 3 Larsen went from the unmeasured unified singing of Gregorian chant in grammar school to a cappella , strictly measured four-part harmony choral singing in high school, a transition that she found very shocking.4 As a teenager she also listened to popular music, being particularly fond of the Beatles and the Beach Boys. 5 She also sang in a rock band whose singing style was like the Mamas and the Papas, enjoying the “close harmony.” 6 One of the first people to encourage

Larsen in composition was William Lydell, Larsen’s theory teacher at Washburn High

School, who told her how much hard work composing was, but also that it was worth the effort. 7

At the University of Minnesota, her primary music theory teachers were

Dominick Argento, Paul Fetler, and Eric Stokes. However, Larsen has said that Vern

Sutton, the University of Minnesota’s Opera Theater director, was her first mentor. 8

Sutton offered to produce her first opera if she would write it and suggested Charlotte’s

Web as the subject. Once the score was finished, Larsen gave it to Sutton, who produced the opera that spring. Larsen titled this opera Some Pig , though it will not be revisited

3 Sonja Rehbein, “Libby Larsen,” draft, unpublished paper (1991), 5, Larsen Archives. 4 Libby Larsen, “MENC Vision 2020 Conference Address” (2000), 3. www.LibbyLarsen.com/ResourcesMENC.html . 5 Kyle MacMillan, “Opera With a Soul: Her Voice Shakes Music World,” Omaha World Herald , 11 October 1998. 6 Ibid. 7 Joan Rehbein, “Founder of Minnesota Composers Forum Creates her own Opportunities in Music,” The Highland Villager 26, no. 20 (10 January 1979). 8 Susan Wheatley and Sarah Mantel, “Reflections of Change: A Comparative View of Crawford and Larsen,” ILWC Journal (June 1993): 2.

14 any time soon due to copyright disputes with E. B. White. Thus Larsen learned a very valuable lesson: always clear up any copyright issues with a text before composing.

Regardless, with such support, Larsen began her career in opera composition. Larsen says of Sutton that he spoke of composing in “terms of performance—very rarely in terms of the techniques of composing.” 9 This advice, that composing is for performance, is central to Larsen’s business practices. She will not commit any music to paper unless she has a performance lined up for that piece, which usually means that she will not write anything down until she has a signed contract for the new work.

Donna Cardamone Jackson, who had recently received her Ph.D. from Harvard, became a female role model and support person in academia for Larsen. Jackson was a musicologist specializing in Renaissance studies. As Jackson’s teaching assistant,

Larsen learned how to research primary sources. Jackson provided Larsen with a methodology for research, which she uses when working on any piece from small solo works to large operas. 10 As a teaching assistant Larsen had to have the music samples ready to play during Jackson’s lectures, which meant that Jackson had very well- prepared lectures. From this experience Larsen says she learned “how to prepare for a lecture…, write liner… and program notes, [and] all of the corollary skills that go along with the presentation of a piece of music.” 11

Dominick Argento was Larsen’s Ph.D. advisor and thus had some influence on her subsequent work. Her careful study of the texts she sets and placement of words within a piece stem from Argento:

9 Rehbein, “Libby Larsen,” 12. 10 Libby Larsen to Lowell E. Lindgren (4 January 2001), email. 11 Rehbein, “Libby Larsen,” 14-15.

15 …he insists in his work and in his teaching that the words must be set and sung as naturally as possible for the emotion of the piece, for the scansion of the text. To thwart the natural setting of the words is to make the words incommunicable because you extract them from their soul. I believe this, I practice this, and I learned this from him. 12

Larsen tells an anecdote about Argento when he was her advanced theory professor. She missed her first class and got the assignment from a classmate: write a minuet. She turned in a piece reminiscent of Stravinsky. He threw hers in the trash saying that it sounded like Stravinsky. The assignment had been to write a minuet in the style of

Mozart. That day she learned two very important lessons: 1) always go to the primary source for information, and 2) “not to assume that I know what I’m doing before I start writing any music down. Now part of my process for writing is to ask, ask, ask, even if I think I know the answers.” 13

When twenty years old, Larsen spent the summer as a chambermaid at the

McDowell Colony in New Hampshire. While there she met Aaron Copland, William

Schuman, Lester Trimbull, Stephan Wolpe, William Wood, Bob Lombardo, and many other composers. She was able to converse with them as a “non-threatening” young girl.

She saw how many composers longed to write full time but were forced to take other jobs for lack of income from composition. While there, she discovered that “I would not be happy unless I could compose full-time. … I would either try to compose full-time, or direct my energies elsewhere.” 14 As far as women composer role models, the only person she had heard of was Pauline Oliveros. However, since she grew up in a family

12 Libby Larsen, interview by Jeanenne Bezerra (January 1996), 13. 13 Rehbein, “Libby Larsen,” 12. 14 Libby Larsen, “Interview with Composer Libby Larsen,” interview by Cynthia Green (Billings, MT, March 1991), International League of Women Composers Journal (June 1992): 25.

16 of girls, it never occurred to her that there would be any prejudices with her chosen career:

So it really never entered my mind… that there were any issues surrounding the fact that I was a woman and the fact that I was a composer… until a graduate school class, when a male colleague pointed out to me that I would be unable to compose in large forms because I was a woman… [because] women couldn’t think in large, logical structures. 15

Although feminist issues have created a particular perspective on culture in America,

Larsen believes that they have had little impact on her personally, and she prefers that her music be evaluated on its own merits, apart from any gender considerations. While

Larsen has occasionally encountered negative or even hostile situations, she believes that the cultural conditioning women undergo to handle disparate situations enables her to be freely creative:

Larsen is eloquent on the personal qualities necessary to allow creativity to flow unimpeded, listing, “self-esteem, self-confidence, unquenchable curiosity, unerring discipline and a burning desire to be heard” as essential elements. In a final thought, she connects creativity to a larger societal context, stating, “Above everything else, one needs an environment which nurtures all of the above and which values the individual above everything else .” 16

Larsen has said elsewhere that she needs large segments of time in order to think. 17

Composing involves complex thought and requires uninterrupted periods of time. For

Larsen, supporting the creative individual means providing her with the space she needs in order to “think big thoughts.”

15 Ibid., 25; the individual in question became a doctor. 16 Wheatley and Mantel, “Reflections of Change,” 5; Larsen quotes from Libby Larsen, interview, October 4, 1989 by the authors. Italics theirs. 17 For example, see Libby Larsen, “The Art of Composing,” Showcase: The Magazine of the Minnesota Orchestra and Orchestral Hall 15 no. 7 (9 March to 2 April 1983), 13-14.

17 American Composers Forum

Since her days as a college student, Libby Larsen has actively been involved with getting new works performed. In fact, encouraging the creation of new works is one of the reasons she co-founded the American Composers Forum with Stephen Paulus in 1973, as they found that “an essential part of their process was missing or available only sporadically”: the audience. 18 Since there were few performances of student works at the University of Minnesota, they banded together in order to create opportunities to hear their works. In addition, these young composers lacked auditory confirmation of their written ideas until their piece was heard and played by musicians. However,

Larsen and Paulus did not just think of students as benefiting from the Forum, but also thought about the Forum more broadly, as evidenced by its first mission statement: “To provide a platform and audience for the creation and performance of new music by

Minnesota Composers.” 19

This broader vision for the Forum was encouraged by Johannes Riedel (1913-

1996), professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota and director of the graduate school of music from 1960 to 1981. He emphasized the importance of articulating needs, dreams, and visions of the future. Riedel also championed the Composers Forum and put Larsen and Paulus on his public television show. In addition, Riedel helped

18 Libby Larsen, “Libby Larsen,” interview by J. Heywood Alexander (online, November 1998), To Stretch Our Ears, A Documentary History of America’s Music , edited by J. Heywood Alexander (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 488. 19 Ibid., 488.

18 Larsen place herself in context as an American composer. 20 Larsen says of Riedel’s influence on her thought processes:

Of being a creative person, a craftsperson of note, a composer who might work with performers, but [her compositional training did not provide] a sense of the composer as part of society… Johannes put us right in the middle of our own society and said ‘look around your society, you’re part of it’. 21

This idea of being a creative person in the context of contemporary American society will be further discussed shortly.

Through the Forum, Larsen and Paulus were able to transform the ways in which composers and the consumers of their music did business. One of the key elements in Randall Craig Speer’s findings was that the sheer number of commissions increased significantly due to the Forum, particularly in choral music.22 Thus the composer became more relevant to society, especially in those areas where choral singing was popular. Among choral groups, performing new works became so important that Chorus America asked Larsen to write an article about commissioning new choral works, which appeared in 2001. 23 This article is just one example of

Larsen’s advocacy for the composer; she has written numerous articles on what it means to be a composer in the United States.

20 Rehbein, “Libby Larsen,” 13. 21 Ibid., 14. 22 Randall Craig Speer, “The American Composers Forum and Its Impact on Choral Music in the United States” (D.M.A. diss., University of Cincinnati, 2001), 60. 23 Libby Larsen, “Commissioning A New Choral Work,” The Voice of Chorus America 24, no. 4 (Summer 2001): 23-26.

19 Cultural Relativism: Larsen’s Views on Music in Society

Larsen believes that the idea of place is an important element in her approach to writing. Larsen maintains that spending her childhood in Minneapolis, a city built around lakes, had a profound effect on the development of her compositional process.

The state of being in the excitement and business of a city, yet always in the presence of the tranquility of lakes, is reflected in Larsen’s work ethic. She has furious, intense bursts of activity when finishing pieces and deadlines approach. However, she creates the shape of a piece in centered quietness, frequently using walks around the lakes as meditations on whatever texts she is utilizing. Larsen uses imagery to help her compose, although not the Romantic notion of depicting an event or place in the music, but the idea that the sense of the image can inform the character of the music without being the music. 24 Place is an important element in her approach to writing.

In 1980, KTCA Channel 2, a Minnesota public television station, aired a series of five films, each thirty minutes long, entitled, “Encounters with Minnesota Artists.” 25

Each was about a different artist, and Larsen’s film aired on 13 April 1980. The creator of the series, Alvin Goldstein, was trying to see if common threads could be found behind each artist’s success. He discovered that all of the artists worked very hard, were eager about and constantly learning, and were very aware of the need to master

24 Libby Larsen, interview by Jeanenne Bezerra (January 1996); Author’s conversation with Libby Larsen (Washington, DC, July 2003); Douglas Boyer, “Musical Style and Gesture in the Choral Music of Libby Larsen,” Choral Journal (October 1993): 19; Libby Larsen, “The Nature of Music,” Pan Pipes of Sigma Alpha Iota 77 (Winter 1985): 3. 25 Mike Steele, “Series Introduces Fascinating Creators” (22 March 1980). Newspaper Clipping from “PR Files,” Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

20 technique. Steele says of the series’ findings: “Creation is hard, sometimes painful, somehow as necessary as breathing.” 26

This leads to the question of what Larsen believes is necessary for an artist to create, and in creating, comment on and ultimately influence culture. For Larsen, the artist has a responsibility to her audience for what she puts on stage, as she influences the individual viewer to go deeper into his or her imagination. For example, after composing Frankenstein , Larsen realized the power of metaphor depicted on stage, specifically in opera. She came to believe that there had to be better metaphors for power than physical violence and death, so she began looking for other ways of showing the psychological violence present in late-twentieth-century American society. 27 Her choice of Eric Hermannson’s Soul as subject matter for an opera was in part a reaction to this realization of the responsibility the artist has to the audience.

Larsen’s recognition of the broader impact of opera as a commentary on society is reflected in James Combs’s discussion of the aesthetic of political cultures, where

Combs says that political cultures are

imagined in terms of myths, symbols, and values, and participated [in] in terms of one’s conception of what politics is like and what one’s obligations and efficacy might be. 28

Thus for Larsen, the artist must consider carefully her role in using myths and symbols, especially as the use of metaphor and symbols in the arts has been a source of contention in American society. 29

26 Ibid. 27 Libby Larsen, interview by Author, 21 November 2005, Appendix H. 28 James Combs, Polpop 2 Politics and Popular Culture in America Today (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991), 2, 12.

21 Beth A. Eck found that bitter arguments over contemporary art, whatever the genre, ultimately stemmed from resistance to change by conservatives for fear of what that change represents: a shift away from their understanding of what it means to be an

American. 30 In her own life, Larsen saw evidence of this as she was on the arts panel for the National Endowment for the Arts in the late 1980s. However, none of Larsen’s works in this study undermine American identity. If anything, they reinforce it, as most of her subjects are drawn from American sources or subjects: Nebraskan native Willa

Cather’s short story, Eric Hermannson’s Soul , the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, P. T.

Barnum and Jenny Lind’s tour of America, the Apollo 7 mission in the Triptych. The most political of the pieces, Coming Forth Into Day , is an exception to the use of

American subjects, drawing from writings from Jehan Sadat and other sources from around the world.

James L. Nolan, Jr. states that the divide in America is not about faith, political, or artistic boundaries; rather, it entails those who base their world-view on tradition versus those who reinterpret their beliefs through their society. 31 The former view is perceived as immutable, the latter as variable, or with a positive interpretation, as transformable. Nolan says further that

29 For example, see Beth A. Eck, “Cultural Conflict and Art: Funding of the National Endowment for the Arts,” in The American Culture Wars: Current Contests and Future Prospects , ed. James L. Nolan, Jr. (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1996), 91; see also J. D. Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991). 30 Eck, “Cultural Conflict and Art,” 110-112. 31 James L. Nolan, Jr., “Contrasting Styles of Political Discourse in America’s Past and Present Culture Wars,” in The American Culture Wars ,156-157.

22 Progressivists… demonstrate a willingness to adjust their values to the prevailing zeitgeist . Truth is not fixed, but is derived from one’s ongoing knowledge of and encounter with the world. 32

According to Nolan’s arguments, Larsen’s Coming Forth Into Day thus presents a progressivist view, as it takes writings spanning several thousand years and places them together in a new context. However when considering music itself, composers who are considered avant-garde believe in radical change and innovation. 33 The revolutionary perspective of change sees “change as a process fraught with conflict,” as opposed to the evolutionary perspective that views “change... [as] an orderly, almost predictable sequence of events.” 34 In this sense, Larsen’s music is not considered avant- garde or progressivist. However, Larsen is innovative in her use of electronic instruments and incorporating technology into the traditional acoustical instrumental genres. Larsen does not utilize electronic instruments for the sake of change, but rather to reflect sounds that she hears in her culture—electronic music dominates popular music. Thus she tries to integrate sounds heard in her sound culture into her music and does not create change for the sole sake of change. However, Larsen’s views on music education can be considered quite progressive.

Recent audience participation studies such as the one by the National Endowment for the Arts has found that adult participation in the arts is more closely linked to childhood arts education than to age, race, or socio-economic status. 35 In addition,

32 Nolan, “Contrasting Styles of Political Discourse,” 158. 33 Catherine M. Cameron, “Fighting with Words: American Composers’ Commentary on Their Work,” Comparative Studies in Sociology and History 27, no. 3 (July 1985): 440-41. 34 Ibid., 447. 35 National Endowment for the Arts, “New Look at the NEA’s Survey of Public Participation in the Arts Data Reveals that 3 out of 4 Americans Participate in the Arts,” News Room (24 February 2011) http://www.arts.gov/news/news11/SPPA-reports.html.

23 current trends in musical scholarship are influenced by American multiculturalism, thus making obsolete narrow classifications of music and culture. Growth in the fields of ethnomusicology and sociology, as well as an increasing awareness of the complexity of

American musical culture, have transformed scholarly understanding of music cultures in the United States and beyond. Scholars such as Kay Kaufman Shelemay and her research into “soundscapes” are redefining the current understanding of music cultures and the place of music within society. 36

In her work as a composer and educator, Larsen has also explored the musical soundscapes in America and their changes, which have been caused by various shifts in attitude toward the meaning of culture. Larsen points out that one of the United States’ cultural institutions, the Smithsonian Institution, in its “History of America” exhibition, which toured twelve cities in 1996 and 1997 in celebration of its one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary, displayed many panels on music. However, only one focused on classical music, displaying instruments as museum pieces. The vibrant musical displays that provided “a sense of the vigor of American life” were those on rock-and-roll, gospel, blues, and country and western music. 37 Larsen also notes,

Another panel showed Marian Anderson performing on the Lincoln Memorial steps, as an act of racial and cultural triumph. The antagonist to the triumph was the DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution]. The vehicle for the cultural battle was classical music, the DAR wishing to exclude Marian Anderson from singing in the concert. 38

36 Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). 37 Libby Larsen, “The Role of the Musician in the 21st Century: Rethinking the Core,” Plenary Address to the National Association of Schools of Music National Convention (1997). 38 Ibid.

24 When Larsen held the Papamarkou Chair in Education at the Kluge Center in

Washington, DC, she worked on a paper called “The Concert Hall That Fell Asleep and

Woke Up as a Car Radio.” 39 In this paper, Larsen examines how the ways in which people listen to music have changed throughout the twentieth century. The century opened with people attending concert halls in order to hear music. By mid-century, people primarily heard music through their radios. The close of the century found people listening to music through their computers, webcasts, iPods, and for the wealthier, in specially designed acoustical rooms in their homes. Larsen’s interest in this subject grew as she wondered how people perceive music in contemporary life.

Instead of music being isolated events to which people traveled, they can now generate a first-rate concert experience in their own homes. She wonders what ramifications this development has on the nineteenth-century business models for classical art music.

In support of Larsen’s general conclusions about listening habits of the

American people throughout the twentieth century, scholars such as Joseph Horowitz believe that cultural change came when electronic technology began to increase the circulation of high-art music in the 1930s, with radio programs such as the New York

Philharmonic’s weekly broadcast. In this sense, high-art music became a mass movement. 40 As Horowitz explains, this growing cultural awareness led to changes in education from making music and understanding its structure to focusing on the

reputation and personality [of] great composers and great performers… Leading appreciators… clung to the notion that music succeeded

39 Libby Larsen, “The Concert Hall That Fell Asleep and Woke Up as Car Radio,” unpublished paper, 2004. 40 Joseph Horowitz, “‘Sermons in Tones’: Sacralization as a Theme in American Classical Music,” American Music 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): 328.

25 according to the veracity, strength, and virtuousness of personalized feelings it—and its interpreters—embodied. 41

Henry Krehbiel, in his How to Listen to Music , published in numerous editions from

1896 to 1930, complained that audiences had no true understanding of what they heard. 42 His book was an attempt to teach music appreciation. For Horowitz, these education essays were necessary because of the “highbrow wall”:

In the U.S., the sacralizing impulse—prolonged by new popularity— erected a highbrow wall. … the Western musical high culture that we have known—that is called “classical music”—will endure as a wholly curatorial enterprise or mingle with popular and vernacular strains as never before. It cannot remain both highbrow and contemporary. 43

Larsen is intrigued by this shift in music as a “curatorial enterprise,” or what she considers the development of the “canon”—those works of music regarded as the height of artistic achievement that every cultured person should know. She has studied books such as Krehbiel’s, examining his list of pieces. She has also made an examination of

Copland’s various editions of What to Listen for in Music ,44 as well as the series published from 1913 to 1943 by The Victor Talking Machine/RCA Victor, What We

Hear in Music , by Anne Shaw Faulkner. 45 Through the widely used music appreciation books such as Faulkner’s, Larsen believes that American school children were taught to revere a set canon of works, while dismissing new works almost completely. In addition,

41 Ibid., 329. 42 Henry Edward Krehbiel, How to Listen to Music: Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art , 7th ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897), 5-13. 43 Horowitz, “‘Sermons in Tones,’” 332. 44 Aaron Copland, What to Listen for in Music , rev. ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1957). 45 Anne Shaw Faulkner, What We Hear in Music: A Course Study in Music Appreciation and History , 11th rev. ed. (Camden: RCA, 1939).

26 declines in the quantity and quality in music education since at least the 1970s (in part fueled by the separation of composer and audience) have further reduced the importance of art music in the American public’s opinion. 46

Larsen believes that music education needs to establish standards of active listening skills, as well as “critical thinking about music, about its purpose in our lives, about how well it is or is not performed, and about its place in our cultural environment.”

Larsen further says,

The core of music education, as I have experienced it, is based on a set of parameters derived from a particular repertoire that was developed in conjunction with a group of instruments which have been developed and evolved over 450 years of musical life in central Europe.47

Larsen maintains that the core exists around a specific repertoire from which stem ideas on harmony, theory, performance practice, notational systems and symbols, and concert venues.

For Larsen, it is important to acknowledge that this repertoire developed in

Europe. In order to maintain cultural relevancy in the United States, music educators need to recognize developments in the musical life of twentieth and twenty-first century

Americans. She has determined that there is a new genre of music that she refers to as

“electronica,” that has its own history, repertoire and musical parameters, and a much larger audience than that of classical art music. 48 She feels it incumbent upon music educators to build students “into better, more educated, more self-sufficient individuals who deal with multiple music genres, each according to his or her passion.” 49 Therefore,

46 Libby Larsen, “The Role of the Musician in the 21st Century.” 47 Ibid. 48 Libby Larsen, MENC Vision 2020 Conference Address” (2000), 4 49 Ibid.

27 music educators need to adapt their techniques, and in doing so, they become more central in the lives of their students, enriching their studies.

Larsen’s Musical Style

A major trend that emerged during Larsen’s childhood was that of the “avant- garde,” which The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music defines as a

term used for composers who adopt techniques or objectives radically different from those hallowed by tradition and generally accepted, with the implication that their work makes advances. The term came into use only after World War II, particularly with the adoption of such ‘avant- garde techniques’ as electronic sound, aleatory methods, total serialism etc. 50

While Larsen would not be described as avant-garde, those who are were working and present in the culture as Larsen was growing up. Thus their writings were part of a dialogue that Larsen heard, although her choice was to reject some of their ideas.

In comparing the writings of avant-garde composers, Catharine Cameron found that these composers generally saw tradition as the symphony orchestra and concert halls with a standard repertoire requiring a long period of training. 51 Some composers respected the tradition or found value in it and the need for craftsmanship, while other composers rejected the tradition completely, with techniques such as indeterminancy developing outside of the tradition. 52 Larsen often pays homage to the musical past, quoting pieces if the music suits her purpose. In several of the works in this present study, Larsen draws from music contemporaneous with the time period of her subject

50 The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music (1988), s.v. “Avant garde.” 51 Cameron, “Fighting with Words,” 436. 52 Ibid., 437, 439.

28 matter, such as in Barnum’s Bird , where Larsen incorporates music that Jenny Lind sang on her tour of North America. Though Larsen says that she likes composers for many differing reasons, a few tend to exhibit influence on her work. When her composing forces are a small group, she tends to reflect on French and Black American composers, in part because rhythm and color are very important elements in her compositional thinking. Therefore she looks at Berlioz, Debussy, Stravinsky, and James

Brown. 53

Cameron finds the concept of style as relevant to American composers when style is considered “an analytical construct to capture particular formal and expressive aspects of an art form.” 54 The avant-garde core value concerning musical form and structure seems to be to “liberate sounds from hierarchical forms. Stress timbre and rhythm over melody. Replace equal temperament with a natural acoustical basis for scales.” 55 In her compositions, Larsen places more emphasis on rhythm than on melody, especially when setting words to music, where she makes the rhythmic patterns of language paramount. For example, in an article from around 1973, Larsen is dismissive of composers who write what she terms “endless melody.” She clarifies by saying,

To me that’s a sign of a very insecure composer. They are afraid to put their talent on the line, by giving the audience something definite to follow. I hope I never start writing that way … pleasing people is where it’s at, and where it should stay. 56

53 Libby Larsen, “Interview with Composer Libby Larsen,” interview by Cynthia Green (Billings, MT, March 1991), International League of Women Composers Journal (June 1992): 26. 54 Cameron, “Fighting with Words,” 445. 55 Ibid., 453. 56 Kathy Grandchamp, “Libby Larsen, composer,” no source, Larsen Archives, 1973 file.

29 The main thrust of an article by Kathy Grandchamp from the 1970s is a discussion of Larsen’s Ph.D. project: Words Upon the Windowpane , an opera based on a W. B. Yeats play. The setting is a séance where “ghosts of past literary figures … come to debate the value of carnal involvements they never experienced in life.” 57 This early work used the 12-tone system, but she also wrote works using more traditional harmonic systems. Her style usually depends upon the nature of the commission. In a later interview, Larsen stated that she only felt pressure to conform to modern trends twice in commissions: the Eugenia Zuckerman piece and Coreolis for the Minnesota

Orchestra. In the former, Larsen eventually decided to remain true to her compositional self. In the latter, she attempted to get the feel of James Brown’s rhythmic drive utilizing minimalism. She feels that the composition was a mistake because she does not consider herself a minimalist. 58

By 1980, Larsen believed that she had developed two different styles. The first is for instrumental compositions where the music is a “more cerebral, abstract, painting style.” 59 Her second style occurs in pieces with texts, and she considers it “clear, accessible, bright and theatrical.” 60 While Larsen enjoys the challenges presented in composing both types of pieces, “the egotistical side of me prefers to do the instrumental style. But when I’m involved in the accessible style, I’m very happy.” 61

For Larsen, the beauty of opera is that it involves a blending of both styles.

57 Ibid. 58 Libby Larsen, “Interview with Composer Libby Larsen,” interview by Cynthia Green (Billings, MT, March 1991), International League of Women Composers Journal (June 1992): 26. 59 Peter Vaughan, “Composer Invests in Classics,” Minneapolis (MN) Star (19 December 1980), Larsen Archives, 1980 file. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid.

30 Twenty-five years later, Larsen still thinks of herself as having two different styles, each of which stems from the forces utilized: instrumental versus vocal. Larsen views the idiom of the voice as quite different from that of instruments, and they both offer different possibilities to the composer. She considers instrumental writing as cerebral because she sees the physics behind instruments as a rational extension of possibilities within the instrument. The possibilities inherent in the voice she views as naturally idiomatic, that is, there are physical limitations present in the voice that are not necessarily present with instruments. Opera offers the chance to work both rationally but also theatrically. 62

On 16 January 1984 Christopher Swan of the South China Morning Post wrote an article on the organization of Larsen’s day entitled “Tuning in to a Composer.”

During his discourse, Swan states that Larsen’s music

runs counter to everything that has gone on in mainstream contemporary composing during the last few decades. It is soft, inviting, frequently pretty. In that way it fits with the renaissance of lyricism and light over harshness and dark struggle currently afoot in music. Still, she argues that one wins few friends among contemporaries for this kind of music. “It’s an incredible risk to write music like this,” she says. “Composers depend on their colleagues for work; and ‘accessible’ is a pejorative term.” 63

This idea of the alienation of the composer with their audience is a common theme among writers in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, in his dissertation, Speer says that:

...it is extremely unfortunate that the disenchanted American listening public seems to equate the Samuel Barbers, Ned Rorems, and Dominick Argentos of the past century with the modernist camps of Varese, Cage, Antheil, and Gaburo, lumping them all together simply as “modern music.”... Throughout much of the twentieth century, composers

62 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author (Minneapolis, MN, 21 November 2005), Appendix H. 63 Christopher Swan, “Tuning in to a Composer,” South China Morning Post (16 January 1984).

31 concerned with maintaining connection with the listening audience repeatedly drew heated criticism from their contemporaries and critics. 64

By the 1970s, isolationist composers such as David Del Tredici, Michael Colgrass,

Gunther Schuller, and Krzysztof Penderecki spoke of establishing a connection with the audience. 65 Larsen fits right into this trend as she is primarily concerned with communicating to her audience through her music, and audiences generally respond well to her music. In part, this positive response may be due to Larsen’s sensitivity in setting words to music, and her careful use of the voice. She is frequently noted as being a lyrical composer, working within a tightly constructed framework.

In her book on contemporary composers, Pamela Collins notes that Larsen is not burdened by tradition but uses and liberally interprets tradition, often with humorous results. 66 Mary Ann Feldman comments on Larsen’s use of cinematic timing in her stage works. 67 In addition, Feldman says:

Her style is noted for its energy, optimism, rhythmic diversity, colourful orchestration, liberated tonality without harsh dissonance, and pervading lyricism. She has great sensitivity in setting the voice, and her attraction to the voice betrays the influence of Argento. 68

Larsen herself acknowledges the impact that Argento had in her approach to setting texts:

I owe a debt to one of my teachers, Dominick Argento, in that he had a couple of song cycles where he set prose rather than poetry. I learned those song cycles, of course, very well, as he was my teacher. I began to

64 Speer, “The American Composers Forum,” 19-20. 65 Ibid., 23. 66 Brian Morton and Pamela Collins, eds., Contemporary Composers (Chicago: St. James Press, 1992), 538. 67 Mary Ann Feldman, “Libby Larsen,” in Julie Ann Sadie and Rhian Samuel, eds., The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 266-268. 68 Mary Ann Feldman, “Libby Larsen,” Grove Music Online , http://www.grovemusic.com (accessed 7 October 2004).

32 discover the kind of musicality that comes from well written prose. It creates extraordinarily interesting melody especially when dealing with American English. 69

In his analysis of Larsen’s choral works, Speer also notes how closely Larsen’s style is related to the texts that she sets, resulting in works that are distinct from one another. 70

Sonja Rehbein says that Larsen became interested in the rhythm of American

English after hearing audiences complain that they wanted a melody they could whistle. 71 She found that complaint curious as it was difficult to whistle the then modern hits of “Pinball Wizard” or “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” She realized that there had been a change in American melody in the 1960s from rock and roll music.

Larsen says that American language is

cross-pollinated by our immigrant population. Our language has evolved so that when we are preparing to speak formally, we draw on the rules governing proper English, but when we speak informally, our language tends to be syncopated, truncated, and abbreviated.72

The following is Larry Smith’s summary of Larsen’s text choices and settings, and vocal line characteristics from his extensive analysis of Larsen’s choral music:73

Text choices and settings

(1) Preferences for contemporary American poets (2) Jazz and blues influence common in settings of American texts as well as untexted, “scat”-style works (3) Choice of texts often reflects composer’s own social conscience and philosophy

69 Libby Larsen, interview by Glenda Denise Secrest, 23 November 1999, Arkadelphia, Arkansas, tape recording by phone, as found in Glenda Denise Secrest, “Songs from Letters and Cowboy Songs by Libby Larsen: Two different approaches to Western mythology and Western Mythological figures” (D.M.A. diss., The University of Memphis, 2000), 6. 70 Speer, “The American Composers Forum,” 72. 71 Sonja Rehbein, “Band Masters Article: Libby Larsen,” draft (1990), 1-2. 72 Libby Larsen, as quoted in Sonja Rehbein, “Band Masters Article: Libby Larsen,” draft (1990), 2. 73 Larry Smith, “The Choral Music of Libby Larsen and Stephen Paulus: An Examination and Comparison of Styles” (D.M.A. diss., Arizona State University, 1998), 92.

33 (4) Faithfulness to poetic texts does not prevent repetition of phrases for musical impact (5) Text-painting is common and takes a variety of forms (6) Interest in creating choral dramas in recent works

Vocal line characteristics

(1) Texted lines tend to be syllabic; (2) Lines tend to be equally divided between conjunct and disjunct motion; (3) Disjunct lines tend to reflect specific expressive ideas and skips are usually triadic, well-prepared, and within the tonality of the moment; (4) Phrases tend to have fairly regular lengths, usually 2 and 4 measures in duration; (5) Deviations from these characteristics are due to the unique nature of the text or the dramatic needs of the moment.

Larsen utilizes mixed meter, syncopation, and free meter, which is frequently a consequence of the patterns found in the texts she utilizes. However, her flexibility with meter is also found in her instrumental pieces. Larry Smith is one of the authors who credit Larsen’s interest in American English poetry and prose as “important influences in the development of her rhythmic style.” 74 Smith believes that when Larsen discusses syncopation, she refers to the rhythmic quality inherent in words and phrases, along with any “metaphorical impact of the images they convey.” 75 Larsen describes her ideas on the impact that words have on her use of rhythm and meter:

American English tends to be—I don’t want to say syncopated—but for the sake of a conductor and a meter American English can be quite syncopated and so when I set a text and the text tells me it wants to be syncopated I try to find a context for syncopation which is not a clichéd social context. I try to let the syncopation be natural instead of finding a music that allows for a pre-conceived notion of syncopation such as ragtime… And that leads me to meter. Syncopation only works around a given meter. When I work with American texts in particular, I find more

74 Ibid., 47. 75 Ibid., 48.

34 and more that I use meter only as a way of delineating the scansion of the text and also as a way to keep the ensemble together, but not as an organizational principle for the piece. The text finds the meter for me. Then I have to understand whether or not that meter can be conducted and put together easily and naturally, given rehearsal constraints. 76

The following is Larry Smith’s summary of Larsen’s rhythmic characteristics: 77

(1) rhythm derived from the scansion of the poetry and the rhythm of words and phrases being set (2) syncopation related to the natural inflections of American English (3) mixed meters common

Since Larsen tends to conceive of vocal lines horizontally, her harmonies are created by the way these vocal lines interact with one another, reflecting the influence of singing chant music in her childhood. However, she is fond of using pitch clusters and ostinati in order to provide continuity within a piece. Her vocally conceived lines lead her to compose in “pools of tonality,” that is, pitch centers of non-functional harmony or movement. 78 However, these pitch centers wind up being well-planned, creating ambiguous pitch centers contrasting with well-defined centers, and often depict static versus active, providing the semblance of recitative versus arioso in her dramatic works. 79 More specifically, Larsen says of her tonality that

a horizontal relationship… influences the way I conceive tonality, not a vertical [relationship]… the logic to the tonality is related to the fundamental around which I’m working—the tonus, which might be the tonic but it might be the dominant or it might be the Lydian fourth, which I use quite a bit in my music because it’s such a flexible interval. It can be a leading fourth or it can be a leading tone or it can suggest

76 Larsen interview, pp. 162-163 as quoted in Smith, “The Choral Music of Libby Larsen,” 44. 77 Smith, “The Choral Music of Libby Larsen,” 92. 78 Laurel Ann Thomas, “A Study of Libby Larsen’s ME (Brenda Ueland), A Song Cycle for High Voice and Piano” (D.M.A. diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 1994), 9. 79 Ibid., 26.

35 several different tonal areas. ... And tonality for me is not functional keyboard harmony, it is pools [tonal] of comfort around a fundamental. 80

Because Larsen’s lines are horizontally conceived, her works tend to be contrapuntal.

Speer, who analyzed the choral works of composers receiving choral commissions directly or indirectly via the American Composers Forum, found Larsen’s works more contrapuntal than any of the others he studied. Speer also noted that “Larsen is especially fond of establishing contrapuntal ostinati between two or more voices as a choral accompaniment to melody and/or countermelody.” 81 These contrapuntal ostinati are particularly relevant to the pieces in this present study, as Larsen often uses these relationships to help establish continuity within her larger works. The following is Larry

Smith’s summary of Larsen’s harmonic characteristics: 82

(1) key signatures are almost never used; (2) pedal tones in voices or accompaniment are commonly used to establish tonal centers; (3) ostinato patterns and recurring motives are commonly used to establish and extend tonal centers; (4) vocal lines generate harmonies, not chord progression patterns; (5) works tend to begin and end in the same tonality.

David DeVenney, who studied the growth in choral composition among

American composers, summarized his findings by comparing Libby Larsen and John

Harbison, saying that while their music sounds very different, they both

use melodies that are conjunct and cantabile; harmonies that focus on related pitch centers, albeit with an enlarged vocabulary that includes cluster chords, quartal harmonies, added-tone triads, and other twentieth- century innovations; and clear organizational structures, including

80 Larsen interview, pp.161-162, as quoted in Smith, “The Choral Music of Libby Larsen,” 68. 81 Speer, “The American Composers Forum,” 68. 82 Smith, “The Choral Music of Libby Larsen,” 92-93.

36 binary, rounded, theme and variation, and other sectional forms for their music. 83

DeVenney also acknowledges that in genres other than choral music, serial composition and minimalism are declining in popularity among working composers. 84 Thus Larsen and other composers are utilizing the techniques mentioned above to provide coherency within the structure of their compositions, and they are doing so in ways that both expand traditional diatonic harmonies while moving away from compositional devices developed in the twentieth century, with the result that each composer creates a distinct voice even when utilizing similar compositional techniques. In summarizing her own style, Larsen alludes to this shift in how composers view their craft:

I attempt to capture the energy of different musics around us and then translate that energy through contemporary harmony and contemporary color. Really more expressionistic color. 85

Thus instead of using a compositional system, such as serialism or minimalism, Larsen is interested in the types of sounds that can be created, how they are woven together, and how these sounds interact with one another. She uses her compositional tools such as conjunct and disjunct motion, rhythmic devices, and ostinati in order to explore the musical sounds she hears, create form and structure within a piece, and devise her centers of harmonic stability or fluidity. What Larsen terms as expressionistic color is ultimately the result of the harmonic stability or fluidity brought about by intertwining different melodic lines.

83 David P. DeVenney, “American Choral Music since 1985,” in Perspectives on American Music Since 1950 , ed. James R. Heintze (New York: Garland, 1999), 376-377. 84 Ibid., 377. 85 Libby Larsen, as quoted in Sonja Rehbein, “Band Masters Article: Libby Larsen,” draft (1990), 11.

37 Publisher Relationships

One way in which composers interact with society is through the recording and publishing of their works. Through recordings, their works are aurally disseminated, reaching new audiences, often when played by radio stations. Many of Larsen’s works have been recorded and are available for purchase. While all of the works in this study have been recorded, not all are commercially available. The status of recordings is frequently out of the composers’ hands, as it is usually up to the performing organization and, in the case of a brand new work, the commissioning group. For example, Frankenstein was recorded for broadcast on National Public Radio’s “World of Opera,” but is not available for purchase as a commercial recording. This illustrates one problem with much contemporary music: while the performances are recorded, they are not processed for mass-market availability — a failing of the traditional sound recording distribution system. However, this system is undergoing a change with the advent of webcasting and music downloading. Larsen’s website now offers music downloads of some of her newer choral works. 86 Most often these are used as ways of encouraging print music purchases of the works for future performances. Larsen views her website as an extension of her mind and “as a resource center for [her] music and

[her] thoughts.” 87

Larsen also moved to self-publishing for many of her recent compositions, especially with choral works. In part this move is to take advantage of new print-on- demand software, but this move is also Larsen’s response to difficulties she experienced

86 www.libbylarsen.com. 87 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author, Minneapolis, MN (20 November 2005), Appendix G, 25.

38 with her publishers. Examining Larsen’s two primary publishers will place Larsen’s relationships with her publishers in a larger context, revealing how society has also shifted preferences from large, central distribution centers of print media, to more localized, composer-centric music distribution.

In 1993, Larsen began negotiations to change publishers from E.C. Schirmer

Music Company to Oxford University Press (OUP). 88 During the course of negotiations with OUP, Larsen sent the publishing firm examples of her work, including two completed opera scores, Frankenstein and A Wrinkle in Time , as well as a partial score to her opera Mrs. Dalloway . In order to make a clean break with E.C. Schirmer, Larsen had to finish the editing process with all of the pieces contracted with Bob and Cynthia

Schuneman at Schirmer. Susan Brailove, Manager at the Music Department at OUP, was eager for Larsen’s relations with Schirmer to end quickly. 89

Larsen began looking for a new publisher because she felt that Schirmer was not providing adequate support for her works. The manner in which Schirmer handled

Frankenstein , in particular, from the opera’s initial negotiations to press kit and publishing, convinced Larsen that a change in publishers was necessary. On 21 January

1988 Larsen sent Bill Thorpe of Schirmer a copy of the contract with the Minnesota

Opera for Frankenstein for Thorpe’s input. 90 Larsen routinely sent copies of commissioning contracts to her publisher for review, and this review process was one

88 Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, to Jeffrey Bishop, Oxford University Press, New York, 3 June 1993, typewritten letter, Libby Larsen Papers, Minneapolis, MN. 89 Susan Brailove, Oxford University Press, New York, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, 7 June 1993, typewritten letter, Libby Larsen Papers, Minneapolis, MN. 90 Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, to Bill Thorpe, E.C. Schirmer, Boston, 21 January 1988, typewritten letter, Libby Larsen Papers, Minneapolis, MN.

39 way that the publishers helped protect the composer’s interests. Of course, they were also protecting their own interests, as the composer eventually turns over his/her copyright interests to the publisher. So, for example, after reviewing the contract for

Frankenstein , Thorpe sent a reply one 9 February 1988 approving the contract with one amendment to Article 6: that the time frame for the first production should not exceed one year, so as to protect Larsen from subsequent productions being called “first.”91

Larsen’s frustration with Schirmer escalated when she received a note from Bill Thorpe dated 22 September 1988 stating that “We have a request for ‘Frankenstein.’ We have no info on such a piece.” 92 So some seven months after reviewing and approving the contract for Frankenstein , Schirmer’s organization was denying that they had ever heard of the work in progress. Another reason for using a different publisher was the large number of errata appearing in published versions of her works. 93 The piano/vocal score of Frankenstein offers an excellent example of this. Prior to the advent of music software, Larsen would make vellum copies of all of her scores. The version of

Frankenstein for sale is the initial piano/vocal vellum score before production changes and has the wrong ending (see chapter 3).

Negotiations with OUP went well, and Larsen began publishing with them in

1994. However, two years into their arrangement, OUP adjusted their payment scheme.

On 13 June 1996, Susan Brailove from OUP sent Larsen a letter noting that “royalties on titles with wider potential sales are now paid at 10% net rather than list, to enable us

91 Bill Thorpe, Boston, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, 9 February 1988, typewritten letter, Libby Larsen Papers, Minneapolis, MN. 92 Bill Thorpe, E.C. Schirmer, Boston, to Libby Larsen, [Minneapolis], 22 September 1988, handwritten letter, Libby Larsen Papers, Minneapolis, MN. 93 One example is Aubade , for flute, which had 12 missing accidentals and missing ledger lines.

40 to keep prices lower and have the opportunity to establish a title in the market.” 94

Basically, OUP was changing the terms of Larsen’s existing contracts and future contracts and reducing the amount of money Larsen received in royalties.

In 2005, OUP began restructuring their operations in England. According to

Larsen, OUP was trying to eliminate all of its chamber music and all of its American composers writing chamber music. 95 Publishers tend to be conservative when printing new music, and they generally want to produce something easy to sightread. 96 So perhaps as a reaction to the costs of printing smaller works, by the end of 2005, OUP had eliminated all of its editorial production staff based in the United States. In the meantime, Larsen began examining her publishing options, such as self-publication, with OUP as a distributor. While maintaining her relationship with OUP, she has since begun experimenting with print-on-demand for some of her smaller works, which were also the type of works OUP was eliminating from its catalogue.97

One of the values Larsen saw in having OUP as her publisher was the name recognition and validity that the publishing house brand offered her. Larsen tells of an encounter she had with Neville Mariner, who, upon hearing that Stephen Paulus was self-publishing, wondered why Paulus has problems finding a publisher. 98 So the attitude that a composer is only as good as his or her publishing house is still present.

94 Susan Brailove, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, MN, 13 June 1996. 95 Libby Larsen, Interview, Minneapolis, MN, 20 November 2005, Appendix G, 38. 96 Speer, “The American Composers Forum,” 43. 97 For example, see Libby Larsen’s website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=319 for He Arose, Fanfare for Easter , which can be ordered as a PDF download. 98 Libby Larsen, interview by the Author, Minneapolis, MN (20 November 2005), Appendix G.

41 Nevertheless, Larsen feels that the access and distribution of music in America is outdated. Larsen maintains that

The system, the political system, may have said we no longer support you, but the cultural system, meanwhile during that same period of time has developed the whole web technology which circumvents gatekeeper systems, the systems of imprimaturs, of, you are supported, you are not. Meaning if you are not supported you are not seen or heard, which is a very old system. The web technology lets anyone support themselves and be seen and heard. Now, who knows, as the culture evolves, I’m quite certain the media companies will try very hard to find ways to not let everyone have individual access and distribution. But for the time being the old systems are so ingrained that my hope is that web technology, the new distribution system for self thought grows so fast and so far beyond the system of intermediary control of content. 99

Larsen continues to develop her online presence as a way of staying culturally relevant in a culture that is increasing in its use of technology. She hopes to be among the pioneers of classical music composers using new models of marketing and publishing in the United States.

Conclusion

In her writings and speeches, Larsen consistently argues for greater flexibility in how music is approached and taught. She believes that music plays a central role in shaping culture, and that composers are essential to that function in that they reflect back to their listeners and performers the current sounds present within their society.

Thus she has long been an advocate for embracing all modern music types in musical education. Her compositional style also reflects this belief, for example by drawing on rhythmic patterns she hears in popular music. She also prefers setting texts by American

99 Ibid.

42 authors, because the language is more of a reflection of the culture in which she lives.

When writing with a text, she lets the text guide and inform her compositional choices.

This allows her to compose horizontally, that is by layering vocal lines, and it is the juxtaposition of each vocal line that winds up creating her non-traditional harmonic palette. Her technique of layering vocal lines is reminiscent of early Renaissance polyphony, seemingly influenced by her early exposure to Gregorian chant. Therefore, the foundation of her work is derived from the music she heard in her formative years and further influenced by what she has heard throughout her life.

Chapter 2

The Business of Composing: Funding, Commissions, and Repertoire Challenges

Throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, there have been numerous studies of philanthropic nonprofit institutions.1 These studies, which were devised to evaluate giving practices at the time, can be used to determine the impact of giving on the arts during Libby Larsen’s lifetime. These same studies can help define the relationships among Larsen’s commissions, the donors, cultural institutions, and society.

A basic question here is what exactly is meant by the terms “patronage” and

“philanthropy.” The Oxford American Dictionary defines “patronage” as “the support, promotion, or encouragement given by a patron,” with “patron” being defined as “a person who gives financial or other support to a person, cause, work of art, etc., esp. one who buys works of art.” 2 While The American Heritage Dictionary gives a similar definition of “patronage,” the one for “patron” is slightly different: “Anyone who supports, protects, or champions; benefactor: a patron of the arts .” 3 The two dictionaries diverge on the definition of “philanthropy”: “practical benevolence, esp. charity on a large scale” from The Oxford American Dictionary , and “The effort or inclination to increase the well-being of mankind, as by charitable aid or donations…

An action or institution designed to promote human welfare” from The American

Heritage Dictionary .4 The term “patron” seems to be used more specifically in regards

1 Thomas Adams, ed., Philanthropy, Patronage and Civil Society: Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, and North America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004), 3. 2 The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999), s. v. “Patronage,” “Patron.” 3 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1982), s. v. “Patron.” 4 The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999), s. v. “Philanthropy,” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1982), s. v. “Philanthropy.” 43 44 to supporting the arts, whereas the term “philanthropy” possesses a much broader application to embrace the general betterment of humanity.

Thomas Adams, in his introduction to a collection of essays, prefers the term

“philanthropy” over “patronage,” as philanthropy suggests some sort of “relationship between donor/giver and receiver,” as well as “power and the shaping of the future of society.” 5 Patronage implies a selfish act on the part of the giver: society is not to benefit from the benevolence of the gift, but the donor gives only with the intent of receiving personal pleasure. On the other hand, a collection of articles on women patrons edited by Ralph Locke and Cyrilla Barr offers a different interpretation of musical patronage. For Locke and Barr, while the term does have connotations of

“money, privilege, and condescension,” the production of the musical works themselves also entails “sacrifice and a devotion to making life rich.” 6 Locke and Barr coined the term “musical activist” to refer to such female patrons, who were not always wealthy, because these women donated much of their time and money to a cause—in this case music—in which they believed.

However, Locke and Barr’s view of musical patronage as activism does not fully apply in Libby Larsen’s case, as she composes for remuneration and her patrons are for the most part either wealthy donors or institutions. Nevertheless, Larsen can be said to be the recipient of musical activism by the music directors who commission her works. For example, Phillip Brunelle is a great supporter of Larsen, having commissioned numerous works for the Plymouth Music Singers, including Barnum’s

5 Adams, Philanthropy, Patronage and Civil Society, 4-5. 6 Ralph P. Locke and Cyrilla Barr, eds., Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists since 1860 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1997), 5.

45 Bird and Coming Forth Into Day . In addition, there are instances in Larsen’s career of groups of people pulling together resources in order to commission new music. For example, the community of Terrace, Minnesota, collectively paid for the commission that resulted in Deep Summer Music (1982). Larsen also had two very unusual commissions by current and former students that resulted in works for their mentors: one piece for a clarinet teacher and one piece for a saxophone teacher. However, these community commissions are rare.

The distinction between “patronage” and “cultural philanthropy” is further clarified by Margaret Menninger:

Patronage emphasizes a specific act of purchase or acquisition of an object of art (broadly defined) without any reference to a larger public good…Philanthropy, by contrast, connotes duty and responsibility to a greater cause; that is to say, it bears the characteristics of a social practice. 7

Thus patronage can be considered a personal act, such as purchasing a painting for a private collection, whereas philanthropy is a public act, such as commissioning a sculpture for a war memorial. In regards to musical composition, Larsen has commented on the splicing of personal versus public art. 8 The act of creating a new piece of music is intensely personal, yet it is written for an extremely public event: performance. The terms “philanthropy” and “patronage” will be used interchangeably in this work, in part because grants for new musical works are frequently a subset of gifts that a foundation disburses for the “betterment of humankind.”

7 Margaret Eleanor Menninger, “The Serious Matter of True Joy: Music and Cultural Philanthropy in Leipzig, 1781-1933,” in Philanthropy, Patronage and Civil Society , 120-121. 8 Rebecca P. Lindwell, “Larsen Music: It’s Here, There, Everywhere!” Cedar Rapids Gazette (20 February 1994).

46 A Summary of Economic Studies on the Arts

In 1966, William Baumol and William Bowen published their ground-breaking study on economics and the performing arts, in which they drew the conclusion that art cannot pay for itself. 9 They believed that the financial deficits would only increase because of the “income gap,” since expenses would continue to rise but would not be offset by improvements in efficiency or technology as in the manufacturing sector. 10

However, in founding the American Composers Forum (formerly the Minnesota

Composers Forum), Larsen and Stephen Paulus set about creating ways to circumvent this effect. Another conclusion that Baumol and Bowen drew, which was also to influence the American Composers Forum and their ideas on audience development, was that audiences at art performances were drawn from a very narrow portion of the population with both high income and education.

The economic drawback for many art-forms is that they were never intended for large audience appeal, but for intimate consumption. The Metropolitan Opera, which receives the most media attention, also has the largest opera house which seats close to

4,000 people, and now broadcasts performances live in high definition in movie theaters around the world. However, most smaller houses seat around 1,000, and medium-size houses seat 2,500. For example, the Ordway Theater, home of the Minnesota Opera and of a Larsen premiere, seats 1,780, while the St. Louis opera house seats 987, and Opera

Omaha’s Orpheum Theater, also the site of a Larsen premiere, seats 2,600.

9 William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts—The Economic Dilemma: A Study of Problems Common to Theater, Opera, Music and Dance (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1966). 10 Ibid., 8, 162-164.

47 In 1974, the Ford Foundation followed up on Baumol and Bowen’s work by using data from the 1965-1966 arts season through the 1970-1971 season. This study reinforced Baumol and Bowen’s work on the “income gap,” predicting that the income of cultural institutions would not keep up with expenses, therefore creating an increasingly larger budget deficit. 11 These early studies on the economics of the arts became the filter through which the basic financial mechanisms of the arts in the United

States were perceived. In fact, a study commissioned in 1991 and released in 1992 by the American Symphony Orchestra League, “The Financial Condition of Symphony

Orchestras,” painted a rather grim picture of the future financial health of the orchestra.

“In the 1992 report, Thomas Wolf called for a paradigm shift in the way orchestras did business as the only possible solution to the dire future he foresaw.” 12 In his analysis of the predictions of the Wolf Report ten years later, Douglas Dempster argues that the so- called “Baumol’s Curse,” or “income gap,” was flawed, as the predicted extreme operating deficits failed to materialize over time.13

However, a new study by economist Robert J. Flanagan supports Baumol’s and

Bowen’s original conclusions and helps to explain the relatively small operating deficits of the 1980s and 1990s.14 Using data primarily from the League of American Orchestras

(formerly the American Symphony Orchestra League), Flanagan found that the

11 The Ford Foundation, The Finances of the Performing Arts, V. 1: A Survey of 166 Professional Nonprofit Resident Theaters, Operas, Symphonies, Ballets, and Modern Dance Companies (New York: The Ford Foundation, 1974), 5-6. 12 “Editor’s Digest” for “The Wolf Report and Baumol’s Curse,” in Harmony 15 (October 2002): no page. 13 Douglas J. Dempster, “The Wolf Report and Baumol’s Curse: The Economic Health of American Symphony Orchestras in the 1990s and Beyond,” Harmony 15 (October 2002): 2-3. 14 Robert J. Flanagan, “Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: The Economic Environment of American Symphony Orchestras” (March 2008), [email protected] .

48 financial health of the orchestra is closely tied to the state of the national economy. If the country is in a recession, orchestras suffer losses from both ticket revenues and contributions. Thus, Dempster’s arguments about the flawed income gap were possible only because orchestras began to streamline and cut expenses, which have been done as far as possible; to generate new sources of income, which decline over periods of economic instability; and to operate at a time of economic prosperity.

Flanagan’s work reinforces the notion that the orchestra does not pay for itself via ticket revenues; income has to be supplemented through fund raising, foundation grants, individual donations, hall rentals, and investment income. Flanagan also compared orchestral figures to opera figures and found that the two corresponded, with opera losing more money because their productions are more expensive. During a recession, arts organizations tend to compete with each other for dwindling resources.

However, after Baumol and Bowen developed their theory of the economics of the performing arts, performing artists began exploring innovative ways to generate the financial support they needed, one of which was the American Composers Forum founded in 1973. Randall Craig Speer’s dissertation examined philanthropy and the economic effects on compositional products through the lens of the American

Composers Forum, which helped unite composers with performance opportunities and funding sources.15 Libby Larsen was co-founder of the original organization, along with

Stephen Paulus, and held close managerial ties for seventeen years. Thus Larsen has been intimately involved with the funding of compositional projects, not just for herself, but for an entire community of composers. Speer found that the Forum went on to have

15 Speer, “The American Composers Forum.”

49 a profound effect on American choral music in particular because of the relationships developed among choral societies, the Composers Forum, communities involved in music-making, and composers. In addition, the Forum attempted to reach broader audiences by developing programs such as “Datebook: Meet the Composer” for

National Public Radio.

The Institutionalization of the Arts and Its Effects on Repertoire

In 1970 there were approximately forty opera companies in the United States, although half of the total budgets of these forty came from only four opera companies:

Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and San Francisco

Opera. By 2005, the U.S. had around one-hundred-twenty-five opera companies, with the Metropolitan Opera still having the largest budget. In her 1975 study on the economics of opera, Rosella Martorella states that most companies received support through foundation grants and government subsidies such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Council of the Arts, and state-education grants, with an increasing reliance on private funds, though these donations did not keep up with increases in costs due to inflation. 16 In contrast, by 2005, private funds and foundation grants provided the primary income that supplemented ticket sales. 17

To help pay for new productions, that is, repackaging of older operas, companies rely more on repertoire standards for the bulk of the season. Otherwise, new

16 Rosanne Martorella, “The Structure of the Market and Musical Style: The Economics of Opera Production and Repertoire: An Exploration,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 6, no. 2 (December 1975): 244. 17 Jonathan Leaf, “America’s Opera Boom,” The American July/August 2007), 3-4.

50 productions demand extra rehearsal time, scenery, and costumes. Producing a new opera is subsequently even more costly. During seasons in the early 1970s, the standard repertoire constituted 75% of the works performed, new productions 10-25%, and contemporary operas 0-15%. 18 Martorella claims that repertoire decisions were based more on what would sell tickets than on creative or artistic ideals. Speer also agrees that

“music is affected by its means of support, [although] the degree to which patronage affects musical style is debated.” 19

If opera repertoire is resistant to change due to the economic forces in play, then major companies only re-create opera; they do not support the essential creative act for opera development: contemporary opera. In the 1970s, this task was relegated to universities, as there was a widespread belief that contemporary opera did not communicate well with its audience. However, with the rise in the number of opera companies also came a demand for new, contemporary opera. Throughout the 1980s, the number of operas commissioned and performed in the United States continued to grow. Larsen has found that most arts organizations commission pieces only for specific events, such as the opening of a new performance hall or an anniversary celebration.

During her residency with the Minnesota Orchestra in the 1980s, Larsen discovered the limitations affecting repertoire decisions placed on the orchestra for rehearsal time due to labor union contracts and the organization itself. Thus Larsen encountered what Martorella termed the large-scale institutionalization of the arts that brought “increasing professionalization and bureaucratization” and coincided with a

18 Martorella, “The Structure of the Market,” 250. 19 Speer, “The American Composers Forum,” 9.

51 shift in repertoire decisions based on ticket sales.20 With the Minnesota Orchestra,

Larsen found in place a rigid system of rehearsal schedules whereby each piece in a concert is allotted a set amount of time for rehearsal. Larsen believes that:

In another system we could lay out the rehearsal schedule according to the difficulty of the pieces... I would say we are severely handicapped in the styles of music that we can adequately rehearse and perform for our audience. 21

Larsen maintains that orchestras and opera companies have adopted a corporate structure in order to survive in the current marketplace and remain financially stable.

However, in adopting the corporate model these organizations have neglected one very important component of successful business organizations: research and development.

Composers should be in positions where they are what Larsen terms the

research and development area of the orchestra... to both create pieces, but also innovate in the very areas of stagnation within the orchestra and that is the rehearsal technique, the halls and marketing. ... the orchestra would have to build into its regular operating budget a research and development line item. 22

In her ideal world, each orchestra would have several composers on staff, each specializing in different areas. For example,

an orchestra would want a composer who was a consummate subscription kind of composer, and another composer who could do pop arrangement, and another composer who had a burning desire in questions of education programming. And another composer who did nothing but wonderful fanfare music so you could have fanfares for everything. Those composers all being part of research and development would of course cross fertilize each other. 23

20 Martorella, “The Structure of the Market,” 244. 21 Libby Larsen, interview by Victoria Bond, 19 April 1990, Libby Larsen archives, Minneapolis, MN. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid.

52 It seems that the main thrust of Larsen’s argument is that creative specialists, especially composers, inspire change in a stagnant organization, thereby enhancing the finished product.

Opera companies could also be rejuvenated, but by using a slightly different approach as opera offers different production challenges from orchestras. Many people believe that the workshops and reading sessions of new operas fulfill “Research and

Development.” However, Larsen has found

that in reading sessions in both of the worlds, opera and orchestra, that when there is a dicey question... for a particular effect in a piece of music... in a workshop situation the answer might be more hypothetical than practical. In the workshop you might say “what an interesting idea...” but if we were in a production kind of R & D situation we would say “no” [because the idea was physically impractical]. ... I have found that in workshops and reading sessions that for a day or two the creative mind has its day in the sun. Where people are curious about the creative process and how it works, people being the performers and the administration of whatever institution you’re working with, but after the workshop is over the creative mind tends to be marginalized as the daily business of the institution goes on. What we really need, I believe, and the corporate model for this bears me out, is a regular interaction of the creative mind in that corporate structure under the department of R & D which is a necessary and equal part of any kind of progressive corporate structure. To me that is one very viable way to create a more composer- friendly situation. 24

Larsen is really talking about creating a position of staff composer for opera companies

— someone who works daily with the musical personnel in the creation of new works. In this way opera would become more relevant to contemporary society, as the form, structure, harmony, subject matter, costumes, and scenery would all become part of an on-going dialogue within the community. Currently, she believes that the whole training system in opera does not support new operas, even with companies that commission new

24 Ibid.

53 works. Larsen says that

even though a company commissions an opera, it’s not obvious that they believe in it or in its success. … They know there is a place [for new operas], but they don’t believe in the place of it. … Curiosity about, duty to produce, excitement surrounding the production of a new work, but systematic belief in it is not part of the system. And so you often enter into an environment of doubt and failure. 25

On top of this “environment of doubt and failure,” the U.S. imposes conditions on its composers that they cannot meet because of economic, social, political, and cultural pressures. A work of art is considered successful if it can reach a large audience and make a large profit. 26 However, “opera companies...are raising large amounts of money: $387 million in private contributions in 2005 alone.” 27 Although a recent study on opera by the National Endowment of the Arts found that opera attendance grew between 1982 and 2002, attendance decreased to 1982 levels in 2008. 28 At the same time, watching opera through other means, such as high definition broadcasts and over the internet, increased.

According to data from Opera America derived from one hundred twenty-two opera companies in forty-three states, the average number of new works premiered per year from 1990 to 1995 was ten. 29 Beginning in 1996, there was a significant rise in new operas with an average of thirty operas premiered per year from 1996 to 2011.

Although these numbers refer only to opera premieres, they indicate an increased interest in contemporary opera. As of 2007, many contemporary operas sold more

25 Libby Larsen, interview by the Author, 21 November 2005, Appendix H. 26 Nicholas Tawa, American Composers and Their Public , x. 27 Jonathan Leaf, “America’s Opera Boom,” in The American: The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute (July/August 2007): n.p. 28 National Endowment for the Arts, 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts: Research Report #49 (November 2009), 2. 29 www.operaamerica.org/applications/nawd/timeline.aspx

54 tickets than the standard repertoire, and the repertory has broadened to encompass rarely performed works as well as contemporary works. However, with a major economic recession beginning in 2007, it remains to be seen if these trends continue, as there is usually a delay of several years between an opera being commissioned and its first performance. For example, Larsen’s opera Picnic was one of twenty-nine operas premiered in 2009, but she was working on it as early as November 2005.

Although foundation and corporate support for the arts has increased in the

United States, many corporate foundations are in fact controlled by individuals, whose tastes must be considered. 30 The inherent political concerns of newer kinds of philanthropy, which increase the interaction between giver and recipient, occur throughout the world. Libby Larsen views the American Composers Forum’s association between philanthropist and creator as uniquely American:

The Forum is relying heavily upon foundation patronage, which is similar to private patronage; and it comes with an ego, and it comes with contrived visions. …This is why the Forum is successful—and… I think it can only be American [as] it deals with patronage in the American culture. It’s a player and a shaper, and that’s quintessential America. It can do projects—wonderful projects…but it can’t be anywhere else. It could never have started in any other culture… [b]ecause it perceives patronage and its marriage to the arts and works with it, always trying— sometimes more successful than others—to let...the artist guide the music that comes out. 31

Larsen’s perspective on patronage as it relates to the Forum is quite positive, most likely because she had a hand in shaping it. The Forum has had an impact on contemporary choral music, and Larsen’s choral music is performed frequently and is

30 Karl Taro Greenfield, “The New Philanthropy: A New Way of Giving,” Time Magazine (24 July 2000): 49, as cited in Speer, “The American Composers Forum,” 12-13. 31 Libby Larsen, interview by Randall Craig Speer, Minneapolis, MN (19 August 1999), as quoted in Speer, “The American Composers Forum,” 14.

55 part of the choral repertoire. On the other hand, entering the repertoire in opera is much more arduous.

In 1999, Bruce Weber wrote an article for the New York Times about the difficulty modern operas had in receiving second performances. As a point of contrast,

Weber mentions Larsen’s first symphony, which had around thirty-five performances after its premiere in 1985, as opposed to her nine operas, all of which had been produced only once. Larsen says of this phenomenon that “the orchestra world looks at a new work as part of a flow of repertory; the opera companies look at a new work as a production that happens.”32 New operas rarely receive another performance after the premiere, as they are more difficult to promote when not a premiere event. Weber believes the reasons behind this phenomenon are complex. Opera audiences tend to be skeptical of new works, convinced that composers prize “intellectualism over lyricism,” while companies tend to program the “sure thing” to make certain they sell enough tickets:

“In this country, huge numbers of operas are commissioned every year, and we have a huge number of gifted singers,” said Linda S. Golding, the president of Boosey & Hawkes, a leading music publisher. “We’ve got all the elements to produce thoughtful, challenging, contemporary opera all the time. Where we have difficulty is in how to market, promote and fund-raise for these works after the initial performances. The composers and the works suffer, and the audiences do too, from not being exposed to them.”33

In 1999 when Weber wrote his article, several people he interviewed thought that the attitude towards new works was shifting in a positive direction. For example, Marc

32 Bruce Weber, “Birth of an Opera: Plight of the Composer, or The Premiere Is Sometimes The Easy Part; New Operas Face Hurdles In Joining the Repertory,” The New York Times, 20 September 1999. 33 Weber, “Birth of an Opera.”

56 Scorea, then director of Opera America, said that opera groups were making significant headway with new audiences and new works.

These thoughts seem to have been justified in that the number of newly commissioned works grew throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, as mentioned earlier.

On the other hand, determining the number of new works actually entering the repertoire is more problematic. None of Larsen’s operas have entered the mainstream repertoire; that is, repeat performances by established opera companies. However, two operas in this study have been performed again, Eric Hermannson’s Soul and Barnum’s

Bird . Table 2.1 lists the number of performances beyond the premiere that the works in this study have received. Barnum’s Bird in particular is finding new life in universities, while excerpts of Eric Hermannson’s Soul have been performed, for example at the

Opera America Conference in Houston, TX in 2000, and the opera has been performed in its entirety once more by the Opera Theater of the University of Minnesota. If works such as the Margaret Songs (for soprano and piano) are included in the count, the number of performances of pieces drawn from Larsen’s operas increase dramatically.

Of the pieces in this study, the cantata Eleanor Roosevelt has had the most complete performances. One advantage that the cantata has is that it is relatively inexpensive to mount: it does not require elaborate sets or costumes or paid soloists. The cantata is also thirty-five minutes long and therefore easily fits into a concert program. One category of American opera repertory deserving of further study is children’s opera. Larsen’s one-act children’s opera The Silver Fox has received several performances by small organizations and now has been commissioned as a full-length opera by Fort Worth

57 Opera for 2014. Thus, examining the impact of contemporary opera on repertoire among the large companies is quite different from its impact on smaller, mixed-genre companies and academic organizations that have more flexibility.

Table 2.1: A list of works in this study and the approximate number of second performances by organizations other than the commissioning party, in the order of performances.

Title Number of performances Eleanor Roosevelt 11 Barnum’s Bird 3 Eric Hermannson’s Soul 1 Coming Forth Into Day 1 Nothing That Is 1 Frankenstein 0 I It Am 0 Praise One 0

Larsen’s Work and Funding Sources

Funding for new works can generally be divided into two categories. The first supports the daily activities of the performing organization, usually covering all costs associated with paying the administration, regular contractual performers, and facilities- related expenses. The second category of funding pays for all expenses generated by the composer, librettist, printed materials, special soloists, and any production costs not ordinarily covered in the general operating budget. However, many companies have underwriters who support “new productions,” which in opera means new costumes, lighting, and set design for both old and new operas.

58 The development of the chamber version of Larsen’s opera Eric Hermannson’s

Soul was supported by a grant of $14,000 from the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Opera for a New America program.34 This grant also covered costs associated with “audience development activities.” 35 Since the original grant request was for $25,000, the budget was subsequently reduced to reflect some of the difference between the grant request and the actual allowance. 36 The Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest grant was restricted to covering certain costs such as travel expenses for composer and performers, rehearsal space, marketing and advertising, props, costumes, technical support, security, audience hospitality and survey, and seminar fees. In other words, eligible expenses were all those related to mounting and producing a new opera. The budget for these eligible expenses was originally $50,000; after notification of the grant, this amount was amended to $37,890, a difference of $12,110, even though the grant was only $11,000 less than expected. Ineligible expenses were not specified, but most likely included established costs associated with the contract orchestral musicians, which came to

$12,700 and did not vary between the two budgets.

Production of the full two-act version of Eric Hermannson’s Soul was supported by a grant of $35,000 from the AT&T Foundation.37 Other support for this production came from Omaha Steaks, Fred and Eve Simon, and the National Endowment for the

Arts. 38 While Larsen was composing the work, Opera Omaha benefited from a generous

34 Kyle MacMillan, “Composer Helps to Shake Up Opera Writing,” Omaha (Nebraska) World Herald , 21 October 1995. 35 Letter from Mariann Harding, Project Manager to Jane Hill, Opera Omaha (Washington, DC) 24 May 1996. 36 See Appendix XX for a comparison between the original and revised budgets. 37 “Opera Omaha Gets AT&T Grant,” Omaha (Nebraska) World Herald , 23 June 1998. 38 Cortland Kirkeby, “Opera Omaha to Produce ‘Eric Hermannson’s Soul’,” Omaha (Nebraska) Old

59 challenge grant from Dick and Mary Holland. The Hollands offered $1 million to Opera

Omaha if they could raise the same amount, which they were able to do in February

1998, thus adding a total of $2 million to their endowment fund. 39 While this money did not specifically affect Larsen’s work, it did ease the regular season financial strain of the budget for future years.

In April 1996, Larsen also contracted with the Nebraska Music Teachers

Association for a residency during October 1996 in Hastings, Nebraska, along with a commission for three songs based on Willa Cather, which were later published by

Oxford University Press as Margaret Songs: Three Songs of Willa Cather .40 These songs, drawn from the chamber version of Eric Hermannson’s Soul , are for soprano and piano. The residency paid $3,000 plus lodging and meals. Travel expenses to and from

Omaha rested upon Larsen. As part of the residency, Larsen gave a lecture and held a masterclass during the Association’s annual meeting. A concert of her works was performed on 17 October 1996. 41

Funding for Eric Hermannson’s Soul and all of its related activities illustrates many of the complexities involved in commissioning and performing new opera. Opera

Omaha received grants from national, state, and local organizations, from Opera

America and the Nebraska Music Teachers Association to individual donors such as

Fred and Eve Simon. In addition to providing the means to mount a new opera, these different sources of revenue helped market the opera well before the premiere through

Market and Downtown Encounter , November/December 1998. 39 “Generous Hollands Provide Challenges,” Omaha (Nebraska) World Herald , 27 February 1998. 40 Libby Larsen, Margaret Songs: Three Songs of Willa Cather (London: Oxford University Press, 1996). 41 Letter from Kenton Bales (Omaha, NE) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN), 9 April 1996. Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

60 concerts, workshops, and residencies by both the composer and soloists. These marketing strategies were quite successful, as each performance of Eric Hermannson’s

Soul sold out.

Funding for the cantata Eleanor Roosevelt was quite different from that of an opera as there were relatively few expenses related to costumes, scenery, and props. The commissioning organization, The New York Concert Singers, was based in New York

City and so had access to unique grant sources available only to city residents. For example, the Eleanor Roosevelt commission was funded by a $15,000 grant given in

1993 by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, and was one of twenty-five grants to

New York City music organizations for commissions to twenty-six composers and four librettists, totaling $326,500.42 According to the Trust, “The grant program is open to

New York City music institutions and includes support for the commissioning of chamber, jazz, choral, orchestral, opera and music theater works.” 43 Among the composers receiving grants in 1993 were Philip Glass ($20,000 for an orchestral work),

John Harbison ($12,000 for a voice and chamber work), and Andre Previn ($12,000 for a work for piano and wind ensemble. 44

The records pertaining to the genesis and development of Eleanor Roosevelt present some confusing information. While Larsen signed the contract itself on 5

January 1994, she received her first payment almost a year earlier, according to a letter dated 15 February 1993 from the music director of the New York Concert Singers,

42 “1993 Commissioning Grants Announcement,” Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, New York, NY (23 February 1994). 43 Ibid. 44 For a complete list of grant recipients, see Appendix A.

61 Judith Clurman, to Larsen. 45 The timeline included in this letter regarding the project indicates that work was underway by June 1993, long before the final contract was signed. This timeline also indicates that Larsen would receive a total of $32,000 for the commission, while the contract later states $15,000, which turned out to be the amount of the commission grant from the Cary Trust. The total expense estimated for presenting the cantata for the first time was $99,300. 46 Larsen received her final payment of $7,500 in June 1996. 47

The contracts and actual payments for Eleanor Roosevelt illustrate some of the difficulties that a composer faces. Payment can be dependent on the commissioning organization being awarded a grant. In addition, receiving the grant disbursement in a timely fashion can be problematic. If the performing group does not receive the grant, or the amount is less than requested, then the contract has to be cancelled or renegotiated for a reduced amount if another source of funds cannot be found. Due to the nature of the final contract and the payment structure, Larsen and Clurman renegotiated their contract in order to reflect the amount of the grants actually received.

In the case of the choral symphony Coming Forth Into Day , the commission was funded in an unusual way due to the particular nature of the project, which was that of a benefit concert. John Coughlan, who both was a member of the Plymouth Music Series

Board of Directors and worked with microfilming rare manuscripts at Hill Monastic

Manuscript Library of St. John’s College, was trying to get permission from the

45 Typewritten letter from Judith Clurman, New York, NY, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, MN (15 February 1993). 46 For a complete break-down of the timeline and expenses, see Appendix A. 47 Typewritten letter from Judith Clurman, New York, NY, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, MN (1 June 1996).

62 Egyptian government to microfilm a series of Egyptian manuscripts. Larsen and Philip

Brunelle, Music Director of the Plymouth Music Series, were in Cairo at the same time as Coughlan, meeting with Sadat about a possible collaboration. Since Sadat expressed support for both the composition project and microfilming effort, it seemed possible to use the new composition in order to raise funds for the manuscript library. 48

John Pellegrene, senior vice president of marketing for Dayton Hudson

Department Stores, approached the Dayton Hudson Foundation for funds to benefit the

Hill Monastic Manuscript Library of St. John’s College. The foundation donated

$100,000: $50,000 for a microfilming project in Durham, England, and $50,000 to underwrite the benefit. Northwest Airlines agreed to provide all of the travel for visiting dignitaries. The Dayton Hudson Foundation provided the bulk of the money in support of the concert. Other large donors included Honeywell Foundation, Lutheran

Brotherhood, Carl Weyerhaueser Trust, General Mills Foundation, Northwestern

National Life, John and Elizabeth Musser, Egyptian American Cooperation Foundation, and Sly Litho. The Plymouth Music Series itself was supported by a Minnesota State

Arts Board grant, the National Endowment for the Arts, and a McKnight Foundation

Award.

Contract Negotiations

For each piece there are several different types of contracts between composer and the commissioning organization. Variations among these types of contracts occur because of the specific nature and context of each piece. In some instances, there is a

48 Jim Thornton, “Anatomy of a Fundraiser,” Twin Cities (March 1986), 46, 48.

63 three-way contract among composer, commissioning organization, and publisher. The next most-used contract is that between composer and publisher. In some instances, the document includes the librettist, if the commission specifies who the librettist is to be. If

Larsen chooses the librettist independently of the commissioning organization, then another type of contract is drawn up between composer and librettist. For some works, like Frankenstein , Larsen wrote the libretto; thus no contract with a librettist was necessary. In one instance, that of Eleanor Roosevelt , Larsen co-signed a contract for use of the performing space for the premiere, which was quite unusual as the performing organization involved usually took care of this matter. In general, Larsen’s contracts for new commissions include these items:

1. Identify length, title, performing ensemble and forces

2. Establish compositional timeline, including dates manuscripts are due, and

when engraved score and parts are due

3. Set payment schedule according to compositional timeline

4. Establish procedure for other incurred expenses, such as copying and

engraving fees, recording fees, royalty payments, travel expenses, and

residencies

5. Establish composer responsibilities for securing copyright permissions for all

texts used

6. Establish world premiere, performance and recording rights, and rental fees

and final ownership of performance scores and parts

7. Set penalties for non-compliance, such as the return of commissioning fees

64 8. Identify ownership of the work, usually assigned to the composer

9. Establish dedication language

10. Establish expectations for composer regarding publicizing the work, and her

presence at rehearsals and performances

Table 2.2 compares different elements of Larsen’s contracts for the works involved in this study. Table 2.2: A comparison of specific items mentioned in the contracts of Libby Larsen with commissioning organizations for each work in this study.

Finished Work Contract Length Vocal Ensemble Instrumental Title Ensemble Frankenstein “Frankenstein” 3 Acts, no 4 principals, 4 26-member intermission, supporting, 12 orchestra 120 minutes chorus members, 3 dancers Eric “The Willa Not specified Soloists, chorus Piano, Hermannson’s Cather orchestra Soul (chamber) Trilogy” Eric “Eric 2 Acts, 2 Limited to 10 30-member Hermannson’s Hermannson’s hours and 15 principals, chorus orchestra Soul (2-Act) Soul” minutes of 32, 8 dancers, 6 supernumeraries Barnum’s Bird Not specified 45 minutes 4 soloists, Chamber chamber chorus instrumental ensemble Eleanor Not specified 35 minutes Chamber chorus, 7 instruments Roosevelt narrator Coming Forth “Coming 45 minutes Soprano and Orchestra Into Day Forth Into baritone solo, Day” chorus Triptych: I It Not specified 15-16 minutes Soprano, 2 flutes, 2 Am countertenor and oboes, 1 oboe baritone soloists, d’amore, SATB chorus trumpets, 1 horn, timpani, strings Triptych: Not specified 15 minutes Choir Orchestra Praise One Triptych: The Contract not Nothing That Is available

65 Coming Forth Into Day

Larsen signed her contract with the Plymouth Music Series for Coming Forth

Into Day on 11 September 1985. 49 The contract enumerates several provisions that conform to the list above. The title of the work is confirmed, Coming Forth Into Day .

The forces and length are clarified: soprano and baritone solo, chorus, and orchestra, and approximately forty-five minutes. Authorship of the libretto is specified: “fashioned and overseen by Jihan [sic] El Sadat in consultation with Libby Larsen and Philip

Brunelle.” 50 The premiere date and location are specified: Ordway Music Theatre, 14

April 1986 with a repeat performance on 15 April 1986. The performing organization, the Plymouth Music Series, would be responsible for hiring all performers.

In addition, the dates are established for submitting scores and parts: the piano/vocal score was due 15 November 1985, the full orchestral score due 15 January

1986, and the orchestral parts due 1 March 1986. The contract usually lays out who has the responsibility for copying parts and scores and who retains ownership of said parts and scores after the performance. In this case, the Plymouth Music Series agreed to reproduce all scores and parts and then retain ownership of all of them. Larsen retains the copyright and is responsible for obtaining all copyright permissions for texts used.

This particular item is in all of Larsen’s contracts that involve texts. Finally, the payment structure is set forth: half on signing the contract, one-fourth upon turning in the orchestral score, and the final fourth after submitting the parts. Oddly, this contract

49 Libby Larsen, St. Paul, MN, to Philip Brunelle, Minneapolis, MN, 11 September 1985, transcript typewritten, Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 50 Libby Larsen, St. Paul, MN, to Philip Brunelle, Minneapolis, MN, 11 September 1985, transcript typewritten, Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

66 does not specify the amount of the commission, unlike most of Larsen’s contracts.

Frankenstein

As shown in Table 2.2, the contract between Larsen and the Minnesota Opera specifies that the opera be in three acts, approximately one hundred twenty minutes, without intermission. 51 The forces specified are four principal roles, four supporting roles, twelve chorus members, three dancers, and twenty-six in the orchestra. Larsen’s commission fee is $20,000 with no payments specifically tied to deadlines, which are listed as follows:

1 January 1988 libretto complete

1 September 1988 piano/vocal score complete

1 January 1989 full score complete

15 March 1989 orchestral parts complete

Furthermore, payments were broken down with Larsen receiving $7,000 when the contract was signed, $7,000 when the piano/vocal score was received by the opera company, and $6,000 when the Minnesota Opera received the completed full score.

Thus, in effect, payments were dependent upon the timeline established for the receipt of the scores.

While the Minnesota Opera paid the cost of engraving the score and parts, ownership of the parts passed to the composer after the premiere. The composer was also consulted in the choice of stage director, conductor, designers, and casting. If the

51 Libby Larsen and Minnesota Opera, “Agreement By and Between Libby Larsen and The Minnesota Opera,” for Frankenstein , signed 6 January 1988 by K[General Director] and 22 February 1988 by Libby Larsen.

67 Minnesota Opera did not produce Frankenstein by 30 June 1990, all scores and parts would be turned over to Larsen, and the company would relinquish its rights to produce the world premiere. Larsen waived any performance or royalty fees from the company.

Portions of Frankenstein could be performed before the premiere upon approval of the

Minnesota Opera. This particular clause was extremely important for this work, as the finished product incorporated one of Larsen’s earlier compositions, which she wrote as a study piece for the opera.

Eleanor Roosevelt

On 24 December 1993 Judith Clurman, music director and conductor of The

New York Concert Singers, sent Larsen a contract for the commissioning of a “work based on the words of Eleanor Roosevelt and scored for chamber chorus, narrator, and small instrumental ensemble.” 52 The ensemble was limited to seven instruments, and the commissioner agreed to be responsible for hiring all performers. The duration was exactly thirty-five minutes, with the premiere date during the 1995-1996 concert season in New York City.

The complete score and parts were to be delivered to Clurman by 1 July 1995.

The ensemble would pay the costs for generating a full set of parts and score and would retain one score and one complete set of parts. As with other compositions involving text, Larsen was responsible for securing all copyright permissions for the words utilized. As with most of her commissions, Larsen agreed to participate in public

52 Judith Clurman, New York, NY, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, MN, typewritten letter and contract, 24 December 1993, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

68 relations events related to the premiere, although her travel stipend was no more than

$500. The total commission amount was $15,000. Half of the payment was due when the contract was signed, with one stipulation: since the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable

Trust was giving a grant to The New York Concert Singers for this project, Clurman wanted to be certain that they had received the grant money before paying Larsen any of the commission fee. The other half of the commissioning fee would also be paid by the ensemble once they had received the second portion of the grant from the Mary

Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. Upon receipt of parts, the commissioning party would then forward this final payment to Larsen.

Clurman had not been involved with sponsoring a commission before. Prior to signing the contract, she was quite straightforward about requesting Larsen’s input for contract details. For example, Clurman wanted to know if Larsen would handle issues with the librettist, putting into the contract: “Larsen will be responsible for obtaining permission to words of Eleanor Roosevelt.” 53 Clurman was also unsure of who was responsible for copy costs. The wording in the signed contract regarding copyright permissions was as follows: “Larsen retains copyright to the commissioned work and assumes full responsibility for any copyright permission needed to use or reproduce texts of copyrighted materials in the musical composition.” 54 Thus there were two separate clauses dealing with text and copyright issues.

An unusual contract for Larsen is the one with the Lincoln Center for the

53 Judith Clurman, New York, NY, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, MN, typewritten fax, 15 December 1993, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 54 Judith Clurman, New York, NY, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, MN, typewritten fax, 15 December 1993, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

69 Performing Arts and Judith Clurman for a “Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors” performance of Eleanor .55 The performance is set for Thursday, 3 August 1995, at 6:30 p.m. at the

North Plaza with a rain date of 4 August 1995. The one-hour concert is titled “The

Creativity of Libby Larsen” and includes the premiere of a portion of Eleanor , featuring the New York Concert Singers, for which they received $2000. Larsen signed this contract on 21 April 1995, while Clurman signed the contract on 11 May 1995. They also agreed not to hold or promote any other free performance two weeks after their scheduled performance at Lincoln Center, or one month prior, without the written consent of Lincoln Center.

Larsen and Sally Gall signed a separate contract for Gall’s work on the libretto. 56 They agree that authorship be assigned to both of them, and they set the distribution of any rights and remuneration as 75% for Larsen and 25% for Gall. In addition to this contract, there is also a separate publishing contract for Eleanor

Roosevelt among Oxford University Press, Libby Larsen, and Sally Gall. 57 Both Larsen and Gall agree to sign over rights to the music and words to OUP. By the time this contract was executed, OUP was in possession of the completed score. The division of royalties is 25% to Gall and 75% to Larsen. When the libretto is published separately,

Gall receives 75% of the royalties and Larsen 25%.

55 Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Libby Larsen and Judith Clurman, “Agreement between Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. (Lincoln Center), and Libby Larsen and Judith Clurman for one performance in the series ‘Lincoln Center Out of Doors,’ dated 9 February 1995. Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 56 “Memorandum of Agreement,” Libby Larsen and Sally Gall, draft, 27 October 1995. 57 “Memorandum of Agreement,” Libby Larsen, Sally Gall, Oxford University Press, 2 July 1996.

70 Eric Hermannson’s Soul

The contract dated 5 January 1996 between Opera Omaha and Libby Larsen specifies the project as “The Willa Cather Trilogy.” Despite this title, the only deadlines specified are for Eric Hermannson’s Soul . Larsen was running behind schedule, as the deadlines were changed on 29 January 1996, as shown in Table 2.3.58 A fully orchestrated excerpt of ten to fifteen minutes in length was due on 13 March 1996. The deadlines pertained to a workshop presentation, with soloists, chorus, and piano. The wording of the contract is somewhat loose, as the intent of the commission was a true collaboration between composer and performers, where each would have input with the other. Thus, the “finished” scores were really outlines of a work-in-progress. For example, the first residency was scheduled for 13-15 March 1996, and Larsen orchestrated sections during that residency.

Table 2.3: Original deadlines and modified deadlines of materials due to Opera Omaha for Eric Hermannson’s Soul .

Materials due Original Deadline Modified Deadline Piano/vocal score February 5, 1996 February 16, 1996 20 completed chorus books February 5, 1996 February 16, 1996

The workshop was from 1-10 April 1996, with a public reading on 10 April.

Again, Larsen was composing during the workshop residency. Larsen received $14,000, which was paid in three installments, plus housing during her residencies. In this contract, Larsen agrees to any recording and broadcast arrangements that Opera Omaha may make, and to appearances at promotional events such as newspaper interviews and

58 Opera Omaha and Libby Larsen, “Contract for The Willa Cather Trilogy,” dated 5 January 1996. Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

71 radio and television promotions. She also agrees that the workshops are open to all staff, board and guild members, as well as major donors. This contract was signed by Jane

Hill, Executive Director of Opera Omaha, on 5 January 1996 and by Libby Larsen on 29

January 1996.

After the workshops, Hill thought that Eric Hermannson’s Soul would make an excellent two-act opera. A new contract was executed on 29 July 1997 among three parties: Opera Omaha as the commissioning entity, Libby Larsen as the composer, and

Chas Rader-Shieber as the librettist. Opera Omaha specified a period of exclusivity in regards to performances of the work for five years after the premiere, ending 31

December 2003. Larsen and Rader-Shieber are responsible for any fees or royalties necessary for completing the work. The contract specifies that Hal France would be the conductor and Chas Rader-Shieber the director.

As librettist, Rader-Shieber received $15,000. Upon delivery of the first draft, synopsis, and libretto to Larsen and her acceptance of the materials by 15 July 1997,

Rader-Shieber was paid $3,750. He received another $3,750 after turning in half of the libretto to Larsen by 15 August 1997. The complete final version of the libretto was due to the composer on 1 October 1997, after which he received another $3,750. When the final version of the piano/vocal score was sent to Opera Omaha on 1 December 1997,

Rader-Shieber received his final payment of $3,750.

Larsen received $40,000 as her commission fee for Eric Hermannson’s Soul .

Her first payment, $7,500, was given upon completing 50% of the opera by 15 August

1997. Opera Omaha expected to receive a fully legible copy of the first draft of the work

72 in a piano/vocal score by that date. Another $7,500 was paid when Larsen delivered the final piano/vocal score by 1 December 1997. Larsen received $15,000 after completing a fully legible orchestral score by 1 May 1998. Opera Omaha paid the fees to the copyist, with orchestral parts due by 15 August 1998. Larsen was to receive a final payment of $10,000 at the date of the world premiere or by 31 December 1998, whichever came sooner.

Included in the contract were details about the production. Opera Omaha was not to pay any royalties for five performances, including any broadcast up to one year after the premiere. After five performances, the composer and librettist were to receive jointly

5% of the gross box office receipts. The same applied to any touring productions. After the exclusivity period, Opera Omaha transferred all performance materials to Larsen’s publisher, for payment of 25% of the original cost to produce them. The opera company was allowed to keep one set. Another interesting clause in the 1997 contract reads:

Composer and librettist shall consult with the Administering Co- Commissioner and the Director from time to time during the course of creating the Opera, with a view toward assuring that the Opera shall in all respects be suitable for performance in each of the Co- Commissioners’ theaters. This includes limiting the Opera to a principal cast of no more than ten (10), a chorus of no more than thirty-two (32), a dancer corps of no more than eight (8), a supernumerary cast of no more than six (6), and an orchestra of no more than thirty (30). The Production also requires no more than three (3) onstage musicians. The Opera shall be composed so as to contain no more than two hours fifteen minutes of music and/or dialogue, structured into no more than two acts, suitable for performance in a proscenium theater with an orchestra pit. 59

A workshop reading of the opera was scheduled for September 1997. All materials would be evaluated, as noted in the contract. The composer and librettist would have

59 “Commission Agreement”, among Opera Omaha, Libby Larsen, and Chas Rader-Shieber, 28 July 1997.

73 seventy days after the workshop in which to make alterations. If any parts of the opera delivered on 1 December 1997 to Opera Omaha were deemed unacceptable, the composer and librettist would have seventy-five days in which to make alterations. If those changes were still unacceptable, the commissioner would have within fifteen days to notify the composer and librettist, making the commission void, with no further payments, although both Larsen and Rader-Shieber could retain payments already received.

Also included in the contract was the right of both composer and librettist to receive three pairs of complimentary tickets for each performance of the initial run.

Travel expenses would be paid by Opera Omaha for trips by the composer and librettist to Omaha for visits negotiated as a direct result of the commission. If a synthesizer is utilized, Larsen would bear all expenses related to programming and sampling.

Barnum’s Bird

Barnum’s Bird was co-commissioned by the Plymouth Music Series and the

Library of Congress. The contract for Barnum’s Bird stipulates that the following must appear in any materials related to marketing and performing the work at any time:

Commissioned by the Library of Congress and the Odyssey Program of the Plymouth Music Series in honor of the Library’s Bicentennial 60

An unusual stipulation in the Barnum’s Bird contract is that the Library of Congress should receive all sketches and materials relating to the work. Contracts for the

60 “Letter of Agreement Between Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota (“the Series”) and Libby Larsen (“the Composer”),” 28 October 1999.

74 composer and librettist were negotiated separately by the Plymouth Music Series. 61

Larsen received a fee of $30,000, paid in three increments. The first, for $10,000, was due upon signing the contract. The second payment, of $10,000, was due upon delivery of the score in manuscript, on 1 August 2000. The third and final amount of $10,000 was paid upon delivery of the completed score and parts on 31 October 2000. The final contract was signed by Frank Stubbs, General Manager of the Plymouth Music Series, on 24 March 2000 and by Libby Larsen on 3 April 2000.

Keith Bradshaw, engraver for Libby Larsen who now transcribes Larsen’s manuscripts into Finale, sent a bill for engraving Barnum’s Bird to Renitta Hervey of the Plymouth Music Series for $5,300. 62 The orchestral score was 187 pages and came to $3,740, while the parts totaled 195 pages for $1,560. In the contract with Larsen, the

Plymouth Music Series agreed to pay up to $5,000 for copying the score and parts. The bill exceeded the amount by $300. However, it appears that the Plymouth Music Series paid Bradshaw $4,575 in one payment, then later $425, for a total of $5,000. 63

Larsen’s contract with Oxford University Press regarding the publication of

Barnum’s Bird was executed on 1 February 2002. In the agreement, Larsen signed over all rights to the piece to Oxford University Press. Larsen agreed to obtain permission for use of, and pay any fees associated with, any copyrighted material present in her work.

The contract also established OUP’s responsibility for publication and editing functions.

61 Frank Stubbs, General Manager, Plymouth Music Series, Minneapolis, MN to Libby Larsen, 28 October 1999. 62 Keith Bradshaw, Buena Vista, VA, to Renitta Hervey, [Minneapolis], 21 May 2001. Typewritten letter, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 63 Frank Stubbs, Plymouth Music Series, Minneapolis, to Libby Larsen, Minneapolis, 23 May 2001. Typewritten letter, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

75 Royalty procedures were also established: 64

a) 10% of net receipts of printed material sold b) 1/3 of net amount of rentals of band or orchestral performances c) 50% of revenues received not specified by (a) or (b). This would be for something such as motion-picture soundtrack payments. d) No royalty is paid on copies distributed for advertising or publicity.

Larsen would receive ten free copies of the published work, then purchase copies for her own use at 50% of list price. If after five years (2007) Oxford University Press had ceased publishing or circulating the work, then this agreement could be terminated, and

Larsen could buy out the plates and copies on hand for 1/3 the cost of production. The contract also stated that Oxford had the first option to publish the next work written by

Larsen.

The Triptych

The Triptych is actually three separate pieces resulting from three different commissions. However, Larsen conceived of them as a unit. In order to obtain funding for the set, she worked with three different organizations: Bethlehem Bach Choir for I It

Am (29 July 2003), Baylor University for Praise One (29 April 2004), and the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for The Nothing That Is (8 May 2004).

The contracts for The Triptych are quite a bit different from the others, as

Oxford University Press was experimenting with a different approach to publishing new compositions. The usual practice is to publish scores and parts after the premiere. The

64 “Memorandum of Agreement made this 1st day of February, 2002, between Elizabeth B. Larsen and Oxford University Press,” Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

76 intent behind the Praise One contract was to have the published version available and used at the premiere. Thus, Oxford University Press formulated the contract for this piece. The contract for The Nothing That Is was not available for examination, although the piece was a result of a commission by Brad and Dorothea Endicott on behalf of

MIT.

I It Am

For this piece, Larsen had two separate contracts with Oxford University Press.

The first, among Larsen, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, and Oxford, was the commissioning contract. The second was between Larsen and Oxford, transferring all rights to the piece to the publisher and delineating the publisher’s responsibilities to the composer.

The first contract was signed by Larsen on 2 November 2002, then by Bridget

George, Executive Director of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, on 11 November 2002, and finally by Christopher Johnson, publisher representative, on 12 November 2002.65

The title of the work had not yet been established, although the length of the composition was fifteen to sixteen minutes. The performing groups were to be the Bach

Choir of Bethlehem and Bach Festival Orchestra. Greg Funfgeld was named as the conductor, with soloists Tamara Matthews, soprano, Daniel Taylor, countertenor, and

Daniel Lichti, baritone. The text would be a combination of Psalm texts and writings by

Medieval authors, while the responsibility rested with Larsen for obtaining permission

65 “Music Commission Agreement,” Oxford University Press, Bach Choir of Bethlehem, and Libby Larsen, November 2002, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

77 to use copyrighted texts.

The Bach Choir was committed to paying Larsen $10,500 as a commissioning fee. Half was payable upon signing the contract, and half was due after the completed score was received by the publisher. Larsen’s final payment would be invoiced by

Oxford University Press to the Bach Choir once the publisher had the completed score.

The piano/vocal score or full score was due to the publisher on 15 November 2002, and the orchestrated score and parts were due on 16 December 2002. One bound copy of the score was to be presented to the Commissioner within one month of the premiere. For the first performance, the Bach Choir had to request the scores and parts from Oxford’s

Rental Library, and they could specify the format for all materials. They were to receive rehearsal materials (choral parts, solo parts, orchestra parts, orchestra score) by 15

January 2003. The first performance was designated as 29 or 30 July 2003 at the BBC

Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK, with a preview on 21 July 2003 at the

Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, UK. A sound recording of the performance was to be delivered to the composer and publisher, for use in promoting the work. The composer’s traveling expenses were to be paid by the commissioner, and were included in the commissioning fee.

Praise One

The Music Commission Agreement for Praise One was crafted by Oxford

University Press and is among them, Baylor University through its School of Music,

78 and Libby Larsen. 66 Much of the content of the contract for Praise One is similar to that of It I Am . Differences are in the obvious: commissioner name, performers and performing forces, venue, deadlines, and fees. In addition, dates for Larsen’s residency at Baylor University are specified. The intended performers are the Baylor Symphony

Orchestra and Choral Union with Stephen M. Heyde as artistic director. The title of the work was “TBD” (to be determined), as was the text, which was simply designated as

“Psalms,” with the length of the work fifteen minutes.

The commissioning fee was $15,000, half paid to Larsen upon signing the contract, with the other half paid when Baylor University received the completed full score. The fee included Larsen’s residency expenses, the dates of which were set as 8-9

March, 1-2 April, and 28-29 April 2004. The first performance was designated as

Thursday 29 April 2004 at Jones Concert Hall, Baylor University School of Music.

The full score or vocal/piano score was due to Oxford University Press on 9

January 2004. One month later, Baylor was to receive the vocal scores from the publisher. The full score and instrumental parts were to be delivered to Baylor by 1

March 2004. Libby Larsen signed the contract first, on 26 December 2003. Baylor

University representatives, David L. Jeffrey, Provost and VP for Academic Affairs,

Marsha Duckworth, Assistant Secretary, signed the contract on 6 February 2004.

Finally, the publisher’s representative, Christopher Johnson, signed the contract on 13

February 2004.

66 “Music Commission Agreement,” Oxford University Press, Baylor University, and Libby Larsen, December 2003, February 2004, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

79 Recording Contracts

Few of Larsen’s operas have been recorded in a sound studio, although all of her works have been recorded live during performances, and her operas have been videotaped.

Frankenstein is one of the works recorded in a sound studio, albeit only partially.

Glencoe Fowler selected Scene 4 of Frankenstein as one of the musical examples for his high school music textbook. Thus, two minutes and thirty seconds of music were recorded by Sony Music for the companion music discs for the textbook. Larsen actually took a loss of a little over $2,000 on this arrangement, as it cost more to record and produce this short segment from the opera than she received in royalties, royalty advancement, and payment from Sony Music. However, she thought that having the excerpt and the discussion around Frankenstein as part of a widely used textbook justified the expense.

Conclusion

Larsen firmly believes that composing is only valid if the resulting work receives a performance. Therefore she will not write down any music until she has a contract with a performing organization. That does not mean that she does not think about a piece, or work on the piece in her head, or get the text straight first. On the contrary, she is usually working out details of a piece as the contract is being negotiated. In fact, the timelines set for a piece often seem very short in respect to the date of signing the contract because Larsen worked out all of the details of the piece beforehand. Thus, setting the parameters of a composition, such as performing forces,

80 venues and duration, during contract negotiations helps Larsen focus by narrowing down musical possibilities.

Funding for her work is not always secured at the outset of a commission but is often sought as the work is in progress. Funding comes from a variety of sources ranging from foundation grants to individual donors. Performing arts organizations have seen a shift from receiving government grants in the early 1970s to receiving more income from trusts, grants, and individuals. The latter are particularly important with new commissions, as many of Larsen’s compositions are supported by individuals.

Institutions such as Baylor University and the Library of Congress are also providing money for new compositions. As in the case of the commission by the Library of

Congress and the Plymouth Music Series, organizations will co-sponsor a commission and thereby provide funding for larger works.

One of the barriers to entering the repertoire seems to be that of expense. Works such as fully staged operas with several soloists tend not to receive repeat performances.

In addition, the length of the work may come into play. For example, the Choral

Symphony Coming Forth Into Day is approximately forty-five minutes long, requires a narrator, two soloists, chorus, and orchestra. On the other hand, while Barnum’s Bird is in two acts, the chamber opera can be staged with a small chorus and four soloists, making it ideal for smaller companies, universities, and colleges. Eleanor Roosevelt is performed frequently, in part because the work is constructed so that members of the chorus may sing the solo parts of Eleanor Roosevelt, eliminating the need to hire a soloist, which the commissioning organization had refused to do due to budgetary

81 constraints. While annoying to Larsen at the time, the construct of multiple Eleanors drawn from within the choir is serendipitous, making it suitable for good amateur choral societies.

Chapter 3:

Frankenstein — Consequences of Technological Achievements

Libby Larsen’s opera Frankenstein is derived from Mary Shelley’s novel, in which the young scientist Victor Frankenstein is obsessed with creating life. Upon obtaining his goal, he recoils in horror from his creation, the Monster, who is never given a name in the story. Larsen creates a musical parallel in her opera: the Monster never sings. Larsen uses Shelley’s Frankenstein as a vehicle for exploring how scientific inquiry and experimentation without ethical parameters or forethought into the ramifications of scientific creation can lead to destructive forces in the world. Although the Frankenstein story is popularly depicted in film and stage as a gothic horror tale,

Larsen instead focuses on the dual nature of the creator, who experiences triumph in his achievements yet develops hatred towards his creation. The result is despair on the part of the creator and violence born of rejection on the part of the creation. On a metaphysical level, then, the opera examines human arrogance in science and its profound consequences. Larsen depicts these themes in the opera through complex layering of musical ideas, using thematic material introduced in one context to comment upon later action.

The opera consists of a prologue and fourteen scenes, all through-composed.

The prologue begins with Captain Robert Walton on his ship, which is ice-locked in the

Arctic, musing on his initial encounter with Victor Frankenstein, who is reclining unconscious on the ship. Shelley begins and ends the novel with Captain Walton, who rescues Frankenstein in the Arctic and becomes intensely curious about him. Thus, the

82 83 unfolding of Victor’s story is a flashback. Larsen also begins and ends her opera with

Walton, adding a theatrical element to the flashback. During the entire opera, both

Walton and the Victor Frankenstein whom he rescues remain on the ship (Larsen calls this Victor “Ship Victor” in her score). The ship is at the very front of the stage, where

Walton makes interjections as the voice of conscience and Ship Victor comments on his younger self. The remaining action occurs on tiers raised on the stage. Young Victor is played by a different person; so, there are often two Victors on the stage. Consequently, the Young Victor is known as Stage Victor.

After the prologue ends, the scene shifts to an earlier time, when Stage Victor is marveling about life (Scene 1). A storm begins as Victor, his close friend Henry

Clerval, and Victor’s younger brother William experiment with balloons and electricity, attempting to revive a dead rat (Scene 2). The action then moves into the library of the

Frankenstein mansion where the family is gathered. Victor’s fiancée Elizabeth,

Elizabeth’s friend Justine, and William play with a life-sized mechanical toy that is a boy on a music-box (Scene 3). Victor continues musing on his experiments while Henry tries to get Victor to see the consequences of his dreams of scientific achievement. In the following scene, Victor proceeds to create his Monster, occasionally interrupted by his concerned friends (Scene 4).

While Victor reflects on his actions, Elizabeth, Justine, and Henry look for

William, who has disappeared (Scenes 5 & 6). Both Stage Victor and Ship Victor comment on what they did, contrasting youthful enthusiasm with remorse. In the meantime, William is found murdered, and Justine is accused of the murder. Victor

84 remains ignorant of these occurrences, caught up in his own joy of discovery. Elizabeth recounts the story of Justine and William while the events are depicted on stage. When

Victor finds out what happened, guilt overcomes him, but he will not admit to his role in the tragedy by creating the Monster who murdered William. In remaining silent,

Victor also condemns Justine to the gallows. Walton pleads with Ship Victor to tell the truth, but he refuses, even though he is full of remorse and guilt. Stage Victor fails to see that he holds responsibility in the Monster’s actions and remains arrogant — he gave life, which the Monster traded for death (Scene 7).

The Monster and Victor meet (Scene 8), which is followed by “What the

Monster Saw,” a video presentation of all that had happened to the Monster from his own eyes since being given life (Scene 9). In the next scene, the Monster wants a mate, but Victor refuses, sending the Monster on a vengeful killing spree (Scene 10). Victor finally faces his responsibility towards the Monster as its creator. Elizabeth is then murdered as Ship Victor watches (Scene 11). Stage Victor goes into a frenzy, trying to decide what to do about the Monster (Scene 12). Henry eventually calms Victor down and sings him to sleep (Scene 13). The Monster murders Henry as Victor sleeps, causing Stage Victor to flee in pursuit of the Monster (Scene 14). Both Victors eventually come together in pursuit and confront the Monster, at which point Victor realizes that he and the Monster are one. Walton alone remains on stage as the final lights fade, until only the video viewpoint of the Monster remains.

85 Developing The Study Piece: What the Monster Saw

As a child, Larsen first began pondering the responsibility scientists had for how their work was later applied, especially when resulting in harm to people or the environment. Larsen’s father worked in research and development for Pillsbury and he would discuss different scientific projects, research, and theories at the dinner table.

One of the examples Larsen provides is her father talking about chemical additives in food. If Larsen or one of her sisters asked about what would happen if people became sick from the additives,

My dad …, who is a moral man, would say, … “We’ll just have to wait and see because that’s how science proceeds. … [we do] our best calculated guess … but the consequence we can’t foresee and besides that it will be your generation’s problem to solve,” ...1

But Larsen wanted to understand the long-term consequences of scientific discoveries.

In Frankenstein , the question “What of the consequences?” occurs twice (Scene 3:

Arrogance; Scene 10: The Bargain), and the theme resonates throughout the work.

Larsen believes that during any research and development project, there is a moment at which the scientist chooses to continue the work despite the outcome. According to

Larsen, beginning with the atomic bomb:

At what moment in time did Oppenheimer realize that he had a decision to move ahead without knowing the consequences or to just withhold a piece of information from his colleagues that would stop the process. Or to say the consequences of this are so dire, that we’re not going to pursue it. It could have been 1/100 th of a second that flashed through his brain. ... I think at the time also on my mind was the question of the Ford Pinto. … What does the Ford Pinto have to do with Oppenheimer? That’s how my brain works. Jim [Reece, Larsen’s husband who is a lawyer], … because of a case he was working on, … was talking about the fact that the Ford Company knew that the Pinto could very well blow up and kill people

1 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author, Minneapolis, MN (21 November 2005), Appendix H.

86 and that it had in fact in its insurance dealings … provided for that possibility. It had provided for a number of wrongful death lawsuits, as many companies do. …So somewhere in the whole process of developing the [Pinto], somebody, … ha[s] that flash moment where they say, “You know, if we put the gas tank here in the car, the possibility of a rear end explosion will result in death.” Yet instead of saying, “Let’s stop!”, who knows why, but in the culture say, “Nope, let’s go forward and we’ll see what happens.” It’s the “we’ll see what happens” that … puzzles me. 2

After seeing Philip Glass’s Satyagraha, Larsen fully realized that, through music, global issues could be addressed successfully. She began focusing on

Frankenstein as an opera subject after perceiving that the theme “transcends the limits of its time, because it deals with the notion of scientific progress at human expense.

Victor Frankenstein could be Mengele or Oppenheimer.” 3 This comparison between scientists disturbed many, the critic Heidi Waleson among them. However, Waleson also praised the efforts Larsen made to depict global issues: Frankenstein “treads an engaging middle ground between the metaphysical spectacles of the avant-garde, represented by Philip Glass, and the world of La Boheme and Rigoletto .” 4 For her plot,

Larsen turned to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s first version of Frankenstein, or the

Modern Prometheus , written in 1818. However, before working on the full-length opera, Larsen wanted to write a study piece in order to explore some of her ideas.

John Adams, whose symphonic piece The Chairman Dances was a study for his opera Nixon in China , gave Larsen the idea of using a commission to study for a larger project. 5 In early 1987, Dr. Edwin London, the music director of the Cleveland

Chamber Symphony, was in discussions with Larsen for a commission. Larsen

2 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H. 3 Nancy Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” Opera News vol. 54 no. 16 (May 1990): 45. 4 Heidi Waleson, “Opera: Larsen’s Monster,” Wall Street Journal (6 June 1990). 5 Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 44.

87 wondered if she could use the Cleveland Chamber Symphony commission as an orchestral study for the operatic version of Frankenstein . After she explained her concept for the piece, London enthusiastically backed the idea. The result was What the

Monster Saw (WMS), a tone poem examining the story from the Monster’s own perspective. The work premiered in early November 1987 and was later recorded by the

Cleveland Chamber Symphony. 6

Larsen wanted to use synthesizers and projection equipment in WMS, as she wanted to show images during the performance of the tone poem. The Cleveland

Chamber Symphony was housed at Cleveland State University, where Rudolph Bubalo, a composer known for utilizing electronic instruments, worked. Thus Larsen knew that the orchestra had both access to the technology she wanted to use as well as individuals trained in their use. As Larsen says, “The whole support for the investigation” was at

Cleveland; so, she was able to do “a complete study with what happens with projection and electronic sounds.” 7

Initially, Larsen “thought it was going to be a modern dance within the opera … but it became very clear that it wasn’t that at all. It was going to be literally what the monster saw, from his point of view.” 8 The first performance of the tone poem was originally conceived of as a “multi-media” piece with slide projections of pictures by

Barry Moser from his 1984 illustrated edition of Frankenstein .9 WMS eventually

6 Interview with Libby Larsen, Plain Dealer (Cleveland: 7 November 1987): 19, section A; Sound Encounters I , Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, GM 2039. 7 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H. 8 As quoted in Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 44. 9 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus , designed and illustrated by Barry Moser [1818 text] (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984).

88 became part of Larsen’s opera. Interestingly enough, a 1993 review of a Cleveland

Chamber Symphony performance of the tone poem said:

Larsen’s “What the Monster Saw” was accompanied by drawings and quotes from Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” when it was premiered in 1987. But the music is so clearly structured and picturesque that it needed no visuals to make its point. Imaginative and dramatic, the piece could have been a scene from an opera or ballet by Larsen, who currently holds commissions from Lyric Opera Cleveland and Ohio Ballet. 10

The reviewer Wilma Salisbury must have been unaware that the music did in fact become part of an opera in 1990. In a review four years later of Sound Encounters , a recording by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony that includes the piece by Larsen,

Joseph McLellan states, “I was particularly impressed by Larsen’s little tone poem

‘What the Monster Saw,’ which relates to her opera Frankenstein , exploring the monster’s view of reality in purely instrumental sounds.” 11 As these two critics indicate, the piece successfully stands on its own, even as it possesses operatic characteristics.

Since WMS was a study piece for the opera, Larsen used it to develop her ideas in a musical format and to experiment with technology, not only with using the electronic keyboard in the orchestration, but in coordinating images projected on a screen with the music. In addition, the music for What the Monster Saw is through- composed, varying for each sensibility. The piece is made cohesive through the interjection of small motives and vamping patterns.

Table 3.1 shows the sensibilities Larsen portrayed in the tone poem and from where in the Shelley they are derived. The particular edition of Shelley’s novel on

10 Wilma Salisbury, “Program Bright as the Hall’s Light,” Plain Dealer (17 April 1993). 11 Joseph McLellan, Sunday Show Page, The Washington Post (30 January 1994).

89 which Larsen based her work was edited by James Rieger and published by the

University of Chicago Press in 1982. 12

Table 3.1: A comparison of the sensibilities depicted in Scene 9 with the book chapters from which each is derived.

Sensibility Chapter from Shelley Measure Numbers in WMS 1) Chaos Volume 2, Chapter 3 1-8 2) Need Volume 2, Chapter 3 9-78 3) Companionship Volume 2, Chapter 4 79-94 4) Communication Volume 2, Chapter 5 95-130 5) Love Volume 2, Chapter 6 131-175 6) Rejection Volume 2, Chapter 7 176-194 7) Isolation Volume 2, Chapter 8 195-226 8) Anger Volume 2, Chapter 8 227-284

Thoroughly annotating her copy of Frankenstein , Larsen pulled the sensibilities from

Shelley. For example, in Volume 2, Chapter 3 where the Monster begins describing his life, Larsen marked quite a bit of text and wrote in several notes in the margins for

Sensibility 1: Chaos. She underlined these thoughts of the Monster: “all was confused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness…the only object that I could distinguish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure.” 13

Larsen summarized the next two paragraphs in the margins with: “Days and nights passed — I began to know: water from stream, shade from trees, bird-song — sometimes tried to imitate their song — but frightened by own voice — gather nuts, berries, roots.” As the Monster moves from Chaos, he discovers Need, sensibility number 2. Larsen noted that the Monster “Found a fire ‰ learned to respect it and build

12 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus (University of Chicago Press, 1982). 13 Shelley, 98.

90 it — sleep by it.” And three paragraphs later, Larsen wrote, “It snowed ‰find shelter.”

As this example demonstrates, Larsen was carefully considering the text and ways of transforming Shelley’s story into an opera, even while she worked on the tone poem.

Developing the Opera

Once Larsen had in hand her study piece, she approached the Minnesota Opera and began discussions with them to perform a full-length opera based on Shelley’s

Frankenstein . The Minnesota Opera offered Larsen a chance to work with the type of collaborative team that she envisioned for Frankenstein . Kevin Smith, then general director of the Minnesota Opera, said that

We didn’t want a piece composed by committee, but one in which the members of a collaborative team would all take part. Libby has been … open-minded and has made continuous revisions in her work. We would have a meeting, and she would go back to the drawing board. 14

The company was experienced with putting on new works; while Frankenstein was

Larsen’s seventh opera, it was the thirty-seventh premiere produced by Minnesota

Opera, including two by Dominick Argento, and one opera each by Peter Schickele,

William Mayer, Conrad Susa, and Hiram Titus. 15 Larsen says of working with the

Minnesota Opera that

we had wonderful discussions about the possibilities of production. … at that time, I wanted it produced … more as a rock space situation than as a proscenium. So, they were very excited about all of the things I was excited about, too, and willing to try. And we were all here [in Minneapolis-St. Paul], so that really worked well. So, I brought them the idea, and we all wanted to work on it, and that was a really lovely production process. Fraught with all the stuff, but everybody believed in

14 Michael Fleming, “Larsen’s ‘Frankenstein’”. 15 Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 45.

91 the idea, which is not often the case with a new opera. Even though a company commissions an opera, it’s not obvious that they believe in it or in its success. 16

Now that she had the commission, she had to write the libretto. In condensing the book into an opera, Larsen had to decide on the primary theme that she wanted to depict and condense the action accordingly. Any adaptation of a novel into an opera necessitates streamlining of the plot into a distillation of key ideas. Larsen extracted two main themes from Shelley’s story. The first is that of society’s acceptance of their responsibility towards technology and its consequences, whether good or bad. The other is the human need for love and warmth. Each scene is crafted to reflect these themes in some way. Perhaps Larsen’s long-standing fascination with the consequences of technological advances helped her decide to write the libretto herself. Her mentor,

Dominick Argento, also encouraged her to write the libretto for the opera.17

In order to effectively accomplish this streamlining of the plot, Larsen further had to determine the number of characters to include in the opera. Larsen limited the characters to those absolutely necessary to effectively articulate the plot: Captain Robert

Walton and “Ship” Victor Frankenstein, young Victor Frankenstein, Henry Clerval

(Frankenstein’s closest friend), Elizabeth Lavenza (Frankenstein’s fiancée), Justine

Moritz (Lavenza’s companion), William Frankenstein (Frankenstein’s younger brother), and the Monster. Larsen considers the two Victor Frankensteins, Walton, and Elizabeth as principal characters. William, Justine, and Clerval are secondary characters, while the Monster is an actor. Initially Larsen included the character of Margaret, Walton’s

16 Libby Larsen, Interview, Appendix H. 17 Fleming, “Larsen’s ‘Frankenstein’”.

92 sister. However, in the finished product the role is omitted completely. Thus there are eight characters in the final opera, one a non-singing role (the Monster), and two vocalists representing one person at different stages in his life (Victor Frankenstein).

From the time that Larsen first began thinking of Frankenstein as an operatic work, she wanted to provide a sympathetic portrayal of the Monster, which she explored in WMS.

Initially, she wrote words and music for a vocal part for the Monster but later abandoned them. However, the words and music are still found in the published piano/vocal score but the Monster’s part is to be played by the synthesizer. Larsen’s desire for this sympathetic portrayal of the Monster can actually be summarized by words Boris Karloff used in describing his portrayal of the film Monster:

This was a pathetic creature, who, like us all, had neither wish nor say in his creation and certainly did not wish upon itself the hideous image which automatically terrified humans whom it tried to befriend. The most heartrending aspect of the creature’s life, for us, was his ultimate desertion by his creator. It was as though man, in his blundering, searching attempts to improve himself, was to find himself deserted by his God. 18

Both Karloff and Larsen believed that the Monster should be pitied.

Since the Frankenstein story in its many permutations is so well known to current American society, Larsen did not see the need to tell the entire story. While working on the libretto, Larsen studied screenplay writing and television commercial construction, which helped her with timing in Frankenstein . Language is sparse in screenplays, and at important emotional times, there is only image. As Larsen has said,

“That helped me, because the more I began to cut dialogue away, the more music came.

18 Denis Gifford, Karloff — The Man, the Monster, the Movies (New York: Curtis, 1973), 10, as quoted in William Mank Gregory, It’s Alive! The Classic Cinema Saga of Frankenstein (New York: A.S. Barnes, 1981), 26.

93 It’s what you don’t say that’s important.” 19 In paring down the dialogue, her opera became a commentary on the story. This commentary on a well-known story versus the stage depiction and narration of a story was lost on some critics, who felt Larsen did not understand dramatic action in the operatic genre. 20 Her opera is not a showing of the story, but a reflection upon the story. However, the critic’s point does have some merit, as Larsen deliberately chose not to use operatic conventions. In Karin Pendle’s review of Frankenstein , she recognizes Larsen’s intent and succinctly summarizes how the opera holds together:

Frankenstein consists of fourteen essentially through-composed scenes which at times make room for traditional vocal or instrumental numbers (e.g., the dances in Scene 3, Elizabeth’s aria in Scene 6). Several recurring themes and ostinato patterns tie the scenes together, as does the over-all clarity of the text-setting within the context of Larsen’s expanded tonal idiom. … A multi-media work using video and electronic manipulation of instrumental sounds, Frankenstein operates in two time- frames: the past (the creation of the monster) and the present (Victor’s journey on a ship in the North Atlantic in search of his out-of-control creation). 21

However, Heidi Waleson provides a different interpretation of Larsen’s intent and skill:

Unfortunately, Ms. Larsen’s grasp of traditional operatic principles is less sure. The characters are usually telling each other what happened, rather than playing out the drama, and a confusing “play within a play” structure complicates matters unnecessarily. Two characters in modern dress, the dying “Victor”… and Walton…, remain on the apron of the stage throughout the opera. Victor, who is perhaps one of those modern

19 Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 45. 20 Heidi Waleson, “Opera: Larsen’s Monster,” Wall Street Journal (6 June 1990). 21 Karin Pendle, “For the Theatre: Opera, Dance, and Theatre Piece,” Contemporary Music Review 16 (1997): 72.

94 Frankensteins (Oppenheimer? Mengele?), ostensibly is telling his story. 22

Larsen’s construction of the “play within a play” is a direct result of her desire to remain true to Shelley’s design. Maintaining this structure had an effect on Larsen’s use of musical development, as well as the staging of the opera, both of which will be discussed later.

Larsen’s concept of the opera as through-composed developed as she worked on the libretto. Originally, she planned three acts. In fact, as of 6 October 1988 the opera was still in three acts, with the libretto “complete.” 23 This initial version was only a draft, and in November 1988 Larsen remarked that “I am working steadily on revisions.” 24 The contract for the opera specified that the work be in three acts, with the piano/vocal score to the Minnesota Opera by 1 September 1988. From September to

November, and while working with the Minnesota Opera production staff, the opera was transformed from three acts into fourteen continuous scenes. However, in Larsen’s original libretto, the first act had four segments: the Prologue and three scenes,

“Curiosity,” “Arrogance,” and “The Act.” The second act was comprised of three scenes: “The Meeting,” “What the Monster Saw,” and “The Monster’s Pledge.” Act

Three had four segments consisting of three scenes and an epilogue: “Revenge,”

“Pursuit,” “Despair,” and “Margaret’s Writing Desk.”

22 Waleson, “Opera: Larsen’s Monster.” 23 Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) to Bill Thorpe (E. C. Schirmer Music Company, Boston, MA), 6 October 1988. 24 Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) to Bill Thorpe (E. C. Schirmer Music Company, Boston, MA), draft November 1988.

95 Table 3.2: Scenes found in the finished opera as compared to scenes in the original libretto.

Final Version Original Libretto Prologue Act I, Prologue Scene 1: Impulse Scene 2: Curiosity Act I, Scene 1: Curiosity Scene 3: Arrogance Act I, Scene 2: Arrogance Scene 4: The Act Act I, Scene 3: The Act Scene 5: Insomnia Scene 6: Tragedy Scene 7: Isolation Scene 8: The Meeting Act II, Scene 1: The Meeting Scene 9: What the Monster Saw Act II, Scene 2: What the Monster Saw Act II, Scene 3: The Monster’s Pledge Scene 10: The Bargain Scene 11: Revenge Act III, Scene 1: Revenge Scene 12: The Truth Scene 13: Resolve Scene 14: Pursuit to death and life Act III, Scene 2: Pursuit Act III, Scene 3: Despair Act III, Epilogue: Margaret’s writing desk

Although Larsen never spoke of the overall structure of Frankenstein in this way, its fourteen scenes can be grouped into five sections with distinct themes, as shown in Table 3.3. WMS is central to Larsen’s concept of her opera, and it shapes much of eventual structure of the opera. Music from WMS occurs in Scenes 2, 9, 10, and 11 of the opera. The yearning to create in group 1, followed by the rejection of the creation in group 4, is musically tied together by music from What the Monster Saw . In

96 fact, in Scenes 2 and 9, music from the tone poem is played almost in its entirety, but with differing results. Frankenstein’s desire for scientific progress without regard to consequences is foreshadowed in Scene 2. Frankenstein’s responsibility or lack thereof, towards his final creation is realized in Scenes 9 through 11, with the awakening of, then rejection of the Creation by the Creator, followed by the Creation’s response.

Table 3.3: Grouping of scenes into five overarching sections, illustrating the themes, and where music from What the Monster Saw occurs. “WMS” indicates What the Monster Saw . Group Grouping of Scenes from Theme of the Grouping Presence of Frankenstein WMS music 1 Prologue, Scene 1, Scene 2 Yearning to create WMS 2 Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5 Struggle of creation 3 Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8 Responsibility of the creator 4 Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11 Rejection of the creation WMS 5 Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14 Consequences of creating

In addition to using WMS to help shape the opera, Larsen constructed a series of short, chromatic motives, ascending and descending, which occur throughout the opera, providing continuity. A sense of atonality frequently occurs when Larsen uses a recurring major-seventh pattern. When superimposed with a tritone, the dissonance is quite harsh, yet poignant in reflecting Victor’s understanding of human nature and eventual descent into madness. Larsen is also fond of chord clusters, which occur in patterns that then repeat in subsequent scenes. Larsen says of the tonality in

Frankenstein :

The musical style is based in free-ranging tonality which I chose as a deliberate metaphor for Victor’s state of being. He is never at rest. He can never fully hear or take in those around him who are grounded in tonality. … The vocal lines in the opera are often deliberately disjunct and truncated. I did this to heighten the sense of each character’s

97 inability to fully comprehend, much less deal with the events of the story. My goal was to create an overall atmosphere of gothic horror. 25

Larsen condenses the locality of action to the arctic ship and Switzerland. For example, in Shelley’s novel Frankenstein’s experiments and creation of the Monster occur while he is at university in Ingolstadt, whereas Larsen depicts these events at the

Frankenstein house in Belrive, Switzerland, near Geneva. In the novel, Frankenstein’s friend, Henry Clerval, is killed while the two are traveling in Scotland and Ireland, but

Larsen places the murder in the library of Frankenstein’s Swiss house. In the opera

Elizabeth’s murder occurs in the library, whereas in Shelley’s novel Elizabeth is murdered in Evian at an inn on their honeymoon. Larsen sets the period around 1817, when Shelley wrote the novel. The location is “in and around Geneva, Switzerland and the Arctic. A deliberate infidelity to locale and period is important,”26 which is faithful to the dream-like quality in much of Shelley’s own narration. Pulling these disparate events into one location creates a unity of scene, enhances the dramatic effect, and eases the staging of the opera.

Table 3.4 compares the scenes of the opera with the chapters from the novel.

The table illustrates that Larsen drew each scene from one or more chapters of Shelley’s book. Occasionally, Larsen’s scenes are an extrapolation of a few sentences, or an idea presented in the book, such as in Scenes 2 or 3. At other times, Larsen’s scenes depict

Shelley’s narrative, as in Scene 6.

25 Libby Larsen, “Libby Larsen,” Interview by J. Heywood Alexander (online interview, November 1998), To Stretch Our Ears : A Documentary History of American Music , edited by J. Heywood Alexander (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 489-498 26 Libby Larsen, Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus, piano/vocal score (Boston: E. C. Schirmer, 1989), iv.

98 Table 3.4: Comparison between scenes in Larsen’s opera and chapters from Shelley’s novel.

Larsen’s Opera Scene Shelley’s Book Scene Characters on stage Opera Scene Location Book Location Number Chapter Prologue Ship in the Prologue: Ship in the Captain Walton Arctic Letters I and Arctic IV Scene 1: Ambiguous Volume 1, Switzerland, Victor Frankenstein Impulse Chapter 2, 3 university Scene 2: Lakeside, Volume 1, Inglestadt, Victor Frankenstein, Curiosity Belrive, Chapter 3 Germany Henry Clerval, William Switzerland Frankenstein Scene 3: Library, Volume 1, Inglestadt and Victor Frankenstein, Arrogance Frankenstein Chapter 3 Switzerland Henry Clerval, William mansion Frankenstein, Elizabeth, Justine, Walton Scene 4: The Laboratory, Volume 1, Lab in the attic Victor Frankenstein, Act Frankenstein Chapter 4 of his living Monster mansion quarters at university in Inglestadt Scene 5: Ship Volume 1, Inglestadt Victor Frankenstein Insomnia Chapter 4 Scene 6: Four scenes Volume 1, Inglestadt Elizabeth, Henry Tragedy on stage: Chapters 7-8 Belrive, Clerval, Victor ship, library, Volume 2, Switzerland Frankenstein, Justine reflecting Chapter 8 Moritz, William pool, scaffold Frankenstein, the Monster, Walton, Ship Victor Scene 7: Ship Volume 2, Swiss Alps Ship Victor, Victor Isolation Chapters 1-2 Frankenstein Scene 8: The Place of Volume 2, Swiss Alps Ship Victor, Victor Meeting Reckoning Chapter 2 Frankenstein, Monster Scene 9: Video Volume 2, What the Chapters 3-8 Monster Saw Scene 10: The Laboratory Volume 2, Swiss Alps, Walton, Monster, Ship Bargain Chapter 9 Scotland Victor, Stage Victor Volume 3, (does not sing), Chapters 2-3 Justine’s body Scene 11: Library Volume 3, Evian, Elizabeth, Victor Revenge Chapter 6 Switzerland Frankenstein, Ship Victor, Walton, Monster

99 Larsen’s Opera Scene Shelley’s Book Scene Characters on stage Opera Scene Location Book Location Number Chapter Scene 12: The Ship deck Walton, Ship Victor, Truth Victor Frankenstein Scene 13: Library Volume 3, Ireland Victor Frankenstein, Resolve Chapter 4 Henry Clerval Scene 14: Ambiguous; Volume 3, Ship Monster, Walton, Ship Pursuit to Ship deck Chapter 7 Victor, Victor death and life Frankenstein

Prologue

As stated before, Shelley frames the story of Frankenstein with a series of letters by Captain Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret. Walton is an explorer, captaining his ship to the North Pole. While his ship is locked in an ice-floe, he picks up an exhausted and nearly mad Frankenstein, who has been pursuing his monster. As he recovers his strength, Frankenstein tells his tale to Walton. The novel begins and ends with Walton, and Larsen does the same with her adaptation. By maintaining Shelley’s literary device,

Larsen transforms Walton into the voice of conscience. The Prologue is the beginning of the frame, which Larsen calls “The letter” in her first libretto, and she further describes the scene as “an Antarctic ice field, endless, bitterly cold. The bow of an ice- bound ship reveals upper deck and captain’s cabin beneath it. At the opposite side of the stage, elevated and in a space completely its own, Margaret’s writing desk.” 27 As mentioned previously, Larsen later omitted Margaret’s character.

The Prologue begins on the Mer de Glace, on the ship’s deck and Captain’s cabin. Larsen describes the ship as “Devoid of color, extremely cold, represents

27 Libby Larsen, “Settings — Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus,” unpublished papers, Larsen file “Frankenstein,” Minneapolis, MN.

100 voyages in darkness expecting to discover light.” 28 Furthermore, the ship “represents the paralysis of the moral dilemma, isolation in the face of ambition, pressure of unanticipated consequences.” 29 Larsen did not initially conceive of this symbolism for the ship but developed the idea only after working on the libretto and re-shaping it into a continuous stream of action. During the Prologue, Captain Walton sings of his dreams with “Bound for Glory.” The ship is trapped by ice and dead in the water. Walton’s crew finds Victor Frankenstein, and Walton is curious about him upon spotting his madness. All of these ideas are present in Shelley’s Prologue.

Larsen considered using Letter IV of the Prologue for her scene. She crossed out the parts of the text she wanted to omit, but also underlined areas and made annotations.

Although Larsen used none of these comments in her final product, her musings influenced her musical construction, for example,

his grief by a recital of his misfortunes… [needs to keep repeating Let me go on deck ; repeat ‘prometheus’ in fragments: Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mold me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?] 30

The quote that Larsen writes in the margins is from Milton’s Paradise Lost , and is also quoted in Shelley, when the Monster confronts Frankenstein. Perhaps it was this cry from the Monster that struck Larsen when she decided to depict the creature as sympathetically as she did. Regardless of her inspiration, the opening music from WMS also opens the opera’s Prologue.

28 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, iv. 29 Ibid., iv. 30 Shelley, 24.

101 Scene 1: “Impulse”

After the Prologue, Larsen thought the first scene would take place in the library, as she wrote in the margins of her book, “fade to library w. couch.” However, Larsen later inserted the first scene, which takes place in an ambiguous region. Scene 1,

“Impulse,” explores the inquiring mind of the young Frankenstein. He “contemplates the sky and its life-giving potential, with fresh innocence.” 31 In the first volume of Shelley’s book, chapters 2 and 3 discuss Frankenstein’s interest in scientific studies while growing up in Switzerland and attending University in Inglestadt, Germany. In this earlier time, Frankenstein demonstrated his fascination with creating life. The

“Ambiguous” region turns into the “Lakeside” for Scene 2. This first scene was either inserted into Larsen’s original libretto, or was separated and extended from the first scene of the original libretto, “Curiosity.” We cannot know for certain, as a complete early version of the libretto has been lost. According to Larsen, the Geneva Lake and ambiguous place “represents the search for human spiritual knowledge.” 32

Scene 2: “Curiosity”

Scene 2: “Curiosity” does not actually occur in Shelley’s book. However, this scene is a representation of Victor’s experiments found in Shelley’s Volume 1, Chapter

3 and is also a demonstration of his scientific obsession at university in Inglestadt, showing his excitement of learning and obsession with creating life. Since Shelley never provides specific details about Frankenstein’s scientific investigations, Larsen

31 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, v. 32 Ibid., iv.

102 created a scene to capture those ideas in a theatrical context. Frankenstein, Clerval, and

William launch balloons in an electrical storm and experiment with a dead rat, trying to use the electricity generated by the storm to resuscitate the rat. This is “Scene 1:

Curiosity” in the libretto’s first draft.

In thinking through details of the stage action, Larsen equated Victor’s experiments to the philosopher’s stone, with the elixir of life being electricity. 33

Larsen’s notes while working on the scene indicate that William enters the scene with a balloon. “In their joviality they tie W[illiam] to the balloon — enact.” Larsen then indicates a lightening strike where William “mock fires himself.” Then she questions the idea, “a bit too much?” She goes on to write that Victor and Henry would revive

William with the stone. William and Henry then proceed to mock Victor, who becomes more estranged. Larsen decided that using William as the experiment was going too far and substituted a rat instead. She also discarded the idea of the philosopher’s stone.

Scene 2 starts with Victor, his younger brother William, and his best friend

Clerval out in a thunderstorm preparing for an experiment. Victor is trying to use electricity from lightning in order to resuscitate a dead rat. Approximately a third of the way into Scene 2, the excerpt from WMS (Example 3.1) begins during the thunderstorm with the opening of the tone poem and the sensibility “Chaos” (see Table 3.1 for the description of the sensibilities). When the sensibility “Need” begins, Victor starts singing, explaining the experiment to William.

33 Handwritten notes at the beginning of Chapter 1 in Larsen’s copy of Mary Shelley, Frankenstein .

103

104

Example 3.1: The beginning of the excerpt of WMS from Scene 2. The four measures preceding rehearsal number 26 mark the beginning of the excerpt and of the tone poem itself. These pages are from the orchestral score and show how Larsen copied the manuscript from WMS, and inserted the vocal parts.

105 In the orchestral score Larsen notes, “During the aria, Victor’s frame of mind progresses from one of scientific curiosity to one of obsession with the possibility of creating life.” 34 So as the music in the context of WMS reflects the Monster’s growing awareness of his basic needs, it now becomes a reflection of Victor’s need to create. In all, the quote from WMS comprises 78 measures, just under half of the entire length of the scene. The quote and aria both end where the next sensibility, “Companionship” would begin. The storm continues raging as William and Clerval flee to safety. Victor continues frantically with his experiment, but he no longer sings, his attention all focused on his work. The words to the aria are as follows:

Rat in a storm Rat, in darkness (explaining to William, Victor becomes gradually obsessed) Rat, tossed in clouds, tossed in clouds, tossed in clouds. Electricity shoots through him. Electricity shoots through him. His whiskers twitch. His tail switches. His paws quiver. His little heart begins to pump. His little heart begins to pump. His eyes fly, fly open. His eyes fly open. He sees! He lives. He lives. He lives!

Scene 3: “Arrogance”

Another scene not found in the book is the third scene, “Arrogance,” which appears to be similar to Scene 2: “Arrogance” in the first draft of the libretto. This scene depicts a cozy family gathering in the library, which includes a musical toy in the shape of a boy. Frankenstein continues thinking about his experiment and theorizes that he can

34 Libby Larsen, Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus , orchestral score (E. C. Schirmer, Boston: 1990), 47.

106 create life. Clerval questions, “what of the creation’s soul?” Walton interjects, “It will have a soul.” Clerval wonders about the consequences, a thought echoed by Walton. In

Volume 1, Chapter 3, Shelley depicts Victor reflecting on how his family would feel if they knew of his pursuits. Larsen shows that idea on stage, as well as demonstrating the warmth of Victor’s home life. The library “represents emotional warmth, knowledge, companionship, generosity, understanding, and curiosity.” 35

Central to the staging of the “Arrogance” scene is the couch which, in Larsen’s first draft, is “used to suggest the question of moral confusion and ambiguity. The couch should be the same couch in Walton’s cabin, the library, and the laboratory sleeping cove.” 36 In the finished libretto, the ship has taken on the symbolic role of “moral confusion and ambiguity.” Instead, the couch has come to represent “the journey of the soul” and is also the same couch in the ship, library, and laboratory. 37 In addition to symbolic scenery and props, the music itself is suggestive of recurring ideas.

There is a great deal of complexity in Frankenstein ; consequently, there is much to consider in the music. For example, the “Innocence” Theme is introduced in Scene 3

(Example 3.2) while Justine, Elizabeth, and William dance around a mechanical toy doll, which plays a music box and moves. All those present on stage, excepting Victor, enjoy the simplicity of the music box and the marvels of the mechanical doll. They are all innocent, while Victor muses on the potentials found in science. The Innocence

Theme occurs again later in the work and can be interpreted as a representation of

35 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, iv. 36 Larsen, “Settings — Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus.” 37 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, iv.

107 innocence — or even a gloss on how the innocent can suffer through inconsiderate use of science, or science without restraints.

Example 3.2: Innocence Theme, mm. 509-532, from Scene 3: Arrogance.

Scene 4: “The Act”

In Scene 4: “The Act,” Frankenstein creates the Monster. In the draft of the libretto, this scene ends Act I. While in both of her versions Larsen sets this event in the

Laboratory of the Frankenstein Mansion, Shelley’s Volume 1, Chapter 4 places this event in Frankenstein’s lab in the attic of his lodgings at university. The laboratory

“represents the dark regions of the human spirit, precariousness, technological evil.” 38

Another difference between story and dramatic action is that Shelley can just say that

38 Ibid., iv.

108 the monster was created and leave the rest to the reader’s imagination, whereas Larsen has to find a way to depict that event on stage and through music. Shelley describes the inanimate body of the monster as beautiful, but once animated with its yellow eyes,

Frankenstein finds it abhorrent. Larsen chose to depict the monster as beautiful — very tall, thin, and white — which gives the audience a sense of the monster’s unearthliness.

Larsen examined some of the early engravings inspired by Shelley’s book. One picture that particularly caught her attention was Le Romantisme ou le Monstre littéraire by J. Vigne. This engraving depicts an androgynous monster, costumed in a toga like T. P. Cooke, who first played the role in 1823, but with long flowing hair. She also had in mind the twentieth-century iconic figure of Boris Karloff as the monster, and she needed to decide whether to continue in that mode of horror or re-visit

Shelley’s Monster completely. David Patrick Stearns, a writer for USA Today , commented on the difference:

Frankenstein … eschews the lumbering, Boris Karloff-style monster. Composer Libby Larsen took her cue from Mary Shelley’s novel, which describes the monster as “a fallen angel.” Her monster is tall, lithe, hairless and covered with iridescent white paint. “He’s beautiful,” she says, “but beautiful like a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion— exhilarating but horrifying.” Monsters in these shows [referring to musical theater pieces with gothic plots] often have surprising poignancy.”39

Shelley describes Frankenstein’s act of creation in the first paragraph of Volume 1,

Chapter 4. Frankenstein has given life to his monster. Larsen underlines his reaction:

…now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. … 40

39 David Patrick Stearns, “ Phantom stirs a hunger for more gothic thrillers,” USA Today (24 May 1990). 40 Shelley, 52-53.

109 After seeing Larsen’s opera, Joseph McLellan says of this moment of creation:

Larsen also emphasizes the need for human warmth. After it has been brought to life, in a moment of eerie tenderness, the monster comes over and embraces its creator. Victor Frankenstein endures the embrace for a moment, then breaks away, and in that moment the creature becomes truly a monster that will kill again and again for revenge. But the creator also becomes a monster. “I made him but I cannot love him,” he later confesses. His crime, essentially, is inability to love what he has created — or the creation of that which he cannot love. 41

Perhaps from Larsen’s point of view, the crime is Frankenstein’s inability to respect his creation, to fully grasp and understand its potential for both good and evil, as he fails to grasp the consequences of all of his own actions.

Scene 5: “Insomnia”

After creating the Monster, Frankenstein becomes ill and experiences remorse in

Volume 1, Chapter 4 of Shelley’s novel:

I … continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. … I started from my sleep with horror; … when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. … one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped…42

Larsen transforms this event in Scene 5: “Insomnia,” as Frankenstein moves through exhilaration, restlessness, and remorse, all of which Larsen places in the stark setting of the ship. She summarizes the scene by saying that Frankenstein “questions the

41 Joseph McLellan, “Opera: Into the Heart of a Monster; Libby Larsen’s Stunning ‘Frankenstein,’” The Washington Post (26 May 1990). 42 Shelley, 53.

110 consequences of his arrogance.” 43 During this scene, Ship Victor paces frantically, interjecting comments into Stage Victor’s thoughts. Stage Victor is “in the place of discovery from Scene 1: Curiosity.” Ship Victor asks repeatedly, “What have I done?

Who am I? What did I make?” In triumph, he, as Stage Victor, answers himself, “I did it!” However, Ship Victor interjects, “I should shout, but I cannot.” After Stage Victor reiterates his jubilant victory, Ship Victor echoes, “I did it!” He mournfully adds, “But what did I do?” The addition of this scene to the original structure of the opera

Example 3.3: Scene 5 “Insomnia,” mm. 1114-1127, from the piano/vocal score published by Schirmer. Ship Victor is singing until m. 1124, when Stage Victor begins. foreshadows the finale, where Stage Victor comes to terms with his actions and becomes one with Ship Victor. In fact, the words Larsen uses in both Scenes 5 and 14 have similar rhythmic patterns of which she takes advantage in recalling the music of

Scene 5 during Scene 14. Example 3.4 shows an excerpt of Ship Victor’s part, questioning what he has done. In comparison, example 3.5 is from Scene 14 where the

43 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, vi.

111 two Victor’s are arguing with the Monster, and on “say” and “go” they sing the same melody as that set to “what did I make” in example 3.3. The orchestra is playing different music underneath these two separate scenes.

Example 3.4: Scene 14 “Pursuit to Death and Life,” mm. 2471-2482.

112 Scene 6: “Tragedy”

Scene 6: “Tragedy” is structurally the most complicated of all the scenes in the opera, as there are four different tableaux during the scene occurring simultaneously.

Larsen also changed her original sequence of action at this point. Act II was originally

Scenes 8, 9 and 10 of the final version, while Scene 6 was Act III, Scene 1 in the draft libretto. Changing the order of the scenes makes Larsen’s narration align more closely with Shelley’s. Larsen conceived of “Tragedy” as four distinct scenes on stage: the ship, library, reflecting pool, and scaffold. When first reading through the novel, Larsen thought of depicting these events in tableaux. Initially she considered placing the events of Justine’s trial in one tableau, while the family gathers in the library. However, as

Larsen refined this scene, she condensed material by omitting Justine’s trial. Larsen also expanded the scene by including William’s murder and a commentary on all of the events from Walton’s ship.

Action opens in the library, where Elizabeth and Clerval are worried and upset.

Once Victor enters the scene, they tell Victor about William’s murder and that Justine was accused of it. Both William’s murder and Justine’s execution by hanging are set on stage. In Volume 1, Chapter 6 of the book, Victor’s father narrates the story of

William’s murder to Frankenstein in a letter. In addition to the letter, the Monster himself describes William’s murder in Volume 2, Chapter 8. Back in Volume 1,

Chapter 7, Justine is in jail, proclaims her innocence to Elizabeth, and is later executed.

Thus in this one scene, Larsen pulls together several different threads of Shelley’s story.

Larsen describes Scene 6 as follows:

113 Frankenstein… returns home, distraught. He finds Elizabeth in library, weeping. She recounts William’s death (aria), which we see in a tableau scene on an elevated ramp. The scene is a lake beside which William is playing. Justine is on trial. We see the trial proceedings on another tableau , an elevated ramp, behind a scrim. Clerval enters, pleading with Frankenstein to intervene. He tries to tell them about the monster but cannot. Justine is sentenced to death, sentence to be carried out immediately. We see Justine hung, overshadowed by the shadow of the Monster. … Walton observes and questions. 44

In Shelley’s book, the police believe that a valuable miniature last seen in

William’s hands is evidence of Justine’s guilt when the item is found in her possession.

What actually happens is that the Monster grabs the miniature after killing William. On a whim, the Monster leaves the miniature with Justine, who had fallen asleep in a barn after exhausting herself searching for William. Larsen replaces the miniature with a locket, perhaps because a bright, shiny locket is easier to see on stage. However, in the piano/vocal score Larsen says that, “The locket is both the instrument of murder and the symbol of family unity.” 45 In this way Larsen has transformed the symbol of family life, the miniature, into a symbol of death when the Monster uses the locket to strangle

William.

For Justine’s trial, Larsen carefully examined Shelley’s dialogue and sequence of events. Since Elizabeth did not attend the sentencing, Victor delivered the news to her. After hearing the verdict, Elizabeth goes to see Justine in prison. While the parts of the dialogue spoken by Justine that Larsen circled and annotated were not used in the final libretto, the sentiments they express are. The anguish Elizabeth experiences for her double loss, William’s death and Justine’s conviction and death, comes through very

44 Ibid., vi. 45 Ibid., iv.

114 clearly. Elizabeth firmly believes in Justine’s innocence. In addition, Victor is haunted by the verdict and Justine’s sentence. Justine’s defense is distilled into a few sentences.

She loved William, could never hurt him, and has no idea what happened. This part of the scene in which Justine defends herself is juxtaposed on stage with William’s murder, providing a clear parallel between action and unforeseen consequence.

Immediately after William dies, Justine is hanged, brutally reinforcing on stage the metaphor of suffering and death of the innocent through negligent scientific practices.

Larsen further reinforces these ideas musically by using the Innocence Theme in

Scene 6: “Tragedy” in association with two characters: William and Justine. The

Innocence Theme is heard in its entirety at rehearsal number 88 (m. 1332), during which time the monster and William meet and begin playing together; “Both William and the Monster are gentle, innocent.” 46 The theme continues to echo throughout the scene, usually whenever the action focuses on William. However, the segments of the theme shift between major seconds, creating tension for the build-up to William’s murder.

In addition, when Justine is accused of William’s murder, an echo of the

Innocence Theme reappears with the melody in the clarinet (example 3.5). While the violins play harmonics, tension is further created with the marimba playing tremolo, as

Clerval narrates the action. The acoustical result is chilling, in part because the scoring is so thin. As Justine testifies and prepares to be hanged, the theme fragments as if saying that innocence is no defense.

46 Larsen, Frankenstein , orchestral score, 184.

115

Example 3.5: Innocence Theme from Scene 6: Tragedy, mm. 1358- 1366.

Karin Pendle writes about the parallel narrative and shifts in chronological narrative:

Yet the relationship between the two narratives is not simply that of flashback to present time, for the two planes sometimes interact and are arranged in a symmetrical manner that highlights the monster’s first crime, his murder of the boy William. Temporal relationships in this

116 central segment are fluid, and the focus moves from past to present with little trouble or heralding. At the center stands Elizabeth’s aria, “Two Twilights Ago,” both a reflection on the past and the suspension of time before we see the actual murder. The transformation of Victor from an overconfident scientist to a despairing human soul thus occurs at the midpoint of the work in such a way as to underscore Larsen’s contemporary message. 47

Scene 7: “Isolation” The juxtaposition of past and present continues in Scene 7: “Isolation.” Both

Ship Victor and Stage Victor are reacting to William’s death. Whereas Ship Victor’s response if full of guilt and remorse, Stage Victor refuses to understand his culpability.

Instead, he is angry at the Monster, who traded death for the life that Frankenstein gave to him. Stage Victor completely repudiates the Monster, calling him “evil” and disowning him. Stage Victor has not yet matured enough to see that it was his own cruel reaction to the Monster and the abandonment of his creation that has caused the

Monster to lash out.

In Volume 2, Chapter 2 of the novel, Frankenstein’s remorse and guilt for

Justine’s death propels him to go off by himself in the Swiss Alps. Since Larsen chose to depict the emotions of the old Victor and young Victor in the same scene, the location is more ambiguous by being the ship, which itself is a symbol of moral dilemma and isolation due to ambition. Larsen says of this scene: “Frankenstein, alone and isolated, contemplates pursuit to death and asks questions about creation and responsibility.” 48 However, it is only Ship Victor who is doing the questioning.

47 Pendle, “For the Theatre,” 72. 48 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, vi.

117 At the beginning of Volume 2, Chapter 1, in the first paragraph, Larsen underlined: “Justine died; she rested; and I was alive.” 49 These words are very similar to the ones Larsen uses to open Scene 7: “Justine died. I live,” the words sung by Ship

Victor acknowledging his guilt. Scene 7 is another addition to Larsen’s original outline and helps to fully develop Frankenstein’s conscience, to portray the present and past

Frankenstein at different points of his moral growth. Structurally, Scene 7 is the center of the third scene grouping, “Responsibility of the Creator.” As such, the scene marks the balance between present and past — the Frankenstein with a fully developed moral conscience and the Frankenstein just beginning to develop a moral conscience.

Scene 8: “The Meeting”

Scene 8: “The Meeting” corresponds to Volume 2, Chapter 2 in the book, where the Monster demands a hearing, and is also Act II, Scene 1 in the libretto’s first draft. In

Larsen’s work, both Ship Victor and Stage Victor call for the Monster. In the novel, the

Monster appears and demands, “You will hear me!” However, in Larsen’s work the

Monster just gestures. Instead of setting the meeting in the Alps, Larsen sets it in an

“Ambiguous region.” 50 Once more, there is a dream-like quality throughout this sequence in the novel, which Larsen reflects in this ambiguous region. Instead of having the Monster tell his story as he does in the novel, Larsen uses video taken from the

Monster’s perspective to show his story. The result is Scene 9: “What the Monster

Saw,” the tone poem examining the story from the Monster’s own perspective.

49 Shelley, 85. 50 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, vi.

118 Scenes 9 through 11

In the opera, Scene 9 becomes an “abstract video/film presentation of what the

Monster perceived during its time of abandonment.” 51 This scene was originally Act II,

Scene 2. WMS is also the musical summary of Volume 2, Chapters 3-8 in Shelley’s novel, where the Monster recounts his experiences since being created. Although not specifically labeled by Larsen in the score of WMS, the tone poem is in distinct sections, which she does label in the opera score with eight different sensibilities. In

Scene 9, the music is that of WMS exactly, with no additions and no subtractions through to the end of Sensibility 8: “Anger.” In WMS there are nine sensibilities, the last being the revenge that the Monster takes on his creator. Sensibility 9: “Revenge” is not really a sensibility, but it is the action that results from the Monster’s experiences, and it takes on more significance in the opera, as will be discussed shortly.

In Volume 2, Chapter 9 of the book, Frankenstein agrees to create a mate for the

Monster, which Larsen depicts in Scene 10, “The Bargain.” During this scene,

Frankenstein works on Justine’s body while the Monster observes. Walton urges Victor to create the female while Ship Victor opposes the creation. Shelley describes this event in Volume 3, Chapters 2-3, where Frankenstein goes to Scotland to work on and create the female form from scratch. The Monster follows to observe. In Larsen’s interpretation of the novel, Ship Victor asks: “What of the consequences?” The Monster replies: “My children.” Victor finally understands the consequences and stops working on the body, causing the Monster to vow revenge. Larsen says of the Bargain,

51 Ibid., 134.

119 the Monster challenges Frankenstein to create a companion for him with the threat that if he does not, the Monster will kill every person dear to Frankenstein. Frankenstein refuses. 52

In the first draft of the libretto, this scene is Act II, Scene 3 and truncated into “The

Monster’s Pledge: a place of revenge, a space defined entirely by light.” 53 However, shifting this action to Scene 10 enables Larsen to keep What the Monster Saw as the centerpiece and maintain the Monster as a figure of sympathy, not of horror.

Table 3.5 below provides a timeline for Scene 10. In the opera, the Sensibility

“The Bargain” becomes Scene 10, and after four measures, the excerpt from WMS ends, cleverly integrated seamlessly into the flow of the opera. In fact, until that final page, the orchestral score of the opera for Scene 9 is a photocopy, re-numbered, of the orchestral score of WMS. The music from “The Bargain” section resumes again in

Scene 11. Taken together, the entire extract almost completely finishes a quote of

WMS, omitting only the last three measures of the tone poem. However, twenty measures of the Sensibility “Need” repeat later in “Anger” and “Bargain.” Looking at

Larsen’s use of WMS in scenes 9-11, one could actually regard the new material in

Scene 10 as an insertion into the original tone poem in order to include “The Bargain” as part of an operatic plot device.

52 Ibid., vi. 53 Larsen, “Settings—Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus.”

120 Table 3.5: Timeline for Scene 10, indicating motives, as well as when individual characters are singing or acting. The Monster has a part in the score, as indicated in the chart, yet he does not sing. The synthesizer articulates his “voice.”

Scene 10 is quite interesting musically, as it combines motives from several different parts of the opera. The scene continues the excerpt from What the Monster

Saw for four measures, resuming the excerpt 62 bars later (the entire scene is 68 measures long). A short punctuation form of an “Anger” motive appears, as it does throughout the opera (see example 3.6).

Example 3.6: Anger motive.

121 During this scene, Victor, Ship Victor, Walton, and the Monster are considering the merits of the Monster’s request for a mate. While Victor is agonizing over his course of action, material from Scene 3 is heard. At that point in the opera where the Scene 3 quote comes from, Victor is extolling the virtues of scientific endeavor and saying that with life, anything can happen — unlike a mechanical toy doll, which is

Example 3.7: Scene 3 at rehearsal no. 41, where the “Unpredictable” motive occurs. predictable. Where the words “unpredictable” occur in Scene 3, the quote in Scene 10 begins — and, musically, the quote throws Victor’s words back in his face, as the life that he created is certainly unpredictable (see examples 3.7 and 3.8). In Scene 3,

122 Frankenstein says again, “Unpredictable,” followed by “that’s the lure of it.” His quest for the unknown (that is, the Monster) and his own response to it (rejection) set in motion the unfolding tragedy.

Example 3.8: In Scene 10 at rehearsal no. 145, where the “unpredictable” motive is quoted. Note that the rehearsal number is printed as “143.” This example is taken from the piano/vocal score published by E. C. Schirmer, which is an imprint of the score Larsen sent to the publisher for review before the first performance, when significant changes were made to the score, and are found in the orchestral score.

Ship Victor finally blurts out, “What of the consequences,” and two measures later, the young Victor comes to a decision: he will end the experiments. He will not create a mate for the Monster. Predictably, the Monster’s wrath is stirred, as the “Anger

123 c” motive enters then continues for ten measures (2012-2022/WMS 249-259). Over this music, the Monster vows revenge while Frankenstein taunts him. After that moment, the excerpt of WMS begun in Scene 9 resumes, continuing into Scene 11: “Revenge.”

In Scene 11: “Revenge,” the Monster kills Elizabeth in the library of the

Frankenstein mansion. In Volume 3, Chapter 6 of the book, Shelley locates this murder at an inn in Evian, Switzerland on Elizabeth and Victor’s honeymoon. In the stage setting, both Ship Victor and the Stage Victor are on the ship deck watching the murder, helpless to prevent it. Once again, Larsen changed the sequence of events from her first draft, and once again, this alteration more closely aligns the opera’s sequence of events with that of the novel. In the first draft of the libretto, “Revenge” occurs in Act III,

Scene 1 and also depicts William’s death and Justine’s trial execution in tableaux. 54

Scene 12: “The Truth”

Larsen calls Scene 12 “The Truth,” as Walton “remarks on … Frankenstein’s actions and the reactions of the Monster” while standing on the ship. 55 Walton observes,

“Elizabeth, not you! The equal and opposite reaction! Oh perfect, perfect truth!” 56 This commentary by Walton does not occur specifically in the novel and is not in the first libretto draft. However, this scene begins the last theme group, “Consequences of

Creating.” Walton’s anguish over Elizabeth’s death and his subsequent realization of the ultimate results of Frankenstein’s scientific curiosity signal the beginning of Stage

54 Ibid. 55 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, vii. 56 Libby Larsen, Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus: A Musical Drama without Intermission in Prologue and 14 Scenes , libretto (Boston, MA: E. C. Schirmer, 1990), 21.

124 Victor’s moral maturity. Larsen refers to Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion: for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. Thus Walton’s words in effect point out that Frankenstein ignored the laws of nature when rejecting his own creation.

Scene 13: “Resolve”

Scene 13, “Resolve,” occurs in the library of the Frankenstein mansion. “Clerval sings a rather tender lullaby to Frankenstein,” 57 which reflects Henry’s role in Victor’s life as pacifier, as depicted in Volume 1, Chapter 4, and Volume 3, Chapters 1 and 2 of

Shelley’s novel. In this scene, Frankenstein is deranged. Henry tries to calm him, which is his role in the book during Victor’s illnesses and brushes with madness, especially on the journey to England and Scotland. This particular scene is also absent from the first libretto draft.

Stage Victor finally experiences guilt and remorse. In his ramblings, which appear deranged to Henry, Frankenstein says, “I killed them!” and later, “He killed them,” and finally, “Him! Me! Both of us.” 58 Henry is understandably confused by

Victor’s ravings, which he takes to be from grief and shock. Gradually, Henry is able to sooth Frankenstein enough for him to sleep. While Frankenstein is sleeping, the

Monster strangles Henry. Frankenstein wakes up and, finding Henry dead, he screams.

57 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, vii. 58 Larsen, Frankenstein , libretto, 21.

125 At the beginning of Scene 13: “Resolve,” a fragment of the Innocence Theme is heard in the horns, with a score direction, “haunting,” 59 a reminder of the costs of

Frankenstein’s experiments (example 3.9). Ten measures later another fragment begins, accompanied by pulses in the strings, increasing or reflecting Victor’s frantic actions as he packs to chase the Monster (example 3.10).

Example 3.9: Innocence Theme fragment as first found in Scene 13: Resolve, mm. 2121-2125.

Example 3.10: Innocence Theme fragment as Victor Frankenstein packs in Scene 13: Resolve, mm. 2131-2133.

Later in the score, after Victor confesses to Henry that he created the Monster, the melody of the Innocence Theme reappears, with no accompaniment (example 3.11).

While the melody is played on the keyboard with the Theramin setting, Henry begins calming Victor down while the Innocence Theme, sometimes in fragments, softly and

59 Larsen, Frankenstein, orchestral score, 290.

126 peacefully continues throughout the scene until Henry is killed by the Monster:

Innocence destroyed. According to Larsen, the advances in technology in the modern age have created mass death, so much so that

the consequences of destruction, of mass destruction, and by that I mean destruction that ranges anywhere from … the destruction of innocence to death—mass death. They are just breath taking. Breath taking. Yet, we do it. We even glorify it. 60

As if to highlight this destruction, when the Innocence theme appears in its entirety in

Scene 14, Victor is acknowledging responsibility for his actions and prepares to die.

60 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H.

127

Example 3.11: The Innocence Theme played with the Theramin setting by the keyboard, which leads into Henry’s calming words, mm. 2211-2231.

Scene 14: “Pursuit to Death and Life”

The final scene of the opera also corresponds to the final chapter in the book,

Volume 3, Chapter 7. Victor Frankenstein finishes telling his story to Captain Walton before Shelley returns to the device of using Walton’s letters to his sister Margaret in order to complete the novel. The final chapter of the novel ends on the ship where

Frankenstein dies. Walton talks to the Monster, who then leaves the ship to die. Larsen condensed scenes 2 and 3 of Act III from the first draft of her libretto, which become

Scene 14: “Pursuit to Death and Life.” The final scene in the libretto draft, Epilogue:

“Margaret’s writing desk,” is deleted from the final version. In Larsen’s finished work,

128 both Victors come together: “If we cannot live with our creation, we will not live at all.” 61 Larsen summarizes this scene as follows:

Frankenstein… rushes away from the house into ambiguous wanderings , but everywhere he turns, he faces the Monster. As he runs, he becomes more and more entrapped. Finally, arriving on the ship deck , he faces the Monster. He sings what he must do. … The Monster and Victor confront each other. On video, we see the Monster’s point of view and we see the final video image of the Monster’s hands around Victor’s neck, strangling him. … Walton moralizes briefly. 62

The chase “represents frantic, desperate, flight from realization.” 63 Larsen wrote words and composed music for two different endings. The ending found in the piano/vocal score published by E.C. Schirmer is an earlier version of the work. Larsen adapted the opera as it went into production and altered the ending for the actual performance.

It should be pointed out here that there are differences between the piano/vocal score sold by E. C. Schirmer and the Frankenstein that was actually performed (and the orchestral score available). The piano/vocal score by Schirmer is printed from the vellum of Larsen’s first complete version of the opera. Once the opera went into rehearsals and production, numerous elements changed. One of these, and the most important, is that the Monster had its voice silenced. In the original version, Larsen wrote a vocal part for the Monster. In the performance version, the Monster’s vocal part is omitted completely, and there are two different endings.

The stage directions and texts from the published piano/vocal score, and

Larsen’s original ending read as follows: 64

61 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, 179-180. 62 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, vii. 63 Larsen, Frankenstein , p/v score, iv. 64 Larsen, Frankenstein , libretto, 23.

129 The lights fade on Victor, leaving Walton, embedded in the images of Victor and the Monster.

Walton, alone, muses.

Walton: (quietly, resigned) Why must there be more than simply….life? (simply, to audience) Isn’t life enough? Why must it be that we make death our dream and call it life!? (quietly) I know it now. We cannot do this.

Lights fade on Walton, leaving only the video of the point of view of the Monster. However, the following is the revised performance version as found in the orchestrated score: 65

Walton sits in vigil at Victor’s side. He repeats his horrible realization to himself, hardly able to utter the words. Walton: We are one Are we… Lights fade on the image of Walton and Victor, leaving only the infinite presence of the Monster…always there…always here.

The version performed leaves it to the audience to draw the final moral, instead of specifically stating one. Once again Larsen’s change to the libretto makes the opera align more closely with Shelley’s novel. After Frankenstein dies, the Monster takes his leave of Walton, heading further north to build a funeral pyre upon which to throw himself. The Monster believes that the only way now to find peace is through death. Yet

Shelley does leave the reader wondering if the Monster can die, or if he is doomed to decay and always wander. Larsen’s final stage directions capture this thought perfectly.

Since humankind is forever pushing the bounds of science, they are always at risk of creating a Monster.

65 Larsen, Frankenstein , orchestral score, 349-353.

130 Production

While working on the production components with the Minnesota Opera, both

Larsen and the staff were consciously working on breaking operatic conventions. They were using electronic sounds and video technology, and in the staging they were moving away from the proscenium stage. Larsen wanted to incorporate smell so that there would be no physical body for the monster. However, targeting smells through the ventilation system did not work. She also wanted to place speakers at every seat, “so the monster’s voice can whisper around you,” but that was also impractical at the time. 66 In placing the video screens in the back center of the stage and along the sides, Larsen actually limited staging possibilities. The center screen was very large, as it was supposed “to be as large as the action on stage, because it’s two perspectives — a protagonist and antagonist perspective.” 67 Therefore Nicholas Muni, the stage director, had to think very creatively about the stage design. In addition, keeping Ship Victor and

Walton on stage throughout the entire opera impacted the placement of other characters and scenes. The set was arranged on tiers, with each tier being a distinct location.

The staging of the opera contains five distinct areas of action: the ship, lakeside, the library, the gallows, and the laboratory. These locations reflect the Aristotelian classical theater concept of unity of time, place, and action. The projection screen is also in its own place and time, and, as Larsen points out, is in a psychological time:

Because the monster moves over impossible space and place, bounding over the mountains, the way that Shelley has set it up. In three bounding steps the monster descends from the Mer des Gras …That is set on the stage, the visual of it, whereas time and space are not, as the monster

66 Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 46. 67 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H.

131 perceives and moves. And everybody else’s actions are specified time and place, which is really Shelley, or at least the way I read the book. 68

Theatrically, following classical Greek theater provides another layer of meaning.

Larsen admits that Muni disliked the libretto, to the point of saying that she should keep the music but throw out the words. Perhaps because Muni struggled with the libretto, he was forced to go deeper into the subject and devise a meaningful way to depict the action on stage. Larsen says of her experience with working with Muni:

We had a huge fight, which is part of the process. I really did want to adhere to the book, so I wanted the captain to be on the ship. I wanted the metaphor of the ship, which is also a metaphor for travel, space and time. Nope. He wanted to interpret the piece so that it was all the ravings of a madman, who was in a psychiatrist’s, in a lock-down basically. So that the captain was a doctor and then Frankenstein telling the tale was imagining the whole thing. Well, that’s an interpretation of it, but… it completely changes the sense of time and space. So, we duked it out, and he, I actually had let one director go, who had wanted to turn it into a star vehicle for Mandy Patinkin. Not. It’s not a star vehicle piece. It’s hard. But Nick, he hated the libretto. He just hated it. So that was interesting — to work in that atmosphere, too. Again, an atmosphere of doubt and failure. 69

What is remarkable about this disagreement between composer and director was how

Muni was able to use that hatred to his advantage by creating a brilliant staging. He must have had to think much more creatively about how to do the staging.

I felt that one of things that he hated about the libretto was that it suggests a logical narrative, but it doesn’t offer it necessarily, and it does rely on, which I did deliberately, relies on the audiences’ knowledge of many different ways of approaching Frankenstein ; Young Frankenstein , the cinematic approaches to Frankenstein , the plays. Frankenstein has been worked on hundreds of times, and it relies on the audience knowing

68 Ibid. 69 Ibid.

132 that, so referencing also other approaches to the narrative, and so, I didn’t feel like I had to tell the story as if no one had heard it before. 70

Larsen states in the score that ambiguity in the “technological context” is important. The production should be black and white, which makes the opera visually stark, devoid of life. Larsen, together with Muni and videographer Terry Simpson, chose the World Theater in St. Paul for the premiere instead of Minnesota Opera’s usual home theater, the Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, as they did not like the Ordway’s sound system. Larsen says that they originally wanted to “build our own black box and put the audience literally in the middle and mix the sound all around, but the entire project and its time limitations were just too much for us.” 71 Of course, using so much electronic equipment can be hazardous to those on stage. During rehearsals, the lead tenor was shocked by the electrical stage equipment, but he was not severely harmed. 72

Video Images The video components for Frankenstein were produced with the help of KTCA-

TV, and video director Terry Simpson and lighting designer Duane Schuler. 73 Larsen says she knew that Hans Werner Henze and Tod Machover were also exploring the use of screens and images projected on scrims.74 Larsen had explored the use of multimedia with her work before. For example, in 1982 Larsen used images in her piece Adventures of Wonderboy , in which comic-book-like cartoon panels go along with the music. At the

70 Ibid. 71 Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 45. 72 Margot Siegel, “‘Frankenstein’ Jolts Opera’s Lead Tenor,” Skyway News (29 May 1990): 7. 73 Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 46. 74 Ibid., 45.

133 time Larsen wrote Wonderboy , the technology was limited for her to do much else.

However, the effects for Frankenstein wound up creating

extravagant multidimensional video effects that extend up and out and over the audience, as if to put the viewers within the monster’s body. … With it, a composer has been thrust into the avant-garde of thought about what constitutes acceptable opera sound and subject matter for a contemporary audience. 75

With cinema and television, audiences are used to looking up, viewing images on larger-than-life screens. Therefore Larsen thinks that artists and producers need to re- think the old proscenium stage in order to accommodate modern sensibilities.76

McLellan comments on effective use of visual media and how they are used, such as side screens for singers’ close-ups and as a back screen for the Monster’s

running visual stream of consciousness. … These images say things that are beyond words, with the immediacy, complexity and impact of intuitive rather than logical statement. They are a kind of visual music, and a perfect complement to Larsen’s audible music, which is totally eclectic — tonal, atonal, electronic and acoustic, mostly confined to brief, dramatic nuggets but occasionally soaring into an extended lyrical statement. Considered in the abstract, it seems to lack any kind of homogeneity, continuity or sequential logic; considered as a part of an integrated theatrical experience, it says exactly what needs saying at any given moment. 77

The following by McLellan described the scene where Frankenstein confronts the

Monster at the end of Scene 8, and continues into Scene 9 with the beginning of the full

WMS excerpt:

Some of the most striking visual effects are achieved by Christian Swenson, the dancer/mime who takes the part of the monster. Nearly seven feet tall, thin, hairless and chalk-white, he moves with feline grace and commanding stage presence. He is enormously helped by the staging

75 Ibid., 44. 76 Ibid., 44. 77 McLellan, “Opera: Into the Heart of a Monster.”

134 and the brilliant direction of Nicholas Muni. In one scene, summoned by Frankenstein, he emerges backlit amid billowing clouds of steam and intense electric light that simulates flames. The lighting makes him a purely black figure on a blindingly white background, an image that nearly burns itself into the audience’s memory. 78

Electronic Sound In its end-of-the-year wrap-up on 24 December 1990, USA Today named

Frankenstein on the list of best events in classical music for 1990. Although the author,

David Patrick Stearns, found the piece “a bit like the legendary Frankenstein monster — a collection of ill-fitting parts,” he also thought that Larsen’s “innovative use of synthesized sound points to options that could help opera survive into the 21st century.”79 From her initial thoughts on Frankenstein , Larsen knew that she wanted to use electronic instruments and live sound mixing in the opera. Therefore, as part of the realization of the orchestration, Larsen used amplified sound. Since she wrote for multiple keyboards (an Akai AXBO, a Yamaha DX-7, a Macintosh computer, an Emax

II 16-bit digital sound system, and an acoustic piano), she preferred that all the sounds, both instruments and voices, be digitally mixed in order to balance the sounds properly.

Otherwise, she felt that the acoustic sound and what was heard through the speakers created a “strange dichotomy.” 80 Larsen believes that

for most people under fifty today, electronically manipulated sound is a needed part of the emotional experience in their listening. If an electronic mix isn’t part of the sound, then the music will seem less

78 McLellan, “Opera: Into the Heart of a Monster.” 79 USA Today (24 December 1990). 80 Malitz, “Song of the Monster,” 46.

135 accessible, less connected, less valid. I use amplified acoustics, electric bass and synthesizers purely to address this issue.81

The orchestra, comprising a 15-member ensemble including both electronic and acoustic instruments, is influenced by the genre of rock and roll and the composer

Philip Glass. Larsen sees herself as addressing the relevancy of art music “for an audience influenced by media and rock music.” 82 Other composers that are exploring sound in new ways are Christopher Rouse, Paul Dresser, and Paul Chihara.

One of the difficulties with incorporating electronic instruments is the lack of standardized equipment — each ensemble has a different system. Despite this problem,

Larsen combines acoustic with electric because she believes “in the ensemble as an evolutionary mirror of sound in our lives.” 83 She predicts that the electronic choir will become part of ensembles and that subsequent performing techniques will change as more electronic instruments are added to ensembles. While Larsen enjoys discovering new sounds, she refrains from using them in compositions until she knows that it is practical:

I use electronic sources in an acoustic piece, and accept the new musical parameters that are created. For instance, in Frankenstein and What the Monster Saw , all the drones are electronic. One of the things that electronic instruments can better produce than any acoustic instrument is the drone. In an electronic drone, a composer can isolate and enhance overtones, playing around with the psychology and the philosophy of droning. Electronic sound redefines traditional musical parameters. At the same [time], one does not negate meter, beat, timbre, etc. but enhances their meanings. 84

81 Ibid. 82 Ibid. 83 All quotes Libby Larsen, as quoted in Sonja Rehbein, “Band Masters Article: Libby Larsen,” draft (1990), 9. 84 All quotes Libby Larsen, as quoted in ibid.

136 On the other hand, incorporating electronic instruments when they are not yet standardized creates its own set of issues for subsequent performances:

I made a deliberate choice to mix the sound of the entire opera. …Added to the orchestra is a bank of synthesizers. I use them in many ways but chiefly to make endless electronic droning — so crucial to a contemporary audience’s ability to connect to the tension of Victor’s moral dilemma. The mixed sound is both a metaphor and a reality. It is a metaphor for the theme of technology for its own sake. And of course, mixed sound is a reality in our musical world — one with which we classically trained musicians must deal whether we like it or not. I like it. 85

Reception

Larsen’s Frankenstein generated a great deal of commentary both before and after its premiere. When Frankenstein was announced for the 1989-1990 opera season, and in days leading up to the premiere, newspaper writers concerned themselves with how to classify the topic of the opera. The subject matter was considered variously with science-fiction operas (James Wierzbicki), monster operas (Joseph McClellan), and gothic operas (David Patrick Stearns). These three authors attempted to place Larsen’s opera in a larger cultural framework.

James Wierzbicki, music critic for the St. Louis Dispatch , wrote an article on 11

June 1989 about the recent surge in science fiction operas, a genre he says began with

Karl-Birger Blomdahl’s Aniara in 1959. 86 Larsen’s Frankenstein was among the seven new operas that Wierzbicki lists, two of which were by Philip Glass: The Making of the

Representative from Planet 8, premiered by the Houston Grand Opera in July 1988, and

85 Larsen, Interview, To Stretch Our Ears , 489-498. 86 James Wierzbicki, “Is Science-Fiction Opera Finally Coming into Its Own?” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), 11 June 1989.

137 1,000 Airplanes on the Roof , performed in Austria and St. Louis in 1988. Among the operas Wierzbicki mentions that were performed were Paul Dresher’s Power Failure , performed by the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia in June 1989, and

Anthony Davis’s Under the Double Moon performed by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 1989. He says that Tod Machover’s VALIS was released in 1989 as a recording on the

Bridge label. The final opera that he lists is one whose commission was recently announced by the Houston Grand Opera, Michael Tippett’s New Year .

Wierzbicki also puzzled about why the subject matter of science-fiction has been so long to develop in opera. He named several authors whose work was “literature of high quality and philosophic weight,” namely Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Robert

A. Heinlein, and Ursula LeGuin.87 Interestingly enough, Larsen first considered an operatic subject by Ray Bradbury for her commission by Opera Omaha before settling on Willa Cather’s short story, “Eric Hermannson’s Soul” (see Chapter 4). Wierzbicki speculates that while science fiction literature has enlarged how people view the world, people associate “patently gimmicky music” with the genre. 88

The movie industry was quick to latch onto s-f’s popularity, but to date the results have generally been little more than action-packed fluff. Stanley Kubrik’s 1968 “2001: A Space Odyssey” was an exception… Most of the truly profound s-f novels have yet to be turned into screen- plays because they’ve only recently been identified. ... It’s likely that opera composers... have simply been waiting. They’ve been waiting for provocative librettos, or for novels on which such librettos can be based. Any composer with access to a synthesizer could turn out a score suitable for propelling a “space opera” from start to finish. But surely no serious composer would want to spend his time with a plot whose climax

87 Ibid. 88 Ibid.

138 involved — to borrow a phrase from Anthony Davis — a “shoot-out with laser guns.” 89

A different interpretation of opera’s place in culture is not one of science-fiction operas but of “monster operas” or gothic thrillers. On 23 September 1990, Wierzbicki wrote another article for the Dispatch which discusses Frankenstein , entitled “‘Golem’

Ancient Tale with Modern Implications.” He begins the article with a discussion of artificial intelligence and the fears that arise from the idea, as an introduction to “two new operas that deal with creations gone awry”: Larsen’s Frankenstein and John

Casken’s Golem .90 While Wierzbicki did not see Frankenstein , he read much about the opera and says that

everything I read suggests that it is faithful to the moral and philosophical content of Shelley’s novel. It is not, like so many of the “Frankenstein” movies churned out by Hollywood, a mere thriller about a monster on the loose. Rather, it is a serious study on the meaning of humanness. Shelley’s character ... was in the beginning almost a perfect man; all he lacked was a soul, but unfortunately he was quite intelligent enough to realize this, and it was this realization — much more than his gradual physical deterioration — that caused him to turn against his maker. 91

David Patrick Stearns also considers the place of the gothic thriller on-stage. In an article in USA Today published on 24 May 1990, the day before the premiere of

Larsen’s Frankenstein , Stearns states that the success of The Phantom of the Opera resulted in audiences wanting more gothic horror stories on stage, enjoying “passion with a perverse twist.” 92 Stearns points out that plots based on gothic novels are well

89 Ibid. 90 James Wierzbicki, “‘Golem’ Ancient Tale with Moden Implications,” St. Louis Post Dispatch (Missouri), 23 September 1990. 91 Ibid. 92 David Patrick Stearns, “ Phantom Stirs a Hunger for more Gothic Thrillers,” USA Today (24 May 1990).

139 constructed, which he finds is a relief after recent shows with minimal plot. In addition,

“the sense of fantasy in these stories invites stage pyrotechnics that are popular with modern audiences.” 93 Stearns notes that Larsen’s opera uses projection screens from which the audience sees the world from the Monster’s perspective. Also, the Monster

speaks with electronically generated sounds, accompanied by synthesizer. As a result, the Victorian life onstage has a striking resemblance to modern life offstage: Jekyll takes chemicals that change his personality. Frankenstein creates monsters that go out of control and start murdering those around them. Says Larsen, “We’re reconstructing myths in order to ask questions about what is to become of us.” 94

Other examples of recent gothic plots are Jekyll and Hyde , a musical with songs by Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse premiered by Houston’s Alley Theater, and

Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray , of which Joe Bravaco and Bob Cioffi wrote one of three musical versions whose off-Broadway production was well-received.95

Second Productions

While Frankenstein has not yet received further performances, Northwestern

University had discussions with Larsen in 1994 about producing the opera, but the performance was never realized. 96 Apparently there was a casting problem, as one of the leads backed out of the opera (the director was Karen Wicklund). As of 31 March

1994, the Northwestern performance, which had been intended for June 1994, was

93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Cynthia Schuneman (E.C. Schirmer, Boston) facsimile to Libby Larsen/Harriet McCleary (8 February 1994).

140 cancelled. 97 However, in preparing for the performance, Larsen found that parts and measures were missing from the copies sent to the university. During this process,

Larsen had the orchestral score, vocal score, and instrumental parts engraved by Carol

Barnett, with whom she has worked for years.

Larsen admits that changes to a score during the first performance are a problem with opera, as edits occur during the final preparations of a premiere. Larsen says that

the first round of materials of the score and parts is as fluid as the first production. So it really, unless you have a battery of copyists right there on the spot copying as you go, as you work on the premiere, there is a period of time when score and parts have to reconciled for future performances. 98

Larsen sent the final masters for Frankenstein to the publisher on 25 February 1994. In her cover letter to Schirmer, Larsen notes that the piano/vocal score in her hand that the publishers already have is obsolete and that the piano/vocal masters being sent are the definitive ones prepared by Carol Barnett. 99 Production of the opera also requires a set of master discs for the EMAX II sampler, which contains the “chorus parts, storm sounds, the monster’s voice, Frankenstein’s scream, and other effects.” 100 In fact, there are no chorus parts since they are found on the sampler from the E-MAX. 101 During the performance of Frankenstein they did a live mix in performance.

97 Cynthia Schuneman (E.C. Schirmer, Boston) facsimile to Libby Larsen/Harriet McCleary (5 April 1994); Harriet McCleary (Minneapolis, MN) facsimile to Cynthia Schuneman (Boston) (28 March 1994). 98 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H. 99 Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) facsimile to Cynthia Schuneman (Boston) (22 February 1994). 100 Ibid. 101 Harriet McCleary (Minneapolis, MN) facsimile to Cynthia Schuneman (Boston) (18 February 1994).

141 Frankenstein was taped on 25 May 1990 for National Public Radio’s “The

World of Opera” series, broadcasting in the fall of 1990.102 According to Larsen, Bruce

Scott and another staff member “did the live mix recording.” 103 In June 1992, Larsen was contacted by Brian Bernstein of Sony Music, who was interested in using a recorded excerpt of Frankenstein for a compact disc set the company was compiling as a companion piece to the text book Music! It’s Role and Importance In Our Lives .104 By

January 1993, Larsen had signed the licensing agreement with Sony Music Special

Projects, which included a 2:30 minute excerpt of Scene 4 from Frankenstein , as well as a 2:30 minute excerpt from Larsen’s “Comin’ to Town” from The Settling Years.105 In order to grant licensing privileges, Larsen also had to pay the members of the orchestra an additional amount as part of their recording agreements per the American Federation of Musicians. Larsen eventually paid the orchestra members a total of $2834.40 in order to release the recording to Sony Music. 106 Larsen says of this extra recording fee that she “took it out of the commissioning fee. I think I made negative five cents an hour on it.” 107 Larsen thought the extra expense worth being in order to be included as an

American composer in the textbook.

102 Contract between Libby Larsen and Steve Lund, “Personal Service Contract Blank American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada,” for a Documentary non-air educational recording (16 July 1993); McLellan, “Opera: Into the Heart of a Monster.” 103 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H. 104 Brian Bernstein (Sony Special Music Products, New York) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) (19 June 1992). 105 Ralph G. De Palma (Sony Special Music Products, New York) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) (11 January 1993). 106 Steve Lund to Libby Larsen, memo regarding “Documentary Non-Air Use” (16 July 1993); Contract between Libby Larsen and Steve Lund. 107 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H.

142 Charles Fowler, the editor of Music! It’s Role and Importance In Our Lives , wanted to include Larsen in Chapter 18: Three Musical Creators. The other two individuals discussed in this chapter highlighting American music were Duke Ellington and Aaron Copland. Placing Larsen on the same level as these two other household names indicates her rising stature among musical authorities. Fowler used Larsen’s music in order to explore characteristics of American music such as rhythm. Fowler chose the pieces to include in the textbook. Not only does Fowler include descriptions of the music, but he also asks students what they hear in the music and to listen for specific items in the musical examples. For the Frankenstein excerpt, Fowler asks:

“How does Larsen’s music in her opera Frankenstein help to add atmosphere and activate our imagination? What does Larsen do with rhythm, melody, mood, dynamics, timbre, and texture to make the scene and section believable?” 108 Larsen says that she did not work with Fowler on the text: “It’s his idea, and it has to be that. I can’t and nor do I want to control how people see the music.” 109

Conclusion

In Frankenstein Larsen set out to bring the essence of Shelley’s original tale to the operatic stage, and her adaptation is successful. In addition, Larsen’s musical structure reinforces her main themes: unforeseen consequences to technological achievement and the inability of the creator to love and accept responsibility for his creation.

108 Charles, Fowler, ed., Music! It’s Role and Importance in Our Lives (Glencoe, MacMilla/MacGraw Hill: 1994), 353. 109 Larsen, Interview, Appendix H.

143 Larsen’s use of the Innocence Theme is a prime example of how she uses one idea, both musical and metaphorical, to connect and pull together her opera. The recurrences and variations of the Innocence Theme through the opera underscore how the most innocent and vulnerable are destroyed by the rampaging monster, or, to place it in context of the opera’s overall theme, the death of innocent people is the result of scientific advancement without regard to consequences.

Larsen’s use of musical ideas, such as the Innocence Theme or What the

Monster Saw , creates an intricate web of thought, action, and drama. The music enhances the psychological drama portrayed by all of the characters, adding deeper meaning to their words and actions. In particular, using “Chaos” and “Need” from What the Monster Saw during Victor’s aria about creating life foreshadows the coming tragedy and provides insight into his motives. Victor needs to bring order from chaos — to master nature. As with the Monster, Victor’s need is ultimately unfulfilled because his ordering of chaos, his creation, in turn creates chaos.

Chapter 4:

Eric Hermannson’s Soul (1998)

The story surrounding the commission for Eric Hermannson’s Soul is complicated by the fact that the piece began life as a one-act chamber opera and was later expanded into a full-length two-act opera. Thus, there are in actuality two separate commissions. The entire process of developing the two versions can be considered a collaborative adaptation: collaborative in that the composer and performers worked together from sketches of the scenes to complete them before being presented in workshop format, with further input from both performers and audience, and adaptation in that the work is based on a short story written by Willa Cather in 1900. Therefore, the process of developing Eric Hermannson’s Soul exemplifies the dynamics possible in the relationship among patron, composer, and performing ensemble. Upon reading Eric

Hermannson’s Soul , Larsen realized its operatic possibilities, as the story explores the place of music within conflicting cultures, while the surface narrative is one of unrequited love.

Set in the Great Divide wilderness of Nebraska, Cather’s story depicts the fight for Eric Hermannson’s soul between Asa Skinner and his Free Gospel Church on one hand and the beautiful and sophisticated New Yorker Margaret Ellis on the other. A gifted fiddler, Eric breaks his violin, the symbol of his soul, upon his conversion, as the evangelicals believed the violin a symbol of sin. Eric’s soul is later redeemed and his joy returned when he dances with Margaret and takes up the violin again. Thus, through music, Eric’s soul lives and encounters God. Margaret herself also finds her own soul

144 145 by discovering through her relationship with Eric that her soul is open to love.

“Margaret learns that love brings joy to life, even if only for a moment. Eric learns that love is a greater truth than fear.” 1 At the end of their encounter, Eric takes up his violin again while Margaret returns to her life in New York.

Larsen uses pre-existing material to highlight musically the differences between the three cultures depicted in the story:

1) Norwegian fiddle tunes for Eric and his life before conversion;

2) Protestant hymns for Asa Skinner and the Free Gospellers;

3) European composed melodies for Margaret Ellis.

This hearkens back to a long tradition in opera of using musical styles characteristic of different classes to aurally highlight cultural clashes. Larsen adds music to the story and in doing so, creates a work that depicts the transcendent potential in music. This chapter will discuss the original commission, followed by the creation of the chamber version and its later transformation into a two-act opera, highlighting how Larsen’s musical structures enhance the themes of the narrative.

Commission for the Chamber Version and Full-Length Version

In February 1994, Larsen was the first President’s Fine Arts Scholar/Artist in

Residence at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she met Mary Robert, the former general manager and artistic director of Opera Omaha. Together with Karen

White, dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Robert broached the idea of creating a chamber opera utilizing a subject related to the region.

1 Libby Larsen, Eric Hermannson’s Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), i.

146 During their discussion, the list of possible topics was narrowed down to a literary work written by either Willa Cather or Ray Bradbury. Larsen was most insistent about

Bradbury as a source, in part because she was fascinated with science fiction topics, but also because she had never read Cather. However, since Larsen is always open to new ideas, she agreed to read through Cather’s works to see if any appealed to her.

Larsen began by reading O Pioneers! , My Antonia , and The Song of the Lark , but she thought that the dramatic enhancements created by operatic settings of those novels would turn the works into melodramas. 2 Larsen prefers subject matter in which a musical setting enhances dramatic action without superseding it. Subsequently, she started reading Cather’s short stories, where she found the major themes of Cather’s larger novels in seminal form. In addition, Larsen thought that the characters and length of the short stories were more easily adaptable to a chamber opera. In particular, Larsen found that three short stories by Cather, Eric Hermannson’s Soul , Peter , and Nanette in the Sun , offered operatic possibilities.

The original idea behind the first commission was for a trilogy of one-act chamber operas, suitable for colleges and small opera houses. Part of the university’s enthusiasm for the commission was for the workshop component. Although the contract was worded for three one-act operas, the commissioning groups were still cautious about their joint endeavor, so the plan was to only set Eric Hermannson’s Soul for the workshop premiere on 10 April 1996. If Opera Omaha and the University of Nebraska at Omaha were pleased with the result, they would then commission the other two short

2 Libby Larsen email to Angie Maves (22 November 1999).

147 stories, to be premiered in 1998. 3 For the workshop premiere, Opera Omaha supplied singers for the main roles, while University of Nebraska students provided the supporting roles and chorus.

The chamber version comprises five scenes that in effect function as five vignettes drawn from Cather’s short story. Since the opera was presented in a workshop format, a great deal of discussion ensued about the work and its structure. This resulted in a great deal of interest in seeing the vignettes elaborated upon and connected to create more of a sustained narrative, that is, a full-length opera. Therefore, instead of commissioning the remainder of the Cather Trilogy, Opera Omaha commissioned a full- length opera of Eric Hermannson’s Soul , which premiered on 15 November 1998.

At the time Larsen began working on Eric Hermannson’s Soul , Hal France was artistic director and principal conductor for Opera Omaha. Larsen met with France during the second week of October 1995 while she was in a residency in Omaha. That same week, Larsen also met with composition students at the University of Nebraska and held master classes. She also spoke at South High and attended a press conference regarding Eric Hermannson’s Soul .4

By mid-January 1996, Hal France and Larsen had settled on additional forces for the workshop premiere: oboe, violin 1 (probably playing both on-stage and in the pit), violin 2, viola, cello, bass, one percussion, sampler/synthesizer, and piano (one on

3 Libby Larsen, typewritten notes on upcoming commissions for Oxford University Press (10 August 1995). 4 Libby Larsen memo to Oxford University Press (10 August 1995).

148 stage and one in the pit). 5 However, the instrumental performing forces as actually realized were violin, piano, percussion, and synthesizer. 6

Table 4.1: A list of the cast requirements and possible cast members for the April 1996 workshop production of the chamber version of Eric Hermannson’s Soul.

Character Part Cast Member Eric Hermannson tenor Todd Miller Margaret Elliot soprano Becky Budd Wyllis Elliot baritone Mark Meyer Asa Skinner tenor Gary Briggle Jerry Lockhart bass not decided: Paul Tranisi or Lincoln Bass Minna Oleson dancer Lori Wilson The Frenchman dancer Kevin Gibbs Lena Hanson dancer Laura Randall Congregation 6 members of the riser chorus Additional supers 3 needed Chorus

Larsen also juxtaposed part of her work for Opera Omaha with a commission by another Nebraska group. Larsen agreed to a residency for the Nebraska Music Teachers

Association from 16 to 18 October 1996. During this residency, performances of

Larsen’s works would be given, as well as the premiere of three songs “based on the works of Willa Cather” for voice and piano. 7 Drawn from Eric Hermannson’s Soul , the result was The Margaret Songs , which have become a widely performed recital piece for sopranos. 8

5 Libby Larsen facsimile to Hal France (22 January 1996). 6 Oxford University Press Catalogue Sheet, no date. 7 Kenton Bales (Omaha, NE) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) (9 April 1996). 8 Libby Larsen, Margaret Songs: Three Songs from Willa Cather for Soprano and Piano (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

149 Chamber Version in Five Scenes

In the workshop version of this opera, each scene focuses on specific ideas in

Cather’s story. The first scene, titled “The Conversion,” depicts the past event where

Eric is converted to Free Gospellism. Eric breaks his fiddle as his musical companions lament Eric’s withdrawal from both their society and practicing his gift of music.

During the second scene, titled “The Visitors,” siblings Wyllis and Margaret Elliot arrive in Nebraska. Margaret sees Eric and is intrigued by him. She is determined to hold a dance in order to get Eric to dance. Margaret and Eric draw closer together in

Scene Three, “The Question,” while out walking in the countryside. After a sudden wind storm during which Eric protects Margaret, he proclaims his love for her. In the fourth scene, “The Letter,” Margaret receives a letter from her fiancé in New York, causing her to realize how empty her life will be and to yearn for “one great moment” of love. 9 Scene five, “The Dance,” is the culmination of Eric and Margaret’s relationship. While they both acknowledge their love for each other, they both realize that they can never build a life together. However, Margaret receives her “one moment,” and Eric reclaims his soul by taking up his fiddle again.

While Larsen was researching Norwegian fiddle music, she discovered the music of a very famous fiddler, Ola Brurusten (1806-1892). Larsen found his story quite interesting and relevant, as he “became religious and felt that his life as a fiddler was sinful. He placed his fiddle under the baking stone and burned it up. He did not play again for over twenty years.” 10 Brurusten’s story may have convinced Larsen to

9 Larsen, Eric Hermannson’s Soul (1996), ii. 10 Libby Larsen facsimile to Hal France (22 January 1996).

150 incorporate Norwegian fiddle tunes into her opera more extensively than she had originally planned, as she was intrigued by the connection between art and real life. She uses fiddle tunes in four of the five scenes, as shown in Table 4.2.

Table 4.2: Pieces quoted in the chamber opera, including the scenes in which they occur.

Name of the piece Genre Occurrence Springleik Norwegian Fiddle Tune Scenes 1 and 5 Lalmingen Norwegian Fiddle Tune Scene 2 Sinclairhallingen Norwegian Fiddle Tune Scene 3 Valse e Anders Sveen Norwegian Fiddle Tune Scene 5 Springleik på Norwegian Fiddle Tune Scene 5 Gjermundstille “Home, Sweet Home” European Composed Scene 2 by Henry Bishop Music

Early on in the composition process, the performing forces were decided: Eric—

Tenor; Margaret—Soprano; Wyllis—Baritone; Asa Skinner—character Tenor; and a

Chorus that takes a very active role. In fact, much of the structure of the work was determined by the inclusion of the university chorus as part of the commission. For example, in Scene One after the introduction, which is a Norwegian fiddle tune called

Springleik (see Example 4.1), the chorus enters singing a haunting setting of “Song,” a

Willa Cather poem, which is drawn from April Twilights and Other Poems (1923 edition) as are all of the other Cather poems set in the opera. 11 The theme of loss in the poem is echoed in the harmonic underpinning of D minor contrasting with the fiddle tune’s joyful opening of D major. This harmonic contrast thus foreshadows Eric’s loss

11 Willa Cather, April Twilights and Other Poems (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923), 43.

151 as he abandons his joy in playing music upon his conversion. Later in the scene, the chorus reinforces the abhorrence with which the religious sect regards music by providing a backdrop to Skinner’s exhortations through rhythmic stomps and claps. The chorus again plays a pivotal role towards the end of the scene as Skinner drives Eric to religious enthusiasm. As the chorus sings Larsen’s setting of the hymn “Glory to the

Bleeding Lamb,” the text of which Cather wrote for this scene, Eric accepts Skinner’s religion and breaks his fiddle. 12

Example 4.1: The opening measures of both the Chamber Version, Scene 1 and the Full-Length opera, Act 1, Prologue, measures 1-19, showing Springleik , which becomes an important fiddle tune in the longer opera.

12 Willa Cather, 24 Short Stories (NY: Penguin Classics, 1988), 96.

152 The opening of Scene Two also follows the form of the first scene, beginning with a Norwegian fiddle tune, Lalmingen , followed by the chorus singing a verse from

Cather’s poem, “Going Home (Burlington Route).” 13 Unlike Scene one, Lalmingen echoes throughout Margaret’s reminiscence of New York as she contrasts her pessimistic memories with the delights she sees about her. Lalmingen also repeats itself in its entirety after Margaret tells Wyllis of her first encounter with Eric.

Scene Three begins with the violin and piano playing Sinclairhalligan . After the first statement, the chorus takes over the song, set to syllables “Da La.” The remainder of the scene is between Margaret and Eric as they discuss their future. When Margaret asks Eric to dance with her the next evening, the Sinclairhalligan appears in the piano part. The scene concludes with Eric singing an aria about his feelings for Margaret.

In Scene Four, Larsen again utilizes a poem by Cather to evoke the mood of the scene. The chorus sings the first and last verse of “Evening Song.”14 Larsen’s most prominent use of the chorus is in this scene, with almost half of it taken up with choral music. The poem’s poignant text reads:

Dear love, what thing of all the things that be Is ever worth one thought from you or me, Save only Love, Save only Love?

So blind is life, so long at last is sleep, And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep, And none but Love, And none but Love.

The setting is equally melancholy, basically in dorian mode with an occasional drone on

‘g’ and a brief excursion to A minor. All of this sets the tone as Margaret sits to read a

13 Cather, April Twilights , 66. 14 Ibid., 26.

153 letter from her fiancé, Jack. As the letter is recited by a chorus member over music

(dorian juxtaposed over mixolydian with one moment of firm D major), Margaret becomes more depressed. Echoes of the Springleik appear towards the end of the scene, underneath Margaret’s lament on the dreariness of her future life in New York.

As seen in Table 4.2, two fiddle tunes appear in Scene 5, which is appropriate considering that the backdrop for this scene is a folk dance. The first third of the scene is instrumental, during which Eric plays the violin again. After Eric plays, he and

Margaret dance to Springleik på Gjermundstille . When Margaret grows tired, the couple leaves the dance to walk while echoes of the dance music continue. The chorus enters singing Cather’s poem “Autumn Melody.” 15 Echoes of dance music return as Eric and

Margaret say goodbye. After a short and testy meeting between Asa Skinner and Eric, the scene ends to fiddle music and the clap/stomp patterns from Skinner’s congregation in Scene 1. Thus the music reflects Eric’s reconciliation between music and religion as he reclaims his soul.

In all, Larsen incorporated five Norwegian fiddle tunes into the chamber opera, as well as one piece of European composed music, “Home, Sweet Home” by Henry

Bishop. Table 4.2 lists the different pieces and the scenes in which they occur. When

Larsen expanded this work into a full-length opera, she increased the number of works quoted, specifically adding hymn tunes and more European composed music.

15 Ibid., 55.

154 Audience Survey and Reviews of the Chamber Opera

Eric Hermannson’s Soul is an example of how a work evolves as it is created and how that evolution is influenced by performers, students, directors, and the audience. During workshops, music students and professionals from the opera company gave Larsen input. After workshop performances, audience members also had opportunity to comment. Larsen believes that as she integrated some of the comments into the work, the process gave Eric Hermannson’s Soul more substance. Larsen said that she and Hal France wanted to hear from the audience “not because we want to know whether they like (harmonic) dissonance or consonance but whether the story itself is really connecting.” 16

In addition to verbal exchanges during a question and answer period, surveys were distributed to both audience members and participants as part of the workshop presentation.17 Approximately 250 people attended the workshop reading on 10 April

1996, of whom 180 purchased tickets. Complimentary tickets had been given to Omaha

Opera staff, university faculty and students, as well as students from South High

School, which Larsen had visited earlier in her residency. Forty-two people returned their questionnaires; thirteen were from performers and twenty-nine from audience members. The small sample skewed the results for demographic information, as the report notes that many younger people were in the audience but the majority of respondents were over forty. The summary indicates that “the highlight of the

16 Chris Shuii, “Opera Omaha Presents American Composer’s World Premiere,” Wichita (KS) Eagle, 12 November 1998. 17 Opera Omaha, “New Work/Development Grant Report,” to Libby Larsen (30 April 1996). A copy of the nine-page report sent to Opera America providing a summary of the workshop questionnaire.

155 preparation period and workshop presentation was the opportunity of working with Ms.

Larsen.” 18

In general, the participants all responded very positively to the experience of working with Larsen, playing a role in developing and performing a new work. One drawback was that Larsen’s residencies were short, consisting of one to two weeks at a time. Larsen would arrive with sketches of the scenes that she would work on with the students and then complete at her home in Minnesota. During her last residency, with nine days of rehearsal before the premiere, they were still working on Scene 5.19

Therefore, many participants felt they did not have enough rehearsal time. As far as the subject, some wanted there to be more conflict and more emphasis on Margaret’s and

Eric’s motivations.

The audience particularly enjoyed being able to hear the composer talk about various elements of the opera. Apparently, the discussion was such that many felt that they were drawn into the creative process themselves. Bruce Baker, professor of

English at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, provided introductory comments about

Eric Hermannson’s Soul . There were also many Willa Cather enthusiasts in the audience who were touched by the music Larsen created to enhance Cather’s words and ideas. However, some wondered if the finished opera would find an audience outside of

Nebraska, where the “Willa Cather connection” generates interest. 20 The criticisms were sometimes contradictory: some felt the piece too long, others too short. In addition,

18 Ibid., 2. 19 Kyle MacMillan, “Opera Puts Will Cather’s Words to Music,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 10 April 1996. 20 Opera Omaha, “New Work/Development Grant Report,” 9.

156 some were disappointed in the sets and stage direction. Others wanted to see more character development, especially with Margaret and Eric.

Larsen’s overall compositional process for this piece is directly related to the nature of the collaboration. By presenting the opera first in workshops and receiving feedback from participants and spectators, Larsen opened the creative process to all involved. In adapting the work according to input from others, she demonstrated a sensitivity towards the performer and audience not frequently found among modern composers. Chas Rader-Shieber says that Larsen “thrived” on the comments during the workshops. 21 She listened, responded to the remarks, then incorporated them into the work. Larsen says of her process when working with others:

For me the tricky balance is finding productive places for collaboration. The best collaboration takes place around the writing process but not in it… I get really perturbed if, in the middle of rehearsal, say, a singer comes in and says, ‘I don’t want to sing this line and that line,’ and essentially takes out five or six of the lines that make a piece work. When people start messing around with the placing of notes on a page, that’s where I draw the line. But it’s so helpful to hear what Hal thinks about the character of Asa Skinner, or Jane [Hill], who has a really fine theater sense. She’ll say, ‘Well, I’ve actually been thinking hard about this. I think that Eric’s mother…’ and then say something utterly important. I guess I’ve always worked that way. It’s more of a jazz approach and less of a classical one. 22

When Larsen has no trust with the performers, she finds that collaboration falters.

However, in this instance, Larsen received a great deal of support of and belief in the project from members of the Omaha community.

21 Courtland Kirkeby, “Soul Reclaimed: The Birth of an American Opera,” Omaha, Lincoln and Council Bluffs (NE) Reader, 12 November 1998. 22 Ibid.

157 In his review of the workshop production Kyle MacMillan of the Omaha World

Herald wrote that the workshop’s sparse production was suited to the subject.

And it fits Ms. Larsen’s operatic philosophy, which places the focus on the characters as opposed to sets, costumes or even plot. “The characters ought to be able to sit on stools and sing the piece, and you ought to be able to feel that piece fully,” Ms. Larsen said. 23 MacMillan also said that “the score tends to be subtle and spare, and Miss Larsen is never afraid to let singers perform in silence.” 24 He also found the use of the fiddle tunes mixed with the chorus quite effective. In particular, the chorus was powerful:

Its serves sometimes as Eric’s inner voice or as a kind of outside commentator, and provides a kind of musical backdrop, adding color, depth, contrast and emphasis. 25

Second Incarnation: Two-Act Opera

From the comments received after the workshop performance, it was clear to

Larsen and France that there was significant interest in seeing Eric Hermannson’s Soul further developed for Opera Omaha. By 21 June 1996, Larsen had heard from Opera

Omaha that they were “ready to move ahead on The Willa Cather opera.” 26 At that time,

France was still considering Eric Hermannson’s Soul to be a shorter work, albeit expanded from the workshop version, with one companion piece, Paul’s Case , instead of the original trilogy. 27 However, by January 1997 Larsen was definitely set to work on

Eric Hermannson’s Soul , without the addition of any companion piece. 28

23 MacMillan, “Opera Puts.” 24 Kyle MacMillan, “Workshop a Welcome Adventure,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 11 April 1996. 25 Ibid. 26 Libby Larsen facsimile to Susan Brailove (21 June 1996). 27 Hal France facsimile to Libby Larsen (30 December 1996). 28 Libby Larsen, handwritten notes.

158 Larsen wrote the libretto for the chamber version, drawing the dialogue from

Cather’s own short story. France wondered if Larsen would benefit from having a librettist to bounce ideas off of in creating additional scenes not found in Cather’s original story. 29 Larsen agreed to work on the libretto for the expanded opera with Chas

Rader-Shieber, who had designed the staging for the chamber version, so he was already familiar with the piece. The terms of their working relationship were finalized by the end of August 1997.30 However, the two had already begun working together before signing their contract, as Rader-Shieber sent a first rough draft of the libretto to

Larsen on 1 June 1997. 31 This rough draft is actually an outline for the expanded opera, setting in the new scenes to heighten character development for Margaret and her brother Wyllis, Eric, Lena, Eric’s mother, and Skinner. Larsen made notations over her copy indicating where to use music previously composed for the chamber version. Over the summer of 1997, Rader-Shieber continued writing the libretto, sending scenes to

Larsen as he completed them, with Larsen returning comments. The two appear to have worked quite well together on re-shaping the opera.

Although the complete first draft is dated 1 October 1997, most of the libretto had been written by September 1997. Several new scenes were performed by ten singers with piano accompaniment on 19 September 1997 at the University of Nebraska at

Omaha. As with the workshop presentation of the chamber opera, the audience,

29 Hal France facsimile to Libby Larsen (30 December 1996). 30 “Memorandum of Agreement”, Libby Larsen and Chas Rader-Shieber, August 1997, Libby Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 31 Chas Rader-Shieber to Libby Larsen (1 June 1997).

159 estimated at 220 people, was able to ask questions and comment on the expanded opera. 32

One of the changes about which Larsen and Rader-Shieber thought a great deal was the use of the Quartet in the two-act version. This Quartet, comprised of a soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, took over the role the chorus in the chamber version, transformed into a Greek Chorus. The music and texts sung by the Quartet become a commentary on the action, using Cather’s own poetry to create the gloss. The Quartet also helps provide long-term musical structure as they interweave in and out of the opera. For example, the prologue to Act 1 is in effect a Rondo with an introduction by a solo violin followed by the form ABACADA, the Quartet being “A” singing “Going Home,” and each episode being a scene. “B” consists of Margaret and Wyllis on the train, “C” is a scene in

Genereau’s Saloon, and “D” is a discussion between Asa Skinner and Eric’s mother.

Table 4.3 helps illustrate the overall form of the Prologue as well as indicating where material was drawn from the Chamber Version.

Each Rondo episode is new material from the chamber version inserted in order to enhance the plot. In addition, each section sheds light on the three basic cultures that ultimately shape and create the conflict within the opera. Wyllis and Margaret introduce their East Coast sophistication and sensibilities while traveling on the train through

Nebraska. The scene in Genereau’s Saloon introduces Eric’s musical friends, especially

Lena who is in love with Eric, while demonstrating what Eric’s life was like before his

32 Kyle MacMillan, “Opera Brings Cather Story to Life,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 26 September 1997.

160 conversion. The final scene of the prologue depicts Asa Skinner speaking with Eric’s mother, who is concerned about the state of her son’s soul due to his love of music.

Table 4.3: Outline of the Prologue from the Two-Act Version, comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted. Two-Act Version Measure Chamber Version Two-Act Form numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Springleik 1-24 Scene 1, 1-24 Introduction Going Home, 25-76 Scene 2, 167-215 A1 Burlington Route Margaret and Wyllis 77-137 B Springleik (fragment) 138-141 A2 Going Home 142-183 Scene 2 Lena in Genereau’s 184-239 C Saloon Going Home 237-262 Scene 2 A3 Do Not Ask, O Lord, 255-260 D That Life May Be Skinner and Eric’s 263-303 mom Do Not Ask, O Lord, 285-296 That Life May Be Going Home 302-349 Scene 2 A4

The music for the Quartet that ties the prologue together is particularly compelling, while consisting of slight variations in each incarnation. However, Larsen’s original setting from the chamber opera does not appear until the fourth statement.

Table 4.4 provides the text sung by the Quartet in each of the rondo statements. The text for A4 is longer and a complete verse of the poem. The full text was sung by the chorus in the Chamber Version, while the Quartet sings the same music in the full-length opera in order to complete the prologue.

161 Table 4.4: The text sung by the Quartet in the Prologue to Act I of the full-length opera, along with an indication of its place in the Rondo.

A1 How smoothly the train runs beyond the Missouri. Even in my sleep I know when I have crossed the river. The wheels turn as if they were glad to go; How smoothly the train runs beyond the Missouri.

A2 How smoothly the train runs beyond the Missouri. Even in my sleep I know when I have crossed the river. The wheels turn as if they were glad to go; How smoothly the train runs beyond the Missouri.

A3 How smoothly the train runs beyond the Missouri. Even in my sleep I know when I have crossed the river.

A4 How smoothly the train runs beyond the Missouri. Even in my sleep I know when I have crossed the river. They run like running water, like youth running away. They spin along the bright rails singing and humming, singing and humming, humming. They run rememb’ring, They run rejoicing, As if they too were going home.

As in the chamber opera, musical quotation plays a significant role in Larsen’s two-act version. As might be expected in a larger piece, Larsen incorporates more pre- existing material into the body of the opera. Table 4.5 lists the works quoted in both the chamber and two-act operas. There are three new Norwegian fiddle tunes in the larger work, one appearing in the Act I Prologue, and two in the expanded dance scene. One fiddle tune is omitted from the longer opera: Sinclairhallingen from Scene 3. The

“Intermezzo” from Cavalleria Rusticana is introduced in Act I, Scene 2, as the piece that draws Eric to Margaret. The piece of European composed music appearing in the chamber version, “Home, Sweet Home,” is omitted altogether from the two-act version.

162 Table 4.5: Pieces quoted in the two-act opera and chamber opera, including the scenes in which they occur.

Name of the piece Genre Occurrence in Occurrence in Two-Act Opera Chamber Opera Springleik Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act I, Prologue Scenes 1 and 5 Reiñlenderar Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act I, Prologue Med en Primula veris European Composed Act I, Prologue (Edvard Grieg) Music Lalmingen Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act I, Prologue Scene 2 I Do Not Ask O Lord Hymn Act I, Scene 1 That Life May Be Shall We Gather At the Hymn Act I, Scene 1 River God Be With You ‘Til Hymn Act I, Scene 1 We Meet Again Springleik Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act I, Scene 2 Scenes 1 and 5 “Intermezzo” from European Composed Act I, Scene 2 Cavalleria Rusticana Music (Mascagni) “Musetta’s Waltz” from European Composed Act I, Scene 2 La Boheme (Puccini) Music “La Donna e Mobile” European Composed Act I, Scene 2 from Rigoletto (Verdi) Music “Je Suis Titania” from European Composed Act I, Scene 2 Mignon (Thomas) Music “Ode to Joy” from the European Composed Act I, Scene 2 Ninth Symphony Music (Beethoven) All the Way My Savior Hymn Act II, Scene 2 Leads Me Skotsk Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act II, Scene 4 Sinclairhallingen Norwegian Fiddle Tune Scene 3 Valse e Anders Sveen Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act II, Scene 4 Scene 5 Larsdansk in Five Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act II, Scene 4 Springleik på Norwegian Fiddle Tune Act II, Scene 4 Scene 5 Gjermundstille Home, Sweet Home by European Composed Scene 5 Henry Bishop Music

Larsen introduced four Protestant hymn tunes in the two-act opera, three in Act

I, Scene 1 during Eric’s conversion, and the fourth in Act II, Scene 2, when Margaret tempts Eric into coming to the dance. The additional hymn tunes are related to Asa

163 Skinner’s slightly expanded role in the opera. Not only is Skinner in the Act 1 prologue, but he also appears in Act 1, Scene 1, Part 2 (the conversion scene), and in scenes 1 and

4 of the second act. In the conversion scene, Skinner chants much of his part as his congregation claps and stomps (see example 4.2). In the example shown, the congregation is stomping on the lower notes and clapping on the higher notes. Critics found this scene very affecting in the contrasts between the rhythm of the congregation, the declamatory chant of Skinner, and hymns. For example, said Chris Shuii of the

Wichita Eagle ,

Larsen also integrated non-metered stomping and clapping into the multilayered score from “Eric Hermannson’s Soul,” bringing a modern edge to the sometimes clashing folk and classical idioms present in the music. 33

And William Littler of the Toronto Star ,

There are some striking touches in the score, such has having the congregation respond voicelessly to its preacher's fiery sermon, with rhythmic clapping and foot stomping.34

In contrast to the hymns and the rhythmic congregation, Larsen utilizes the Lydian scale, because she liked the symbolism of the “devil’s tone” of the augmented fourth. 35

33 Shuii, “Opera Omaha Presents.” 34 William Littler, “Universal Truths in Cornhusker Opera Omaha Production Speaks to All of Us, But Will Anyone Outside Nebraska Be Listening?” Toronto Star, 21 November 1998. 35 Kyle MacMillan, “Opera Puts.”

164

Example 4.2: An excerpt from Act 1, Scene 2 (mm. 593-600) where ostensibly Asa Skinner is preaching to his congregation about the evils of fiddle music, when in reality, his sermon is directed towards Eric.

In another addition to the Chamber Version, Margaret encounters Asa Skinner in Act 2,

Scene 1. Skinner observes that Margaret and Eric are drawn to each other. He warns her to beware, but Margaret responds with:

He mustn’t beware of his heart. His music. His wide open country of yellow and green. For that’s his soul and it can’t be crushed not by you or me or anyone! 36

Skinner gives her a further warning that Margaret disregards.

36 Libby Larsen, Eric Hermannson’s Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 110-111.

165 Skinner makes his final appearance at the end of Act 2 after the dance is over.

He has been waiting for Eric, saddened that Eric is lost to the faithful. Interspersed throughout their conversation are excerpts from the hymn “Shall We Gather At the

River.” Eric ends by singing the final line of Cather’s short story, which just hangs in the air due to the sparse orchestration:

And a day shall be as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day.37

The Quartet finishes the opera with a section of “Going Home” as Margaret and Wyllis board their train. In the meantime, the townspeople dance, clap and stomp, liberated from their Free Gospel repression as well (see example 4.3). In addition, a brief excerpt from Springleik appears in the solo violin, symbolizing Eric’s soul reclaimed.

37 Cather, 24 Short Stories , 117; Larsen, Eric , 191-192.

166

Example 4.3: An excerpt towards the end of Act 2, Scene 4, mm. 1111-1113. The chorus, at the top of the score, claps on the higher notes and stomps on the lower notes, as indicated by a “C” or “S” in the score. The part for the Quartet is located in the third system, vocalizing a section of “Going Home.”

167 Larsen believes that the key moment in the opera is at the end of Act I, after Eric has heard the Intermezzo. When Eric shares his response to such music, something in

Margaret shifts. Larsen says,

Without that moment, … that keystone moment of her changing, the opera would be meaningless. It would be: ‘So what?’ She has to change. 38

In Act 1, Scene 2, Margaret is playing some of her favorite pieces on a Victrola while trying to write a letter to her fiancé Jack. The Springleik that opens the prologue also introduces this scene. As in the prologue, the Quartet enters singing a setting to one of

Cather’s poems, “Song,” which is about a troubadour who is no longer “young and gay.” 39 Music from the Springleik and Quartet overlap, indicating that Eric is the troubadour who experienced grief and loss. Musically, this section concludes with the

Springleik in the solo violin merging into the Intermezzo from Cavallieri Rusticano (see example 4.4).

38 Kyle MacMillan, “Years of Work to Culminate in Opera’s World Premiere,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 8 November 1998. 39 Cather, April Twilights , 43.

168

Example 4.4: From Act I, Scene 2, the Springleik concludes in mm. 688-689 while the Intermezzo emerges in measure 689. Margaret hums along, then tries to begin her letter.

Eric enters the scene, amazed that such music exists. Margaret re-starts the

Victrola so that Eric can hear Intermezzo again. Misinterpreting Eric’s reaction, she begins flirting with him during the Intermezzo (see example 4.5, mm. 763-774).

169

Example 4.5: Act 1, Scene 2, mm. 763-774, where Margaret has been flirting with Eric about dancing, while Eric remains transfixed by the “Intermezzo” from Cavallieri Rusticano . Eric begins talking about the music in m. 774.

170 Margaret has been hoping to convince Eric to come to the dance she is planning.

When Eric becomes upset, she assumes that it is because he forswore music. Instead she learns that Eric thought the music and her singing was like the music found in heaven, which reminded him of his dead brother. Margaret learns that Eric converted to Free

Gospellism in large part because of his brother’s death. The beauty of Margaret’s voice had started him thinking that such music might lead to reunion with his brother in heaven, and not prevent it. At this moment, Eric’s transformation begins. Margaret’s transformation has also begun. She has been humbled and shamed by her frivolous assault on Eric and dancing.

Margaret’s reaction to Eric’s revelation begins in Scene 3 after Eric leaves and

Wyllis enters. Underneath Margaret’s soliloquy a variation on “Intermezzo” occurs.

Now when Margaret pursues Eric, it is in order to help him reclaim music and redeem his soul, not for her own personal pleasures. For Larsen, this transformation of

Margaret’s is pivotal: from spoiled socialite to selfless action.

The transformation of Margaret and Eric comes to its completion in Act II,

Scene 2, while Eric and Margaret are walking outside as a storm brews. Table C.6 in

Appendix C outlines Act II, Scene 2 and compares the places where music from the

Chamber Version is inserted. The hymn “All the Way My Savior Leads Me” is sung during their dialogue, as Margaret tempts Eric to come to the dance (example 4.6). The hymn continues as Eric debates with himself, then agrees to dance with Margaret, all the time believing that doing so damns his soul. This is really the climax of the opera, as

Eric makes his decision in near silence. The following scene has Margaret finally

171 realizing her role in redeeming Eric’s soul, while at the same time coming to terms with her own life. The final scene of the dance is an acting out of the psychological underpinnings of the opera; it is not the climax but more of an unwinding from the moment when Eric says “yes” to Margaret. The fact that the opera has no true climatic moment bothered a number of critics. 40

40 For example, Robert Markow, Opera (London: February 1999): 194.

172

Example 4.6: Act II, Scene 2, mm. 259-266, where Margaret asks Eric to dance with her, over the chorus singing “All the Way My Savior Leads Me.”

Preview Concerts

In addition to the initial workshop production, Opera Omaha held several other workshops and preview concerts. 41 For example, on 20 September 1997, eleven performers from Opera Omaha traveled to Willa Cather’s birthplace of Red Cloud,

Nebraska where they performed excerpts from Eric Hermannson’s Soul . The concert was held at the Red Cloud High School gymnasium. 42 However, the Red Cloud Chief described the event as a symposium. Larsen, Rader-Shieber and France were all present

41 Kyle MacMillan, “A Keynote Season,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 31 August 1997; MacMillan, “Opera Brings Cather.” 42 Barbara Tupper, “Cather Story Becomes Opera,” Hastings (NE) Tribune, 24 September 1997.

173 to provide discussion about the process of adapting Cather’s short story to opera. 43

Another preview was during a summer evening performance of an excerpt by the

Omaha Symphony outside of the Joslyn Art Museum before some 4,200 people. 44

Opera Omaha also arranged for Larsen to host a day on the Nebraska Public

Radio Network on 2 November 1998, shortly before the premiere. On that day, each hour from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,

the broadcast will include her compositions as well as recordings of a wide range of composers and musicians who have influenced her, from Maurice Ravel and Leonard Bernstein to jazz pianists Meade Lux Lewis and Willie “The Lion” Smith. 45

The opera company’s enthusiasm and support for the development of Eric

Hermannson’s Soul also generated interest in the opera community outside of Nebraska.

Reviewers came to see the premiere from as far away as Japan.

The premiere’s significance has not been lost on the rest of the country. It was mentioned in Time magazine and more recently in a roundup of happenings in the November issue of BBC Music Magazine. Ten critics tentatively are scheduled to review the work, including writers from the Wall Street Journal, Toronto Star and the San Francisco bureau of the Mainichi Newspapers of Japan. … 46

Critics

Critics generally addressed the following topics: plot, production elements (for example staging, costume and lighting design), libretto, adaptation from Cather, music,

43 “Opera Omaha Provides Preview of Opera Based on Cather Short Story,” Red Cloud (NE) Chief, 25 September 1997. 44 Kyle MacMillan, “Symphony Under Stars Was Grand,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 31 August 1998. 45 “Composer to Host Daylong Program,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 1 November 1998. 46 Kyle MacMillan, “Opera’s Birth a Milestone,” Omaha (NE) World Herald, 11 November 1998.

174 performers, and location, that is, local interest versus universal appeal. Most critics found the set and lighting design beautifully suited to the topic. 47 For example,

The strikingly simple scenery of Judy Gailen consisted of open, largely abstract modular set pieces rolled or dropped in to suggest the opera's locations. Always visible was a simulated wheat field in back and more importantly a handsomely painted sky, which dominated the stage just as the real one does on the open spaces of Nebraska.48

Opinions were mixed on Chas Rader-Shieber’s staging. For the most part, critics found his libretto a fine adaptation of Cather’s story. 49 Cather experts, such as Bruce Baker, representing the Willa Cather foundation, agreed, saying that

Cather’s opposition to adaptations of her works were based on the quality of interpretations. This [opera] is done with integrity, respect, [and] insight into what is created beyond the written page. … She loved opera and music and the written word. The performers pay attention to diction. I think she would like it. 50

Robert Markow of the London magazine Opera said that

Larsen’s librettist, Chas Rader-Schieber, masterfully expanded Cather’s story into an operatic text, rearranging to some extent the order of events but omitting none of the substance in his smoothly flowing sequence of events. 51

Critics compared Larsen’s opera to Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah (1955). 52 For example, Sarah Bryan Miller of the St. Louis Post Dispatch said that “Musically and dramatically, Eric falls somewhere between Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah and Aaron

47 Sarah Bryan Miller, “Opera Omaha Premieres Libby Larson’s [sic] New Work,” St. Louis (MO) Post- Dispatch, 15 November 1998. 48 Kyle MacMillan, “Opera is Evocative and Compelling,” Omaha (NE) World Herald , 12 November 1998. 49 MacMillan, “Opera is Evocative”; Markow, Opera , 194. 50 “Opera Omaha Provides Preview of Opera Based on Cather Short Story,” Red Cloud (NE) Chief , 25 September 1997. 51 Markow, Opera , 194. 52 MacMillan, “Opera is Evocative.”

175 Copland’s The Tender Land .” 53 In his review for the Toronto Star William Littler remarked

In terms of its musical idiom, this is an opera that could have been written half a century ago. Accessibly tonal and rooted in its place (a Norwegian fiddle tune supplies the very first notes), it follows in the musical footsteps of such Americana classics as Moore’s The Ballad Of Baby Doe , Copland’s The Tender Land and Floyd’s Susannah .54

Larsen is credited with having the courage to “write overtly beautiful music” that is

“unabashedly tonal and romantic.” 55 Wes Blomster of the Boulder Daily wrote:

Yet both Cather and Larsen know that the essence of art is to portray the specific in a way that reveals the universal behind it…Larsen’s genius lies in her ability to write music that is totally accessible — the new score is unashamedly tonal — yet never condescending. 56

Joan Bunke of the Des Moines Register said that:

It is opera that is cerebral and psychological more often than it is physical, but it carries within itself all of Cather’s emotional intensity... 57

One complaint that critics had with the adaptation was the decision to keep Eric a rather inarticulate character. Thus the title character did not sing nearly as much as

Margaret. Heidi Waleson of the Wall Street Journal remarked that

the adapters misconceived the balance between the two principal characters, and thus lost much of the power of Cather’s original… The opera became Margaret’s story rather than Eric’s… 58

William Littler agreed, saying that

53 Miller, “Opera Omaha.” 54 Littler, “Universal Truths.” 55 Kyle MacMillan, “Opera is Evocative”; Miller, “Opera Omaha.”. 56 Wes Blomster, “Opera Omaha Moves Cather from the Page to the Stage,” Boulder (CO) Daily Camera , 22 November 1998. 57 Joan Bunke, “Emotionally Tense Opera in Omaha,” Des Moines (IA) Register , 13 November 1998. 58 Heidi Waleson, “Cather: A Native’s Story,” Wall Street Journal , 30 November 1998.

176 If Larsen is guilty of a few miscalculations … they reside chiefly in her treatment of the title character, whose awkwardness with words is rendered all too faithfully, at the price of giving the most lyrically expressive music to Margaret, the lady from the East, and thereby unwittingly turning her into the dominant character. 59

Overall, the flaws pointed out by critics were much fewer than the accolades handed out. Most thought the opera a fine work, deserving of more performances.

However, several authors were concerned that the subject matter might limit the opera’s appeal to companies located outside of the mid-west. 60 Regional operas, or works that are perceived to have a strong component of local interest, seldom generate interest by companies from other regions. William Littler writes about this extensively in his review:

Nationally beloved as she subsequently became, Cather herself was initially dismissed as a purely regional writer. When a New York critic reviewed her early novel, O Pioneers! … he followed his fulsome words of praise with the damning question: Who really cares what goes on in Nebraska? The answer to this question is the same one that could follow its application to the novels of William Faulkner or the paintings of Alex Colville: The universal can often be most effectively experienced through the local. Nebraskans welcome Eric Hermannson’s Soul … because it speaks to them about themselves and speaks well. But in telling the tale of a Nebraska farmhand’s struggle to find himself, it casts light on the same struggle in all of us… Like Margaret, the girl from the East, we have it within ourselves to be charmed and spiritually awakened by a vision of difference. But all too often in the world of opera, it still takes a journey into the heart of the continent to experience that vision. 61

59 Littler, “Universal Truths.” 60 For example, Blomster, “Opera Omaha.”. 61 Littler, “Universal Truths.”

177 Additional Performances

During the 30th annual Opera America conference, excerpts from Eric

Hermannson’s Soul were performed by University of Houston faculty, students and recent graduates at the University of Houston Moores Opera Center.62 Around 550 representatives from at least eighty opera companies were at the conference.

In Minneapolis on 6-8 April 2001, a fully staged production took place a few weeks before the preview of Barnum’s Bird . Vern Sutton directed the University of

Minnesota Opera Theatre production of Eric Hermannson’s Soul . Akira Mori conducted the performance of at Ted Mann Concert Hall. 63 For the university performance, two sopranos alternated the taxing part of Margaret. The university did have to clarify with Opera Omaha the terms of the original contract in order to stage their production. 64 As the University of Minnesota production was not in co-production with Opera Omaha, it was therefore a different production.

Conclusion

In the development of Eric Hermannson’s Soul from a chamber opera to a full- length opera, Larsen and Opera Omaha experimented with a new way of creating opera.

The synergy present among those involved in the opera’s transformation made the process work, although this took some three years and only worked because Larsen has

62 Charles Ward, “Opera to be Talk of Town,” Houston Chronicle , 30 April 2000. 63 Michael Anthony, “Prolific Larsen in the Spotlight with Two Operas Slated for April,” Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune , 4 March 2001; Michael Anthony, “Opera, Libby Larsen,” Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune , 6 April 2001. 64 James S. Reece (Minneapolis, MN) to Jane Hill (Omaha, NE) and Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN), 9 March 2001.

178 the facility to compose rapidly. However, the workshop/development model could function well for other opera companies and composers, depending on their circumstances. Both Larsen and Opera Omaha were open to the possibilities inherent in a project of this nature. The result is a piece that was tested, in parts, before-hand, and as a whole makes for compelling drama.

Larsen integrates three styles of music (four including her own), in order to reinforce the traits of the characters: Norwegian fiddle tunes, Protestant hymns, and

European art music. As the characters develop and change, the types of music interact in different ways, thereby aurally reinforcing the transformation that both Margaret and

Eric experience.

Chapter 5:

Barnum’s Bird (2000)

Barnum’s Bird highlights a moment in American history when art music and popular culture collided, to the ultimate benefit of both. The subject matter of the choral opera Barnum’s Bird , which was commissioned by the Plymouth Music Series, concerns the events from 1847 to 1852 surrounding Swedish soprano Jenny Lind’s tour of North America sponsored by Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891). At the heart of the opera is the perceived conflict between art and commercialism. Jenny Lind (1820-

1887) wants to share her art in order to enrich lives by singing in such places as orphanages, in addition to singing before larger, paying audiences and donating these ticket sales to charity; Barnum, however, is focused on making a sizeable profit. The advertising genius of Barnum is reflected today in marketing strategies tying goods to performers—think of all of the merchandise available at rock concerts, or CDs sold at art concerts. In addition, Jenny Lind furniture is still a vibrant brand name. And today, we still applaud the artist who is generous with her time, her talent, and her money.

Barnum’s Bird adeptly states the case for respecting both popular and art music, while at the same time arguing that art and generosity should not be submissive to or overcome by market forces.

Barnum, well-known as a genius in marketing products and events, generated so much excitement for Lind’s concerts that she was frequently mobbed by enthusiasts. In addition, Lind found Barnum’s marketing techniques coarse and demeaning, and she felt that a person who resorted to such crude techniques to sell tickets lacked a

179 180 fundamental understanding of the place of art within culture. On the other hand,

Barnum really did want to bring elevated art music to the American masses, and he used any technique in his arsenal to fill the performance venues and bring as many paying customers as possible to hear fine art music. The questions that Larsen chose to explore were: how much commercialism is too much, and when does commercialism become exploitation? For Lind, Barnum went too far. As a working musician herself, Larsen was attracted to this scenario of artistic endeavor versus commercialism as a subject for operatic exploration.

Larsen first became interested in Jenny Lind in 1995 when working on another piece, Seven Ghosts , which incidentally was also commissioned by the Plymouth Music

Series. During her research, Larsen read a letter from Jenny Lind to Harriet Beecher

Stowe, and says of that moment:

I was startled to read her letter — the letter of a truly compassionate human being to the equally compassionate Harriet Beecher Stowe. I was consumed with the idea to learn as much about Jenny Lind as possible. So I did. 1

Larsen began reading about Lind, which in turn led her to Barnum. Later, when Philip

Brunelle, the director of the Plymouth Music Series, told Larsen that he wanted to commission a new piece in honor of her fiftieth birthday, Larsen thought that the

Plymouth Music Singers would be an excellent vehicle through which to pursue the subject of Lind and Barnum.

In arranging for funding for this new work, Brunelle was able to put together a co-commission between the Plymouth Music Singers and the Library of Congress, in order to celebrate the library’s 200th anniversary. One of the requirements set by the

1 Libby Larsen and Bridget Carpenter, Proposal for Barnum’s Bird: A Work in Progress (n. d.), 1. 181 Library of Congress was that the resulting work had to be on an American subject. The subject matter was in and of itself no difficulty since Larsen had been looking for a venue in which to explore Lind’s and Barnum’s relationship. The piece also had to utilize resources from the Library in some way during its inception, which Larsen fulfilled by incorporating minstrel songs and other Americana found in the Library’s collection.

Larsen’s choral opera Barnum’s Bird premiered on 1 February 2002 in the

Coolidge Auditorium of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. The opera was designed to be performed in a small space, as Coolidge Auditorium could only seat 483 people. Thus, the orchestra was small, consisting of flute, piano, percussion, and strings (minus bass). However, performing forces were also kept to a minimum as Brunelle wanted to be able to take the piece on tour. There are four main singing roles: Jenny Lind, Phineas Taylor Barnum, Giovanni Belletti (Lind’s traveling companion and fellow singer), and Tom Thumb. The work was also scored for two choirs, one of which was a smaller ensemble of eight vocalists who took on various roles throughout the piece (called the “Chorus of Eight”). Therefore, Larsen’s piece was considered a choral opera because of the strong presence of the two choirs. 2 Barnum’s

Bird was also considered a choral vaudeville, which was how Larsen thought of the work, due to the nature of the roles sung by the chorus of eight. 3 The work was also designated a cabaret opera because of the structure of the piece, which consists of vignettes drawn from music both newly composed by Larsen and contemporary to

2 Joe Benno, “The Songbird and the Huckster,” The Washington Post (4 February 2002). 3 Michael Anthony, “Jenny Oh!” Minneapolis Star Tribune (15 April 2001). 182 1850, the year in which the opera was set. 4 Brunelle in particular liked the idea of a cabaret opera.

Barnum’s Bird is in two acts. In the first act, Barnum searches for a new enterprise, the “next big thing” to bring to the American people. As a possible show,

Tom Thumb mentions Jenny Lind, nicknamed “the Swedish Nightingale,” the most famous soprano in Europe. Barnum, captivated by the idea, sends Tom Thumb to

Europe to negotiate a concert tour with Jenny Lind. After some persuasion, and the promise of “no cheap public display,” Lind agrees to a tour of 150 concerts and signs the contract with some conditions. 5 Although not mentioned in the opera, Lind secured a retainer from Barnum in 1847 for $187,500 (or approximately $5.12 million in 2010 dollars) for the tour. 6

While Act I is comprised of a Prologue and three scenes, the second act consists of a Prologue and nine scenes. This increase in the number of scenes causes the second act to run about ten minutes longer than the first. However, the timing of the action moves more quickly as the opera accelerates to the penultimate scene, and many of these scenes are through-composed. During the second act Barnum begins preparing the public for Lind’s American tour. Upon discovering that few people had heard of her,

Barnum embarks on an extensive advertising campaign, tying specific merchandise to

Lind’s name and hosting numerous press conferences. In the meantime, Lind and

Belletti make the passage to the United States and disembark from their ship in New

York City. Greeted by crowds, an aggressive press corps, and the winners of a song

4 Minneapolis Star Tribune (14 May 2000). 5 Libby Larsen, Barnum’s Bird (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 102-103. 6 Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson, “MeasuringWorth,” 2011, URL http://www.measuringworth.com , using the Historic Standard of Living Value. 183 contest in Lind’s honor, Lind retires from the scene appalled at Barnum’s handling of her arrival. Barnum immediately begins auctioning off tickets to the first concert, much to Lind’s disgust. The concerts begin, and Lind completes one aria, Bellini’s “Casta

Diva” from Norma , before the heckling begins. Barnum continues his machinations to raise Jenny Lind enthusiasm among the populace, and Lind, increasingly more distressed, sings concerts, only to be heckled and interrupted. Disgusted, Lind confronts

Barnum, saying she wants to sing more charity concerts. As that was the only way that

Lind would perform the money-making concerts, Barnum agrees. The concerts begin again until Lind is too tired to go on. She buys out the remainder of her contract, having sung ninety-five concerts for Barnum. Barnum finally begins to understand that Lind sings not to entertain, but to share her art, and that her need to give her earnings to charity is integral to her very being. A temperance man himself, and pious in his own way, Barnum finally understands that Lind’s way of life and his way of entertaining are incompatible. Thus, despite their differences, the two part amicably.

As Larsen worked on the libretto with playwright Bridget Carpenter, two basic contrasting elements took shape: 1) European cultural entertainments of the art song and opera aria versus American popular entertainments of the minstrel shows; and 2) Lind’s desire to share her art with others and use art to help fund charity works versus

Barnum’s desire to entertain large numbers of people at a maximum profit. Distilling these themes and creating an engaging story from which the music could unfold was a long and arduous task.

184 Working with the Librettist

Most of Larsen’s operas are drawn from literature, in which case crafting the libretto is more a matter of streamlining the plot than of creating an entire scenario.

However, Barnum’s Bird is a historical subject, drawn from actual events and once- living persons. In this case, writing a libretto held challenges involving plot creation, character development, and integrating historical facts while maintaining a coherent narrative, all the while lending itself to operatic treatment. Realizing all of this, Larsen began searching for a librettist, interviewing several possible collaborators. She selected

Bridget Carpenter, who though from Los Angeles was then “the 1999 NEA/TCG

Playwright-in-Residence at the Guthrie Theater” in Minneapolis. 7 In addition, Carpenter had also received numerous grants and fellowships, including the 1997 Princess Grace

Playwrighting Award, two consecutive Jerome Fellowships, a Ford Foundation Grant, and a NEA Arts Corps Fellowship. 8 Although Carpenter had never worked on an operatic project before, Larsen liked her enthusiasm for the project.

Originally, Larsen wanted to write a serious opera on Barnum and Lind’s relationship. However, after Carpenter began her research into Barnum and Lind, she was struck by the comic possibilities inherent from Barnum’s personality and experiences. Carpenter wanted to bring out Barnum’s showmanship, incorporating some of the ideas from minstrel shows popular at the time. Larsen saw that she could musically enhance these ideas and agreed to go in the comic direction. Nevertheless,

7 Larsen and Carpenter, Proposal , 2. 8 Ibid. 185 she admits to having been quite upset at the shift from serious to comic. 9 In addition,

Larsen, Brunelle, and Carpenter had discussed making the opera a pastiche, drawing on musical elements from the 1850s in order to meet the commission requirements from the Library of Congress.

Thus, the formal structure of the opera was influenced by the nature of this commission with the Library of Congress. Since Larsen had to utilize the Library’s resources, she envisioned a pastiche early on, drawing from mid-nineteenth-century materials found in their music collection. In the first draft of the libretto, which was delivered to Larsen on 18 December 1999, Carpenter reflected these ideas in numerous places by simply stating of Lind, “singing a famous aria,” or “Jenny sings,” leaving it up to Larsen to choose the pieces that fit best with her musical conception. 10 In this first draft, Carpenter provided three parts, with the first scene fully sketched out and the remainder simply a list of scenes.

By the time Larsen received the next draft of the libretto, Carpenter had moved to Los Angeles in order to further her playwriting career. 11 When Larsen received the second draft, the two were able to meet in person on 11 March 2000 since Larsen was in

Los Angeles for a performance of her works with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. 12

Carpenter’s move to California caused problems with the development of Barnum’s

Bird . For example, Larsen had deliberately looked for a local author in order to facilitate their working process. Since the two were creating an entire storyline together,

9 “An Interview with composer Libby Larsen: Barnum’s Bird : Choir Concert or Cabaret Opera?” Upbeat! (Spring 2001): 4-5. 10 Libby Larsen and Bridget Carpenter, Barnum’s Bird , libretto draft (18 December 1999). 11 Bridget Carpenter email to Libby Larsen (16 November 1999). 12 Libby Larsen email to Bridget Carpenter (8 March 2000); Bridget Carpenter email to Libby Larsen (8 March 2000). 186 a long-distance collaboration hindered Larsen’s progress, especially since Carpenter had not previously worked on an opera and had a tendency to write too much dialogue and over-explain something that the music itself could portray. In other words, Carpenter had a large learning curve for writing a libretto and then moved away from her mentor at the beginning of the process. In fact, Carpenter said of the project early on that

Barnum’s Bird is my most ambitious endeavor to date. Its action is both sprawling and compressed. … Its themes (art vs. commercial enterprise, passion, freedom) are both epic and timely. 13

Another aspect of Carpenter’s move that frustrated Larsen and Brunelle was that they lost one source of funding. The Jerome Foundation grant was dependent on both composer and librettist being Minnesota residents. 14

Although Carpenter was quite open to suggestions and willing to alter her dialogue to suit Larsen, by the time all of Larsen’s research was complete, their relationship was somewhat strained. For example, Larsen did not receive the next draft of the libretto, which was incomplete, until 25 June 2000, putting her behind schedule for having enough material composed for a workshop in September of that year.

However, Larsen’s original timeline was completely wrong, as she had wanted to have all of the research finished by 1 December 1999 yet did not visit the Library of

Congress until March 2000.

Bridget’s and my plan is to have the research done around December 1, 1999 and then begin working together over December and January. We’ll have something to workshop in late January. We’re on track to have this piece to Philip Brunelle by the end of August. In the meantime, I have a couple of test songs written from Jenny’s point of view. My first

13 Larsen and Carpenter, Proposal , 5. 14 Philip Brunnelle, Plymouth Music Series (Minneapolis, MN) to Bridget Carpenter (Pacific Palisades, CA) (26 January 2001). 187 vision for this idea was a song cycle, and I did compose a couple of songs before abandoning the idea. 15

Their initial timeline appeared quite optimistic. However, the issue of timeline is not in and of itself the fault of Carpenter or Larsen. Due to various reasons, they got behind.

Table 5.1 contains a list of the versions of the libretto that Larsen received, the date she received them, and from whom she received them. This last category is significant as Larsen turned to a local Minnesota artist, Jon Cranney, to complete and edit the libretto. Cranney also happened to be the stage director for Barnum’s Bird , so he was already involved with the project.

Table 5.1: The timeline of when Larsen received drafts of the libretto for Barnum’s Bird , and from whom she received the libretto.

Number/name of draft Date received Author Draft #1 18 December 1999 Bridget Carpenter Draft #2 11 March 2000 Bridget Carpenter Outline 31 May 2000 Jon Cranney Draft #3 25 June 2000 Bridget Carpenter Draft #4 12 July 2000 Bridget Carpenter Draft #5 20 August 2000 Jon Cranney Composing Libretto 25 September 2000 Jon Cranney

Despite the difficulties between composer and librettist, Larsen is quite charitable when speaking of Carpenter.

Bridget Carpenter is a very talented young playwright and came to the project with all kinds of enthusiasm and talent and a certain quality of language that was perfect for the piece. We worked very much together in the way that I do like to work and she gave the original shape to the piece. At that time she was living in the Twin Cities and she was working with the Guthrie Theater and writing new plays. And then her

15 Larsen and Carpenter, Proposal , 5. 188 life changed so that she moved to Hollywood and started working for DreamWorks. We were still working on the libretto, so that put distance [between us]. However, she kind of reached the end of what she knew — of how she knew to work with the material to make it a libretto. So Jon Cranney, who ended up directing the piece, came into the project. Jon and I then shaped the libretto so that it was a libretto rather than a play. That’s how it worked. It’s really Bridget, Jon and Libby who made the libretto. And it works. It completely works. … I wanted very current American language, so that I could contrast it with language from the period. … She’s a brilliant playwright. Her plays are really fabulous. ... It actually worked just fine because we had me thinking musically on the libretto, Bridget thinking theatrically and [as] playwright, and Jon was a director helping shape and focus the combination of Bridget and Libby so that it became a perfect libretto. … It’s the three of us. This is a place where sum of the parts makes the whole better than any of us are. Bridget was particularly brilliant at developing Barnum. 16

Therefore, Larsen believes that the challenges all three faced in shaping the libretto actually made it a better product.

Research

The initial research for Barnum’s Bird was undertaken by Andrea Erickson, who was an expert on Jenny Lind and P.T. Barnum. Larsen frequently went to Erickson, who worked for Writers and Artists Research Service, for background materials for her various projects. As early as July 1999 Erickson was gathering information about

Lind’s American tour. She sent Larsen a bibliography of sources related to Barnum,

Lind, and the tour. In addition, Erickson sent a list of tour stops, to which she continued making additions as she did more research. She also provided Larsen with an extensive list of the charitable contributions Lind made while on tour, with the approximate dates

16 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author (21 November 2005), Appendix H. 189 of each gift. 17 Erickson’s early research was important to the project as Jon Channey later incorporated the list of tour stops into Act II.

After meeting with Carpenter in March 2000, Larsen traveled to Washington,

DC to spend time at the Library of Congress. On 13 March, Larsen had a series of meetings at the Library of Congress, one with James Billington, the Librarian of

Congress, who announced the commission and encouraged his staff to assist with the project. 18 However, most of the day was spent with Philip Brunnelle, Frank Stubbs

(General Manager for the Plymouth Music Series), and Jon Newson (head of the Music

Division). One of the music librarians, Robert Saldini, was assigned to help Larsen find old American songs. In addition, Wayne Shirley, an American music specialist at the

Library, was helpful in providing musical examples from Lind’s tour in America. For example, he sent Larsen several dances that were named for Jenny Lind, including the

Wallerstein/Dodworth “Jenny Lind Polka.” 19

Since this opera is based on a historical subject, Larsen and Carpenter thoroughly researched their topic. Episodes that wound up depicted in the opera were collected from newspaper clippings from Lind’s tour, as well as articles about both Lind and Barnum. For example, the Boston Daily Evening Transcript dated 19 October 1850 mentioned Lind’s Philadelphia concert at the Chestnut Theater, and Mr. Root, a

17 Andrea Erickson to Libby Larsen (26 July 1999), cover letter followed by information sheets. 18 Libby Larsen email to Bridget Carpenter (15 March 2000). 19 Wayne Shirley, Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) (17 August 2000). 190 daguerreotypist who made the highest bid for a ticket. 20 This incident is depicted in Act

II, Scene 7, mm. 913-916. 21

An article by A. Oakey Hall, “When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden,” found in Larsen’s papers, describes in great detail Lind’s arrival in America: her debarkation off the boat to her first concert. William Allen Butler, a sarcastic poet, wrote the following on Lind’s arrival, which Barnum was supposed to have said:

So, Jenny come along: you’re just the card for me, And quit these kings and queens for the country of the free; Folks’ll welcome you with speeches and serenades and rockets, And you shall touch their hearts and I shall tap their pockets; And if between us both the public isn’t skinned Why my name isn’t Barnum, nor your name Jenny Lind. 22

These words also became the source of the text found in Act II, Part 3, when Barnum sings of his triumph in getting Lind to come to America.

Of the set pieces Lind sings in the opera, all but one were sung by Lind during her tour. That one exception is “Oh World! Oh Life! Oh Time!” found in Act I, Scene 3, to a text by Percy Bysshe Shelley and set to music by Larsen. Larsen’s inspiration for this lament sung by Lind was drawn from the article “My Mother as I Recall Her” by

Mrs. Raymond Maude. A copy of this article by Lind’s daughter is in Larsen’s papers, with the following highlighted:

I have already said that my mother’s piano playing was a talent of its own — being quite an unconventional one. She never played pieces, and had no great execution, her left hand having been lamed in childhood and scarred through a mishap in the use of a flint and steel in striking a light. But her improvisations were delightful, chiefly in the minor key,

20 Copy of clipping found in “Barnum, Research,” Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 21 Larsen, Barnum’s Bird , 288-289. 22 A. Oakey Hall, “When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden” (n. d.), photo copy in Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 191 threading in themes and phrases from her operas, and generally ending with the singing of a Swedish song or two. 23

At this moment in the opera, Lind is tired of her life and looking for something new.

Carpenter’s version of the scene and its placement within the opera bothered Larsen, as

Carpenter had not found a compelling way in which to demonstrate Lind’s state of mind. Larsen wondered about using the above quote as a way of reflecting Lind’s angst.

Cranney suggested using a poem by period poets instead and provided Larsen with some possibilities. Larsen thought that “Oh World! Oh Life! Oh Time!” fitted their scenario, and she created the haunting piece to begin the scene, the text of which appears only in the published libretto. Not only, then, is this an example of how their research was incorporated into the story, but also demonstrates how the three worked together in order to make continual improvements to the libretto.

Use of Quotation

In her score, Larsen realized the contrasting elements between European art music and American popular music such as that in minstrel shows by incorporating music sung at the time of Lind’s American tour in 1850. In addition to the pieces sung by Lind, Larsen incorporated minstrel songs, several piano pieces written in honor of

Lind, and American popular songs, as listed in Table 5.2. One reason for using pre- existing pieces in the opera was to highlight the differences between European and

American musical cultures. With the assistance of librarians in the Music Division at

23 Mrs. Raymond Maude, “My Mother as I Recall Her,” copy of clipping found in “Barnum, Research,” Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 192 the Library of Congress, Larsen had a wealth of minstrel songs and other published period pieces available for her use.

Table 5.2: A list of the individual pieces quoted in Barnum’s Bird , their location within the opera, and the performing forces.

Composition, composer, source Act and Measures Performing Scene Forces Gioacchino Rossini, “Largo e Factorum,” Act 1, Scene 1 120-195 Belletti, piano Il barbiere di Siviglia (Milano: G. Ricordi, c. 1816-1899).

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, “Hear Ye, Act I, Scene 1 198-253 Lind, piano Israel,” Elijah (Bonn, 1847). “The Bonja Song,” Gumbo Chaff’s Act I, Scene 1 254-282 Chorus, strings Ethiopian Glee Book , Part II (Boston: J. A. and W. Geib, 1848). A. Wallerstein, Jenny Lind’s Favorite Act I, Scene 2 307-355 Piano, strings Polka (Boston: Oliver Ditson, n.d.).

Libby Larsen, “The Moustache Song,” Act I, Scene 2 507-539 Solo bass, chorus, Words Collected, 1909. piano, cello Percy Bysshe Shelley (text), Libby Larsen Act I, Scene 3 696-706 Lind, piano, strings (music), “Oh World! Oh Life! Oh Time!” Dailey Paskman, “Stop That Knocking at Act I, Scene 3 774-817 Tenor solo, bass My Door,” Gentlemen, Be Seated, A solo, chorus, piano Parade of the American Minstrels (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1976). Gladys Denny Schultz, “So Jenny Come Act I, Scene 3 914-935; Chorus, chorus of Along,” Jenny Lind the Swedish 944-971 8, Barnum, strings Nightingale (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1962). Text by Parnassus. Dr. Galindo, Jenny Lind Grande Valse de Act II, 1-5; 10-74 Chorus, chorus of Caprice (New York: Firth, Hall and Pond, Prologue 8, piano, strings 1847). Louis von der Mehden, “Sing a Song of Act II, Scene 2 146-161; Chorus of 8, Six-Pence,” Mother Goose’s Vocal 219-226; strings, percussion th Lancers , 10 edition (San Francisco: Above plus flute Sherman, Clay & Co., 1881). Lyrics by 244-258; Belletti, piano Bridget Carpenter and Libby Larsen. 268-275 Daily Pasken, “Josephus Orange Act II, Scene 2 173-181 Mr. Dodge (from Blossom,” Gentlemen, Be Seated , revised chorus of 8), piano ed. (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1976). H. Benedict (music) and Bayard Taylor Act II, Scene 4 439-535 Charity Taylor (lyrics), Jenny Lind’s Greeting to America (from chorus of 8), (New York: Firth, Pond and Company; Tom, piano Sam C. Jolie, 1850). 193 Composition, composer, source Act and Measures Performing Scene Forces Vincenzo Bellini, “Casta Diva, che Act II, Scene 6 661-717 Lind, flute, piano inargenti,” Norma (Milano: G. Ricordi, Act II, Scene 7 768-773; Lind, strings c.1831-1899). 794-805; Lind Act II, Scene 8 865-872 Piano 1019-1023 Stephen Foster, The Camptown Races Act II, Scene 7 770-773; Chorus, piano (London: Musical Bouquet Office, 784-786; Mr. Dodge, piano c.1855-1899). 789-791; Chorus, chorus of 8, flute, percussion 868-874; Chorus of 8, flute, piano, strings 908-911 Chorus Henry R. Bishop, “Home Sweet Home,” Act II, Scene 7 806-813 Chorus, strings Clari; or the Maid of Milan (1823). Text Act II, Scene 8 1024-1041 Tom, Lind, piano by Howard Payne, 1823. 1008-1011 Flute, piano Waldemar Thrane, “Kom kjyra” (Boston: Act II, Scene 7 822-845 Lind, piano Oliver Ditson Co., 1908). Julios Fucik, Entry of the Gladiators , Act II, Scene 2 228-230; Flute, strings arranged for piano (London: Hawkes & Act II, Scene 8 237-239 Piano, strings Son, 1903). 1008-1016

Larsen’s use of quotation in the first act effectively establishes Lind’s place in the art-song world, as well as Barnum’s place in the vaudeville world. The setting of

Act I, Scene 1 is a Salon where Belletti and Lind are giving a concert. Lind sings a piece from her standard repertoire, Mendelssohn’s “Hear Ye Israel”. As Lind finishes the aria, Tom Thumb and the Minstrel Chorus enter singing “The Bonja Song,” shown in example 5.1. In this excerpt from the piano/vocal score, the piano (bottom stave) continues Mendelssohn’s aria, while the piano music in the stave second from the bottom (orchestrated for strings) starts the minstrel song. Note that in this spot where the two music cultures first meet the time signatures of 3/8 and 4/4 overlap. 194

Example 5.1: Act I, Scene 1, mm. 252-254, where Mendelssohn’s “Hear Ye Israel” ends and “The Bonja Song” begins. 195 Another instance of quotation that helps add further depth to the narrative occurs in Act I, Scene 2 where Barnum is trying to figure out his next project. He is debating with himself the merits of the sideshow attractions that he has previously favored. As an example of the ridiculous, the “Moustache Man” enters. For Larsen, familiarity with the song quoted was not necessarily important. Instead, it is the contrast of musical idioms that makes her point. Larsen says

…a fundamental question when you’re writing — any kind of writing — is who can read what I have to write and who can listen to what I have to say musically. So sometimes I quote as a way of creating a connection. Sometimes I quote as a way of proposing an investigation. In Barnum’s Bird , most of the quoting is about proposing an investigation. It’s not about, “Hey, do you know this tune?” No! Nobody knows the “Mustache Man.” … I set it up [as] a puzzle between how music was heard at the time and what was the source of that music — the banjo, the minstrel show — and how we hear music today versus how we heard the music at the time, and within this framework, where is the voice of the composer, as we know it academically. 24

This comparison of styles can be seen in examples 5.2 and 5.3, where the former is music Larsen composed for Barnum, and the latter the music she composed to accompany the “Moustache Man” lyrics. Barnum’s part uses major seconds, with a harmonic structure that uses chord tones a third apart such as E-flat minor against G major. In contrast, the “Moustache Man” is in D major.

24 Libby Larsen, Interview with the Author (21 November 2005), Appendix H. 196

Example 5.2: Act I, Scene 2, mm. 459-463. Barnum is singing about the different shows that he has put together for American audiences.

197

Example 5.3: In this fragment from Act I, Scene 2, a solo bass from the chorus is singing the lyrics to the “Moustache Man,” while the Minstrel Chorus provides the accompaniment. The “g” in the score in m. 513 is a misprint, and is corrected to show “f-sharp.”

Unifying Devices: Revelation Motto

Throughout the opera, the chorus occasionally sings a motto, which I have called “Revelation Motto,” a type of fanfare announcing a revelation by one of the characters. While this motto does not occur at regular intervals, it helps tie the work together by appearing at key moments. Table 5.3 lists the scenes in which the

Revelation Motto appears along with the measure numbers and the first line of the text.

The motto punctuates Act I, scene 2, in which Barnum is exploring ideas for his next big show. The repetition of the motto helps build up excitement to the idea he settles upon: becoming an impresario and bringing Jenny Lind to America. 198 Table 5.3: The occurrences of the Revelation Motto in Barnum’s Bird by Act and Scene, with measure numbers and the first line of the text.

Act and Scene Measures Text I. 1 72-75 Being an introduction and exploration I. 1 114-116 Being a time when a certain class in Europe I. 2 494-501 Being the introduction and the exploration I. 2 541-550 Being the introduction and the exploration I. 2 596-606 Being the introduction and the exploration I. 2 629-645 Being the introduction and the exploration I. 3 886-890 Being the precipitous occasion II. 4 307-313 In which Jenny Lind learns to her dismay II. 4 412-421 In which Jenny Lind learns to her surprise II. 6 657-660 And now, attend the sensational First Night II. 7 761-768 Being the time when Jenny goes on tour II. 7 867-873 Being the city in which Jenny Lind (in augmentation) II. 7 913-917 Philadelphia, PA—Being the concert II. 8 919-922 In which Jenny Lind tired and dismayed II. 8 999-1007 Being the moment in which the exhausted Nightingale II. 9 1112-1113 Being the conclusion of our wondrous tale

When the motto opens Act II, it establishes Barnum’s “Astonishing, Far-

Reaching Preparations for the Swedish Nightingale.” Act II, Scene 7 opens with the

“Revelation Motto” sung by the chorus (see example 5.4). In order to begin the scene with the “Revelation Motto,” Larsen altered the text from Carpenter’s last libretto. The final structure of this entire scene was a result of Larsen’s re-working of Carpenter’s material, with Cranney also substituting text. Larsen was not happy with the ending of the last few scenes and re-wrote them several times with Cranney’s assistance. Not until she was composing those last three scenes did they take their final shape. For Scene 7 in particular, the extensive reworking was due to the musical complexity Larsen wanted to build, which creates the climax of the opera. 199

Example 5.4: Beginning of Act II, Scene 7: The America Tour. “Revelation Motto.”

Bringing Together Styles: Act II, Scenes 2-3

In addition to the contrast between minstrel songs, art songs, and popular songs, the music that Larsen composed for Barnum and Lind was quite distinct. Barnum’s words were set to angular musical lines, and he speaks (or rather, declaims) many of his lines over the chorus. On the other hand, Lind’s words were given more lyrical musical lines, and she rarely talks. This difference between angular and lyrical musical lines emphasizes the contrast between the two personalities: Barnum is portrayed as an impresario of indiscriminate tastes, out to bring “the next big thing” to the American people, whereas Lind is depicted as a genteel lady determined to bring fine music to people and to generously share the wealth that her gift had brought her.

Therefore, Larsen’s use of contrasting musical styles reinforces the major themes of the opera, that is, entertainment versus art and greed versus benevolence. In developing his entertainments, Barnum was known for widely marketing his shows. For example, during his lifetime over forty million people visited Barnum’s American 200 Museum in New York City, when the population of the United States was about forty million people. Barnum embarked upon a massive marketing campaign in order to raise

Lind’s name in the American consciousness. In Act II, Scene 2, Tom Thumb and

Barnum proclaim, “We’ll have a single goal—to publicize her voice and to market her soul!” 25

With that aim in mind, Barnum introduces merchandise named after his new star: Jenny Lind cake, cigars, trout fishing flies, pipes, needles, tea kettles, pudding, a buggy, dahlia, truffle, stove, bed, poker chips, paper doll, mirror, chewing gum, snuff boxes, letter seal, combs, cookie, and a piano, just to name the items mentioned in the opera. And he was quite successful; one can still buy Jenny Lind furniture today, including a complete set of baby furniture and accessories. In Act II, Scene 3, the larger chorus lists these merchandizing items in a rhythmic refrain (which I have called

“Merchants Refrain”), which continues throughout the entire fourth scene. Atop this repeating pattern, the action continues. At first, Barnum and Tom Thumb continue plotting their marketing strategies, as the Chorus of Eight adds another layer of music with the melody “Sing a Song of Six-Pence.” However, the lyrics are altered and begin with “Sing a Song of Barnum.”

Basically, from the beginning of the scene (not all of which is discussed below), the structure is:

Sing a song — Merchants — Address Press — Sing a song — Address

Press — Merchants — Sing a song — Address Press — Sing a song —

25 Larsen, Barnum’s Bird , 155-156. 201 Address Press — Merchants — Address Press — Sing a song (in aug-

mentation by Lind).

The two scenes form an arch. When Barnum addresses the press for the first time, both choirs stop singing; quietly in the accompaniment, a fragment variation for Julius

Fucik’s Entry of the Gladiators occurs. The larger chorus begins their “Merchant’s

Refrain” (m. 240) again, and continues as Scene 3 begins (m. 244), while the Chorus of

Eight begins “Sing a Song of Six-Pence,” this time to the words “Sing a Song of

Jenny,” transposed up a half-step (the first rendition is in Phrygian with a flat-five). The

“Sing a Song” in both Scenes 2 and 3 features a parallel musical structure. After the

“Merchant’s Refrain” and “Sing a Song” cease, the fragmented variation of Fucik occurs again when Barnum talks to the press. During the final conversation with the press, the “Merchants Refrain” begins again as Barnum extols Lind’s angelic virtues.

Meanwhile, Lind hums an augmented variation on “Sing a Song” as Tom Thumb interjects Lind’s objection to “cheap public display,” which Barnum promptly dismisses.

These two scenes underwent numerous permutations and were not set until

Larsen worked with the composing libretto. Table 5.4 shows the contents of each scene in the different drafts of the libretto. Barnum’s aria “You know me” was written in the first draft, albeit in Act I, scene 1. In subsequent drafts, the aria was shortened. In draft number 5, the aria was moved to Act I, scene 2 and not put into its final location until

Larsen began composing. However, the “Merchants of America” was always in Act II,

Part 2, although Cranney set the text in its final form in the composing libretto. The idea of using “Sing a Song” did not enter into the libretto until the fifth draft, which was by 202 Table 5.4: The various drafts of the libretto, the date completed and the author, and the items written for Act II, Scenes 2-3. LL=Libby Larsen; JL=Jenny Lind; GB=Giovanni Belletti; PTB=Phineas Taylor Barnum; TT=Tom Thumb. The asterisk indicates that the items were listed, but that there was no text.

Libretto Date and Material that becomes Material that becomes Author Act II, Scene 2 Act II, Scene 3 Draft #1 12/18/1999 * Barnum media machinery; *hires Belletti [Bridget Carpenter] Chorus: “Merchants of America”, rough form Draft #2 3/11/2000 Advertise: “Merchants of America” Boat Ride (LL cuts); Travel [Bridget Carpenter] [LL notes for Jon Cranney, where is dialogue (LL cuts) the chorus? wants to use chorus as a collective and as individuals]; cuts GB, JL dialogue where GB introducing himself Outline 5/31/2000 Chorus enumerates merchandising GB and JL on boat talk of [Jon Cranney] of JL in America; JL leaves Europe tour; chorus: JL products; PTB markets JL; JL arrives to media frenzy Draft #3 6/25/2000 PTB decides to Advertise: *JL arrives [Bridget Carpenter] “Merchants of America” Draft #4 7/12/2000 PTB decides to Advertise: Press conference with [Bridget Carpenter] “Merchants of America”; “Merchants of America”; JL & GB traveling while JL arrives “Merchants” sing Draft #5 8/20/2000 Part 5 and 6: Barnum’s NYC office [Jon Cranney] & Aboard the Atlantic: Advertise: “Merchants of America”; “Sing a song of Jenny”; “Sing a song of seasickness”; PTB Press conference while JL sings “Panyars dagen (The Mariner)” Composing Libretto Parts 5 and 6: Barnum’s NYC 9/25/2000 [Jon office & Aboard the Atlantic: Cranney] Advertise: “Merchants of America” [minor changes in word order; “Sing a song of Jenny”; “Sing a song of seasickness”; PTB Press conference [some lines cut & rearranged] while JL sings “Panyars dagen (The Mariner)”

[Intermission] Published Libretto Act II Part 2: Barnum’s NY office, Act II Part 3: Aboard PTB, “You Know me, I know you” Atlantic, JL, GB “Sing a TT, chorus, “Merchants of Song of seasickness”, America” chorus

203 Cranney. Thus the final shape of these two scenes occurred while Larsen was composing, with Cranney making changes at Larsen’s discretion. Larsen also composed several sketches of these scenes. This process is much different from how Larsen generally worked, such as with Frankenstein , where once satisfied with the libretto she wrote down the music with no sketches, making very few alterations until going into rehearsals. On the other hand, since Cranney was also stage director, his involvement at this point in writing the opera may have limited changes that occurred after rehearsals started.

Climax: Act II, Scene 7

The climax of the opera occurs in Act II, Scene 7, both in regards to Lind’s refusal to sing for Barnum anymore and in the juxtaposition of musical themes. The opening of Scene 7 depicts the concert in Boston where “Mr. Dodge, a comic vocalist, paid $635 for his ticket.” 26 At her entrance, Lind is singing an excerpt from “Casta

Diva” (the whole of which she sang in Act II, Scene 5) when various hecklers intrude upon her performance. The choir begins singing Stephen Foster’s Camptown Races while Lind valiantly carries on. Eventually, she stops in order to gratify hecklers with a

Bird Song composed for her. The scene continues to be interrupted by fragments of

Camptown Races . The different choirs narrate Lind’s travels, while Lind sings (or at least tries to sing) “Casta Diva” once more (see example 5.5). Again the crowd interposes their comments until Lind continues with the Bird Song . While this rendition of the Bird Song is going on, the large choir hums Henry R. Bishop’s “Home Sweet

26 Larsen, Barnum’s Bird , 255. 204 Home,” with the Chorus of Eight entering a few measures later with another description of the tour.

They had by then reached Richmond, VA, where Lind sings for President

Fillmore. One request is for the Norwegian Echo Song, “Kom kjyra,” which Lind sings.

As Lind prepares to sing the second verse, she is interrupted by Barnum and the hecklers. The “Merchant Refrain” makes an appearance in the chorus and continues until Lind refuses to sing any more concerts for Barnum.

205

Example 5.5: Excerpt from Act II, Scene 7, mm. 866-873, showing “Casta Diva,” Camptown Races , Merchants Refrain, and Revelation Motto.

206 In the beginning of example 5.5, the top line shows Lind’s part, where she attempts “Casta Diva” one more time. At the same time, the chorus is singing the

“Merchants Refrain.” The “Revelation Motto” appears in m. 867 in augmentation, eventually announcing that Lind had had enough at m. 873. Interlaced with this texture is another fragment of Camptown Races (see m. 869). The “Merchant Refrain,” “Casta

Diva,” and Camptown Races all stop when the Chorus of Eight, who are singing the

“Revelation Motto,” reach the words “put her foot down.”

All of these threads come together at the pivotal moment in the opera when Lind acknowledges the essential irreconcilable conflict between Barnum’s entertainments and her art. That essential conflict is also present in the various lines of music. “Casta

Diva” represents Lind’s attempts to share her art with Americans. Camptown Races indicates American popular culture and the usual musical fare heard at concerts.

Heckling was also part of audience behavior. The “Merchants Refrain” conveys

Barnum’s predilection for spectacular advertising, which Lind found cheapening. Tying these elements together is the “Revelation Motto,” which signals Lind’s insight regarding her incompatibility with Barnum.

Following the “Revelation Motto,” Lind has a conversation with Barnum in which she says she wants to stay in Washington, DC to give charity concerts, while

Barnum wants to move on to St. Louis. Barnum had apparently forgotten the clause in

Lind’s contract that stated she could give any number of charity concerts she wanted in a city as long as she had performed two for-profit concerts first. Barnum, baffled by

Lind’s wanting to perform for free, tacitly agrees and then begins auctioning tickets again, to the same auction music found in Act II, Scene 5. 207 In the section beginning in m. 907 depicting their final concert together in

Philadelphia, Larsen again layered musical lines: Lind sings the Bird Song ; Mr. Dodge, drawn form the Chorus of Eight, imitates a trumpet and echoes Lind’s musical phrases; half of the choir vocalizes on Camptown Races while the other half sings the “Merchant

Refrain.” The “Revelation Motto” completes this section. In the following scene (Act II,

Scene 8), Lind breaks with Barnum and buys out her contract. The final scene (Act II,

Scene 9) is a celebration of their success together, with Barnum having learned from

Lind the value of civic duty. Although not depicted in the opera, Larsen found it intriguing that while Barnum never gave up his sense of showmanship and love of making money (he lost one fortune due to bad investments, then made another fortune and died an extremely wealthy man), he was elected to the Connecticut state legislature in 1865 and served as mayor of Bridgeport, CT from 1875 to 1876.

At the musical culmination of the opera, it appears that Barnum’s money- making machinations overcome Lind’s art and that American popular music drowns out

European art music. However, none was really the loser, and perhaps Lind was really the winner. Lind had a strong enough personality that she eventually gained financial advantage over Barnum in regards to her separate tour. So although Barnum’s marketing techniques disgusted her, she reaped more benefit than Barnum in the end.

Larsen had found all of this compelling; it was what drew her to the subject in the first place.

208 Table 5.5: Financial information regarding Lind’s tour of America. 27

Item Actual figures from In 2010 dollars 1847-1852 Lind’s 1847 retainer from Barnum $187,500 $5,120,000 Tour gross earnings in 1851 $712,161 $21,000,000 Barnum’s net earnings (without $535,486 $15,800,000 expenses) Lind’s net earnings after buying out her $176,675 $5,200,000 contract in 1851 Lind’s tour earnings after she left $208,675 $6,080,000 Barnum, 1851-1852 Lind’s donation to school in Stockholm $150,000 $4,370,000 (1852) Total of Lind’s known contributions to $33,000 $951,000 charities in the cities she visited, 1850- 1852

Publicity

There were a number of publicity events for performances both in Minneapolis and Washington, DC. Early in the composition process, Larsen gave a presentation on

Barnum’s Bird to Odyssey members, who are donors responsible for Odyssey commission grants. 28 They later received copies of the finished libretto when the press was sent their preview copies. 29

Shortly before the preview performance in Minneapolis, Larsen was interviewed at Minnesota Public Radio on Tuesday 3 April 2001 by Marianne Combs, who was with

27 William Porter Ware and Thaddeus C. Lockhard, Jr., PT Barnum Presents Jenny Lind: The American Tour of the Swedish Nightingale (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1980); and Officer and Williamson, “MeasuringWorth.” 28 Libby Larsen email to Philip Brunelle (9 July 2000). 29 Libby Larsen email to Russ Bursch (19 March 2001). 209 KNOW/NPR. 30 Combs also interviewed Paul Gunther, Andrea Erickson, and Esther

Heideman during the first week of April 2001. In addition, Combs taped parts of the

Wednesday 4 April rehearsal for use on the radio, creating a program to air on All

Things Considered during the afternoon of 18 April or the morning of 19 April. Later that week, Karl Gehrike from WCAL taped the 10 April rehearsal, taking time to interview Larsen and singers Gary Briggle and Esther Heideman, all for a future broadcast. 31 In addition, John Birge with Minnesota Public Radio interviewed with

Larsen and Brunelle. Birge also created studio recordings at Studio M with the four principals, for both solo and ensemble singing for a segment on his show. 32

Larsen gave a pre-concert lecture hosted by Randall Davidson for the 19 April

2001 performance in Minneapolis. 33 This one-hour “Concert Conversation,” as it was billed, was the only time that Larsen spoke at a performance in Minneapolis.

As part of a coordinated effort with the Plymouth Music Series presentation of

Barnum’s Bird , the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis held an exhibit of Jenny

Lind memorabilia and photographs at the same time as the premiere of the opera.34 The

Institute also circulated information regarding performances of Barnum’s Bird in its newsletter.

Michael Anthony, staff writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune , wrote an engaging piece providing background information on Lind and Barnum the Sunday

30 Katryn Conline email to Philip Brunelle, Libby Larsen, Jon Cranney, and Esther Heideman (2 April 2001). 31 Ibid. 32 Katryn Conline email to Philip Brunelle, Libby Larsen, Jon Cranney, and Esther Heideman (2 April 2001). 33 “Concert Conversation,” Upbeat! (Spring 2001), 4. 34 Philip Brunelle email to Frank Stubbs, Katryn Conlin, David Methner, and Libby Larsen (27 October 2000). 210 prior to the first performance. 35 For the official premiere in Washington, DC, the papers did not provide as much information as did Anthony’s piece, nor was there as much radio coverage. For example, The Washington Post ran a brief announcement about the performance, and a notice also appeared in Voice of the Hill for that week. 36 In addition,

Andrea Murray from WETA interviewed Larsen about Barnum’s Bird , which aired 31

January 2002.

The preview performances were at the Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis,

MN from 19 to 22 of April 2001. The initial performances received positive reviews from the Minnesota press. For instance, William Randall Beard wrote that “Larsen has the audacity to quote Mendelssohn and Bellini at length. And her music more than holds its own with these masters.” 37 He also says that she shows herself to be a “true opera composer…[by] being able to use music dramatically, in order to create vivid characters and to propel the story.” Beard also sees this opera entering the repertoire.

Previews from the Washington premiere were generally positive. Joe Banno’s review was brief, and he compared Barnum’s Bird to Virgil Thomson’s ensemble- narrated operas, which “cast obvious shadows over” Larsen’s opera.38 However, he goes on to say that her “melodic invention is more generous [than Thomson], her skipping polyrhythms less high-strung.” 39 Mostly, Larsen appears to have suffered from being “accessible,” and Banno’s wording is somewhat condescending. Perhaps in response to Banno’s pen, Joe McClellan, “classical music critic emeritus of The

35 Anthony, “Jenny Oh!” 36 “Weekend,” The Washington Post (1 February 2002). 37 William Randall Beard, “Larsen’s ‘Barnum’s Bird’ Looks Like an Instant Classic,” Saint Paul Pioneer Press (21 April 2001). 38 Joe Banno, “The Songbird and The Huckster,” The Washington Post (4 February 2002). 39 Banno, “The Songbird.” 211 Washington Post ,” wrote a more detailed review four days later in Grace Notes at

RedLudwig.com. 40 McClellan calls Barnum’s Bird “delightful,” and finds Larsen’s integration of Rossini, Mendelssohn, Stephen Foster, and other popular songs with her own music quite dramatically effective. He also admires the extent to which the opera adhered to historical fact, which he considers a rare event in opera based on historic figures.

After the opera’s debut in Minneapolis, Philip Brunelle sent thank you letters to all of the donor’s to Barnum’s Bird : Ed Gallagher at the American-Scandinavian

Foundation, Elmer and Eleanor Anderson, Ann Barkelew and Jim O’Hagan, Topsy

Simonson, Ted and Ginny Brooks, Burt and Rusty Cohen, Karen Bohn, Gary Surdel, and Mari Oyanagi Eggum. 41 He informed them of the success of the piece, remarking that they “continue to get calls from people about the production and great interest in future performances.” He enclosed copies of positive reviews. He informed them of the official premiere on 2 February 2002 at the Library of Congress’ Coolidge Auditorium, utilizing the same cast. Brunelle also said:

The visit of the Swedish Ambassador, Jan Eliasson, was a special treat; he was absolutely taken with the work and plans to host a reception at the time of the Washington, DC premiere. Let me know if you can be in Washington at the time! He is also interested in the possibility of a production in Stockholm, Sweden and in Ottawa, Canada. What can I say? Our bags are packed! Several regional opera companies have expressed an interest in performing the work, which is most gratifying: the best thing about a commissioned work is to see it have a life beyond the premiere.

Brunelle eventually toured with Barnum’s Bird , going to Sweden, due to the fact that Jan Eliasson, the Swedish Ambassador who attended both the Minnesota preview

40 Joe McClellan, “Bringing Lind and Barnum to Life,” Grace Notes, RedLudwig.com (8 February 2002). 41 Philip Brunelle email to Libby Larsen (11 May 2001). 212 and the Washington, DC premiere, was particularly struck by the piece. A new production was staged by Opera@Augustana as part of the Genesius Guild Stage

Summer Program at Lincoln Park in Rock Island, Illinois on 12, 13, 19, and 20 of June

2004. Barnum’s Bird received a reading during the Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Opera Workshop in Pittsburgh, PA, on 20 March 2004. Three years later, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Opera Theatre performed the opera on 16-17

November 2007. In addition, Barnum’s Bird aired on the NPR World of Opera on 31

August 2002.42

Conclusion

Larsen wondered about art as entertainment and its perceived value in American culture. In the original proposal sent out to generate funding, and later in the program notes, Larsen wrote the following:

Could this be the original model for touring artists in this country? Could studying this model shed light on our culture’s dilemma – what is art – what is entertainment? As an artist herself, Larsen is intensely interested in the intersection of art and marketing. I wonder why it seems to be difficult for Americans to define art on its own value and merit. I wonder why arts presenting organizations must so often rely on entertainment value in order to entice the audience into their performances of abstract art. I worry about the frustration of artists who are asked to create art which has as its end a certain definition of entertainment. 43

In Barnum’s Bird Larsen uses a historical event, Jenny Lind’s tour of North America, to explore the idea of entertainment at the expense of the artist. Larsen, Carpenter, and

42 www.npr.org/programs/worldofopera/programlisting/Summer2002.hyml . 43 Larsen and Carpenter, Proposal for Barnum’s Bird , 2, italics theirs; Program, Barnum’s Bird: A Choral Opera By Libby Larsen , Library of Congress (1-2 February 2002), 8. The Library program sets Larsen’s words in the first person. In addition, “presenting” is omitted, and the phrase “audience into their performances” is changed to “ audience to attend their performances. ” 213 Cranney all worked on the libretto, shaping different aspects of the story. Carpenter developed the theatrical side, and Cranney provided focus while Larsen established the musical framework. From another perspective, Carpenter contributed the over-the-top entertainment elements, Larsen provided the refinement associated with art music, and

Cranney was the link drawing the two together. Thus their respective roles in creating the libretto reflect the major theme of the opera.

Furthermore, Larsen was free to rework the text in order to fit the musical structure that she envisioned. Once she realized the dramatic potential of the

“Revelation Motto,” she altered scenes in order to use the motto to heighten dramatic tension by recalling the theme’s earlier uses. Thus Larsen also created an aural unifying element within the overall structure.

The motto was also interwoven with the quotations Larsen used, both to illustrate differences among musical cultures and add depth as the story progressed. In the final scenes, Larsen created an interlocking puzzle among the desire to share art

(Lind singing “Casta Diva”), the struggles against popular culture ( Camptown Races ), audience involvement (hecklers), and marketing and greed (“Merchants Refrain”).

Culminating in the “Revelation Motto,” Lind’s response is to simply stop performing.

However, Larsen’s music weaves all of the disparate elements together in such a way as to make one think that, yes, business can coexist with art, and that each musical culture can coexist with the other. Thus Larsen’s way of combining quotations not only reinforces the main theme of entertainment versus art, but also indicates that the two are not mutually exclusive. Art can be entertainment, and entertainment can enter the realm of art. Chapter 6:

Coming Forth Into Day (1986)

One of the most overtly political works that Larsen ever wrote is the choral symphony Coming Forth Into Day, a collaboration between Larsen and Jehan Sadat, 1 widow of the assassinated President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat.2 Excerpts from four of

Jehan Sadat’s speeches introduce each movement. The first three movements address issues that prevent diverse cultures from understanding one another, while the last movement expresses the hope that peace can be achieved. Meant to be the centerpiece for a benefit concert for the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library of St. John’s University, the premiere on 14 April 1986 saw numerous dignitaries in the audience such as then

Vice President George Bush and Barbara Bush, and Henry and Nancy Kissinger, as well as current and former governors and senators of Minnesota. The premiere took on additional significance when the United States began bombing Libya on 14 April 1986 shortly before the performance, as word spread of that event during the pre-performance dinner. Larsen has said that working with Sadat

was so different than working with a poet or a playwright, a shaper of a reality, one who invents a reality and shapes it. Working with her was working with reality — in the selection of the texts, and the reasons for the texts being selected, was literally dealing, working with reality — the starkest of reality. 3

1 Born Jehan Safwat Raouf on 29 August 1931. Married on 29 May 1949, she was the second wife of Anwar Sadat, and first lady of Egypt from 1970-1981. 2 Born 25 December 1918. In 1970 he became president of Egypt; with U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, he developed the Camp David accords, paving the way to peace between Egypt and Israel. In 1978, Sadat and Begin received the Nobel Peace Prize. The peace brokered between Egypt and Israel was rejected by many Arabs. Sadat was assassinated on 6 October 1981 in Cairo by Muslim fundamentalists. 3 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author, Minneapolis, MN (21 November 2005), Appendix H. 214 215 Reality, because Sadat had first hand experience with misunderstanding, violence, fanaticism, and their ramifications. Premiering a work focusing on peace while the

United States was striking against terrorism in the Middle East offered a further juxtaposition of art and reality.

Developing the Commission

The initial concept for the collaboration between Larsen and Sadat came from

Philip Brunelle. As director of the Plymouth Music Series based in Minneapolis,

Brunelle had premiered Larsen’s choral work In a Winter Garden in December 1982.

Afterwards he spoke with Larsen about the possibility of a much larger work involving chorus. They left the discussion open, with Larsen stating that if Brunelle came up with any ideas regarding a topic to let her know, and they could carry on from there. Here is a prime example of Brunelle functioning as a patron. Believing that Larsen was ready to

“stretch herself” in form and scope of her compositions, he set about making sure that

Larsen would have that opportunity. 4 Other composers, such as Randall Davidson, have credited Brunelle with furthering, or even making, their careers. 5

On 23 May 1983 Jehan Sadat spoke at the Hubert Humphrey Institute at the

University of Minnesota as part of the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series. 6 In her lecture entitled “Peace in the Middle East” she discussed the relationship between human understanding and peace. After reading a newspaper account about the lecture,

4 “One World Benefit: Unusual ‘Hunch’ Brought Composer, Sadat Together,” St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, 10 April 1986. 5 Michael Anthony, “Imagination Powers Plymouth Music Series Into 25th Season,” Minneapolis Star Tribune , n. d. 6 See www.hhh.umn.edu/news/carlson/previous.html [Accessed 10 June 2006]. 216 Brunelle was struck by Sadat’s message. He thought that Sadat’s ideas would resonate with Larsen and that she would be able to create a musical piece from them.7 Without

Larsen’s knowledge, Brunelle wrote to Sadat with the idea of a musical collaboration, asking if he could bring a composer to meet with her. After Sadat agreed, Brunelle approached Larsen with the concept of a large-scale work for chorus and orchestra with

Sadat contributing the text, and he told her of the meeting arranged with Sadat. Larsen found the concept interesting, so she traveled with Brunelle to Cairo, meeting with

Sadat in March 1984. Sadat was intrigued by the idea of a musical collaboration,

“attracted by the power of music to convey the message of her words in a new way.” 8

After the first meeting, Sadat handed Larsen some 300 pages of speeches in order for her to gain a sense of Sadat’s ideas and style of speaking. Larsen says that she stayed up most of the night going through those texts and separating them into thematic categories. 9 Larsen found four overall themes, each one later becoming a theme of a movement: the horror of war, the place of the individual in a violent world, the attitudes adults pass on to their children, and the achievement of “peace and hope through understanding.” 10 During their meeting on the following day, they discussed performing forces, in which Sadat was very interested. They also decided on a broad structure and on textual themes, which were primarily derived from Larsen’s sorting of Sadat’s texts.

The next step was finding funding for the project, which Brunelle then pursued.

The airline tickets to Cairo for Brunelle and Larsen were donated by John Pellegrene,

7 For detailed newspaper coverage see: Jo Ann Shroyer, “One World Collaboration,” Minnesota Public Radio (Minneapolis, MN), March 1986; Jim Thornton, “Anatomy of a Fundraiser,” Twin Cities (March 1986): 43-49; “One World Benefit: Unusual ‘Hunch’.” 8 Libby Larsen, Program Notes, 16 April 1986. 9 Thornton, “Anatomy of a Fundraiser,” 46. 10 Ibid. 217 senior vice president of marketing for Dayton Hudson Department Stores. Pellegrene was present at Sadat’s lecture in Minneapolis in 1983 and was so impressed with her that he wanted to find another way to bring her to Minnesota again. Upon hearing of

Brunelle’s plans, the two decided to work together. Pellegrene also sent John Coughlan, who worked in the Development Office of St. John’s University, to Cairo on the same trip as Brunelle and Larsen. Coughlan was hoping to make arrangements for microfilming ancient Egyptian texts for the college’s Hill Monastic Manuscript Library.

During this Cairo expedition, the idea of holding a benefit for the library involving the

Plymouth Music Series and the composition by Larsen and Sadat was first broached.

Upon learning of the library’s mission of preserving pre-1600 handwritten manuscripts,

Sadat became very supportive. Thus, what was originally a commission for the

Plymouth Music Series became the centerpiece of a fundraiser, the One World Benefit.

Turning the initial performance of this commission into part of a benefit concert wound up creating a political statement that Sadat and Larsen had not anticipated.

Heading the fundraising effort was Kristine Aasheim, who had chaired the 1982

Minnesota Symphony Ball, was a member of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce cultural activities committee, and on the Minnesota Orchestral Association board of directors. 11 Aasheim first gained support of local corporate and civic groups. With the backing from people such as George and Sally Pillsbury and Senators Rudy Boschwitz and Dave Durenberger (a graduate of St. John’s University), Aasheim was able to ask

Barbara Bush, who had a keen interest in libraries and promoting literacy, to become

11 Joe Kimball, “Sadat, Larsen Focus on Peace,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 15 April 1986. 218 honorary chairperson. 12 Bush replied that she was honored and pleased to be on the honorary committee, stating that “The goal of the ‘One World’ project in speaking to the worldwide desire for peace is such an important and worthwhile one.” 13

Jehan Sadat encouraged Aasheim to contact two fellow lecturers at American

University in Washington, DC, Betty Ford and Rosalyn Carter, to help raise the profile of the One World Benefit. Both women agreed to be listed as honorary committee members. Other notable figures who were also on the committee and attended the premiere were: Henry and Nancy Kissinger, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Barbara Walters, Walter and Joan Mondale, Governor Rudy and Mrs. Lola Perpich, and Gloria Vanderbilt. A complete list is in Appendix E. Ticket prices were set at $250 each and generated over

$250,000 for the library. Before the concert, patrons of the benefit attended a 5 p.m. reception followed by dinner at the St. Paul Radisson. 14 Senator Dave Durenburger was master of ceremonies at the dinner. 15

Poetry and Structure of the Work

In discussing the text, Sadat was adamant that she did not want her words set to music, although she would let excerpts from her speeches introduce sections of the symphony. Instead, she wanted to use poems from around the world, which she selected from her extensive knowledge, having received a B.A. in Arabic Literature and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. The main criteria for selecting texts were how

12 Thornton, “Anatomy of a Fundraiser,” 49. 13 Kimball, “Sadat, Larsen”. 14 Ibid. 15 Mary Ann Grossman, “Rain and Cold Didn’t Dampen Party Spirit,” St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, 15 April 1986. 219 well they enhanced and reflected the messages of Sadat’s excerpted speeches. While

Larsen and Sadat corresponded, they only met once more in April 1985 in Washington,

DC. Larsen found collaborating with someone with whom she had so little contact disconcerting. With that being said, most textual choices had been made during their initial meetings in Cairo. For example, the first movement, titled “War,” “emphasizes the horrors of war,” with two poems: Mohammed Dib’s “The Mad Hour” and an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” 16 Table 6.1 lists all of the movements, the authors and texts, and the subjects depicted in each text, which are presented in order of appearance within the piece. Although Larsen makes use of text repetition within a section, each individual poem is set to distinct performing forces, creating an aural demarcation for the separate texts. The third movement, in which texts overlap, is the only exception. One of the items Larsen and Sadat decided together was how the performing forces reflected the texts, such as children’s choir singing nursery rhymes in the third movement and in the second movement, soprano solo for the widow’s lament, and baritone solo for the dying soldier.

Larry Smith compares Larsen’s Missa Gaia (1992) to Coming Forth Into Day in that the texts are drawn from “a variety of religions and cultural traditions.” 17 Missa

Gaia is written in the framework of the Mass Ordinary but with text substitutions:

Bible, Native American poetry, medieval mysticism, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley

Hopkins, Wendell Berry. In the mass, Larsen makes a sociological statement about our spirituality and regard for land. Smith says that “this effort to choose texts and to set

16 Larsen, Program Notes, 16 April 1986. 17 Smith, “The Choral Music,” 29. 220 Table 6.1: Sources of the texts used in Coming Forth Into Day , their subject matter, and their location within the symphony.

Movement Author Text Subject of text Vocal Performing Forces I: War Mohammed The Mad Hour Madness, terror, SATB Dib violence I: War Walt “Song of Myself,” Order war and Soprano solo, Whitman excerpt, found in death to depart baritone solo Poems of War Resistance II: Heroes, Stele of Maxims of Stele Leader trying to TTBB, baritone Heroines Antef, Son Antef , English avert violence solo of Sent translation I: Heroes, Beulah Posthumous Lament on love Soprano solo Heroines Steele Decoration of lost in war Jenness Valor II: Heroes, Bedros Complaint Dying soldier’s Baritone solo Heroines Tourian last thoughts III: Innocents Stephen The Trees in the Might over right, SATB, soprano Crane Garden Rained unjustly applied solo, baritone Flowers solo, children’s choir III: Innocents Anonymous The Only True Restoration of SATB, soprano Mother Goose Charles II to solo Melodies , #130 throne of “Hey ding-a-ding” England III: Innocents Anonymous The Only True Lullaby Children’s choir, Mother Goose SA, soprano solo Melodies , #144 “Rock-a-bye baby your cradle is green” III: Innocents Anonymous The Only True John Sprig shot TB, children’s Mother Goose choir Melodies , #126 “Little Man” IV: One John White Eternal Ruler of Peaceful co- SATB, soprano World Chadwick the Ceaseless existence under solo, baritone Round God solo, children’s choir

221 music that expresses a deeply-held belief or philosophy is characteristic of Libby

Larsen’s work.” 18 Larsen maintains that she wants to be thought-provoking and stimulate performers and listeners. Smith concludes that “both Missa Gaia and Coming

Forth Into Day are excellent examples of her ability to assemble text from a wide range of sources in order to make her point.” 19 However, in the case of Coming Forth Into

Day , Smith fails to take into account Sadat’s role in text selection as Larsen’s collaborator.

Compositional Process

Larsen explains the source of the title of the piece as being from the Egyptian

Book of the Dead: “There is a moment … when the soul passes from the body to its cosmic future, and it is at this moment that the soul gains knowledge of time immemorial. That’s what coming forth into day signifies.” 20 Thornton says that “as a metaphor for the work of the library, the image seems particularly apt. By microfilming the work of ancient scribes, the thoughts and lives of the past can be reborn now and in the future.” 21

Larsen had to decide if the music should reflect the “international character of the text” by introducing elements that are recognized as characteristic of the nationality of the source material. 22 Larsen says that she “finally decided what we were after was a

18 Libby Larsen, interview with Larry Smith, as quoted in Smith, “The Choral Music,” 31. 19 Smith, “The Choral Music,” 32. 20 Thornton, “Anatomy of a Fundraiser,” 49. 21 Ibid. 22 Michael Anthony, “Minnesotan, Sadat Join to Compose an Oratorio,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 13 April 1986. 222 universal kind of statement that should have its own language.” 23 Larsen believes that

American composers are not authentic when trying to compose with sounds designed to imitate other cultures. To her, “it doesn’t seem to be an act of cultural understanding, which is what this work is supposed to be about.” 24 Instead, Larsen prefers that her music serve the text, enhancing its emotion in more general terms.

Therefore, how Larsen set the text was significant in how people perceived the message. Smith aptly summarizes Larsen’s text setting for Coming Forth Into Day :

Because of the depth and import of the chosen texts and the orchestral setting, the choral parts tend to be very declamatory and direct. Syllabic lines in a homorhythmic texture are most common. Important texts sung by the chorus are often repeated as a kind of refrain. The orchestra is used very expressively but usually plays a supporting role whenever the chorus or soloists are delivering the text. 25

David DeVenney says of Coming Forth Into Day , that “it is written in the tradition of

Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony or Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony .” 26

Larsen thinks through the details of a piece before committing anything to paper. She memorized the texts, considering the patterns the words create and how they could shape the music. However, for the first time in her career Larsen experienced writer’s block. She was unable to work on the piece for four months. Fellow composer

Homer Lambrecht suggested to Larsen that the idea of presenting her work before all of the dignitaries present at the premiere was worrying her too much. After that realization, Larsen was able to put those concerns aside and write down “the piece that

23 Anthony, “Minnesotan, Sadat.” 24 Ibid. 25 Larry Smith, “The Choral Music,” 21. 26 David P. DeVenney, “American Choral Music since 1985,” in Perspectives on American Music Since 1950 , ed. James R. Heintze (New York: Garland, 1999), 369. 223 was already in her head.” 27 Larsen says that after about two and a half months the piece was completely written down. Perhaps as part of a reflection on this incident, Larsen later said in a pre-concert interview:

Why would Vice President Bush want to hear a piece of my music? And yet he will. Maybe these words and music will, in some quiet moment, touch people deep within themselves, and make a difference. It’s a lofty ideal. But why not? 28

Thus despite her mental block, Larsen had worked out all of the details of the piece, then sat down with pen and paper and wrote the piece down, with a few corrections added later. Therefore, there are no manuscript sketches for this piece. She wrote the piano/vocal score first (ink and paper), then orchestrated the piece (ink and paper). Larsen finds the process of writing in pen and paper satisfying, as something about the process of putting pen to paper resonates with her creativity. She says that she thinks better, having thought through what she wants before committing it down on paper. She says that working on a computer makes her lazy, causing her to think, “I can always change that later.” 29 Next, she wrote the piece on vellum for the publisher E. C.

Schirmer, who retains possession of the original vellum. The beautiful engraved copies of the piano/vocal score that were used at the premiere were done locally in

Minneapolis and are not available for sale, as Plymouth Music Series paid for and retains those copies. At the time, Schirmer was not interested in engraving any of the materials. 30

27 “Unusual ‘Hunch’,” St. Paul Pioneer Press. 28 Jo Ann Shroyer, “Libby Larsen and Jehan Sadat: One World Collaboration,” Inside MPR (April 1986), 89. 29 Conversation with Libby Larsen, 9:30 a.m. (22 February 2005), her home, Minneapolis, MN. 30 Ibid. 224 Movements I and II: War and Heroes/Heroines

The first movement introduction is a fanfare (see example 6.1), interrupted by the opening narration and then completed. The structure of the opening fanfare itself is comprised of two periods, abac. The repeated sixteenth notes of “a” are played by brass, creating a clichéd gesture to military brass bands. The brass, along with bells added, continue the fanfare (“b”) calling to mind the triumphal aspects of wars fought and won.

After the brash sixteenth notes appear again (“a”), the winds and strings take over (“c”) ending the military fanfare on a soft and melancholy note, as if saying that war triumphant still leaves devastation in its wake. These two contrasting ideas of war and devastation present within this opening fanfare continue in the first and second movements.

The overall structure for movement I is Intro-ABC-ABC-A’B’-Coda, where the

Intro equals the fanfare, ABC equals the parts to the poem “Mad Hour,” and the Coda is the poem, “Song of Myself.” The structure of the second movement is mostly determined by the texts, opening with the “Maxims,” followed by “Posthumous

Decoration of Valor” set as a lament in ABABA form. Between the lament and

“Complaint” is an orchestral interlude reprising music form the first movement’s “Mad

Hour.” This time, the form is B’-ABC-ABC-A,’ with B’ being completely re-worked material, while the rest is drawn directly from the first movement, re-orchestrating only to distribute the vocal parts among various instruments as necessary. Table 6.2 compares the sections and measure numbers from the orchestral interlude of the second movement with the original material from the first movement. Larsen provides an overarching structure for the first two movements by repeating a large segment of the 225

Example 6.1: The opening measures of the first movement from Coming Forth Into Day from the piano/vocal score, showing the fanfare in its entirety before the first reading. 226 first movement towards the end of the second movement. In addition, this motivic material that is set to lyrics describing the horrors of war occurs later sandwiched between a text on a widow lamenting the death of her loved one with a text of a soldier railing against God at his impending death, wanting to live, to love, and to be loved. It seems that Larsen is pointing out that the widow’s grief and the soldier’s anger at death are all the result of war and violence.

“Complaint” is by the Armenian Bedros Tourian (1851-1872) who died at the age of 21 of tuberculosis. Written shortly before his death, Tourian’s original poem is that of a young man complaining to God about his immanent death. However, the context provided by Larsen transforms the young man into a young soldier expressing anguish at his untimely death through the circumstance of war. Larsen reinforces the new context for “Complaint” by interjecting measures 10-11 of the fanfare four times.

The military brass appears in each instance before the following line that occurs three times:

If this is to be my last breath here in this silent haze 31

The military fanfare occurs one last time, rounding off this section of intense anger at

God. The character of the music changes as the soldier becomes fearful, then pleading.

Before, the fanfare interrupted the soloist, who was singing a cappella. After the last fanfare statement, the orchestra provides an accompaniment to the singer, either with tremolo, during his fearful moments, or in counterpoint when begging for life. The texture becomes thicker when the soldier becomes more emotionally intense when asking for life. However, as the soldier becomes reconciled to death, the

31 Larsen, Coming Forth Into Day (Boston: E.C. Schirmer, 1986), 36-37. 227 accompaniment thins out again. Larsen uses her orchestration to heighten the meaning of the text, thickening or thinning the texture in order to reinforce the singer’s emotions.

Table 6.2: A comparison of the sections and measure numbers from the orchestral interlude of the second movement with the original material from the first movement.

Movement 2 Measure Movement 1 Corresponding Form Letter Numbers Measure Numbers 307-320 B’ 321-325 36-40 A 325-354 40-65 (52-53 repeated 3 BC times) 355-362 71-74; 82-84 A 362-385 85-103 (97-98 repeated 3 BC times) 385-386 113-114 A’

Movement III: Innocents

In the mode of the traditional symphony, Larsen’s third movement is light hearted and scherzo-like, breaking the somber mood of the previous two movements. In addition, the movement follows the scherzo form ABA, only Larsen adds a coda. The A section is a setting of Stephen Crane’s (1871-1900) poem about children gathering flowers, with the strongest gathering the most, set mostly in D major. Instead of chastising them and telling them to share, the father (baritone solo) commends them saying, “Why should the strong, the beautiful strong, why should they not have the flow’rs?” 32

32 Larsen, Coming Forth , 52. 228

Example 6.2: The return of the A section in Movement III, mm. 665-669, which is identical to the opening of the movement, with the exception of the drum, shown in the bass clef of the piano reduction.

When the A section returns again, it is now accompanied by a drum introduced during the “Mother Goose Medley” in “Parliament Soldiers” (example 6.2). Larsen is saying that these beautiful, strong and greedy children grow up to become soldiers, or to use force to get what they want. The nursery rhyme “Parliament Soldiers” is generally thought to refer to the end of the English Civil War when General George Monck, governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched unopposed into London in October

1659 and organized the Convention of Parliament in 1660 during which Charles II was restored to the throne. 33 Juxtaposing a children’s nursery rhyme about a turbulent time in English history with a seemingly innocent picture of children gathering flowers emphasizes Larsen’s point of how easy it is to corrupt the young. This idea is reinforced by the coda (see example 6.3), which the children’s choir sings quite joyfully in C major, to the quite ironic text:

33 See for example Peter Opie and Iona Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 28. 229 There was a little man and he had a little gun and it bullets were made of lead. He shot John Sprig through the middle of his wig and knocked it right off his head.

Unlike “Parliament Soldiers,” the original context for “There was a little man” was meant as a parody on hunters. 34 Larsen transforms the ditty into an indictment of how violence is passed on to children.

Example 6.3: An excerpt from the coda to Movement III, mm. 722-725, where the children’s choir is singing, ending “Innocence” with a nursery rhyme about shooting.

Movement IV: One World

The final movement sets the hymn written by John White Chadwick (1840-

1904) for his graduating class at the Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts on 19

June 1964. 35 The text is a prayer for unity under one God, to “follow truth.” 36 The movement is in ternary form, ABA, with the opening an outline of an F-major chord.

Measures 9-10 from the opening fanfare interrupt the hymn after the initial statement

34 Opie, 24. 35 www.hymnary.org/person/Chadwick_JW . 36 Larsen, Coming Forth , 84. 230 (see example 6.4, rehearsal number 71). When the opening statement returns, it is now in D-flat major.

After the B section, the A material is now in B-flat major, with the solo parts in

B-flat major with a flat sixth. Underneath the choir and soloists, the orchestra is playing a vamp derived from mm. 9-10 of the fanfare. When juxtaposed with the hymn, this vamp transforms into the jubilant horns played by the choirs of angels. Thus the music of war metamorphoses into the music of the heavens, the music of hope. 231

Example 6.4: Measures 753-769 is a section from near the beginning of the fourth movement, which starts on m. 741. 232

Example 6.5: Movement IV, mm. 861-865, one measure after the return of the A section. The vamp derived from the war fanfare is in the piano part, but played by the brass and bells in the orchestral score.

Art Imitating Life

Just hours before the concert dedicated to peace began, American forces bombed

Libya in retaliation for terrorist acts. After word of the bombing reached concert organizers, they held discussions on whether or not to have the performance. Using security dogs, the theater was searched for explosives. Since all seemed in order, they 233 proceeded with the concert. No threats had been made, and Sadat was not the type of person to be intimidated. Besides, she traveled with her own security personnel. In working with Sadat, Larsen discovered that while she was a target for assassination, she refused to give in to fear. Larsen says that Sadat “would always put herself in places where she could be assassinated as a sign of power.” 37 Larsen and her husband, Jim

Reece, discussed whether or not she should go on stage at the end of the piece, as she was pregnant and due two weeks later. Larsen says of that decision:

We thought really hard about it and I said that I will go on stage. If she [Sadat] goes on stage, I’m going on stage. We’re all going to be up there. The performers have no choice. They’re going to be on stage, in the context of exactly who Mrs. Sadat is in the world ... And backstage we had NPR on, which was simultaneously broadcasting the piece and interjecting it with the bombing of Libya. 38

Regardless of the discussion behind the scenes, the evening went as planned, and no mention was made of the attacks during the concert. However, “most members of the audience had heard of them. Several said that knowledge added poignancy to the powerful work.” 39

Reporters were intrigued by the idea of art imitating life. For example, in his initial response to the evening, Michael Anthony wrote that

the organization of the text gives the work a certain historical sweep. …The second resonating factor was the presence of Jehan Sadat herself, serving as narrator, a woman who has been an eloquent and influential spokesperson for world peace and women’s rights. The fact, too, that as the work was performed last night fighting in the Mediterranean had escalated — this could only heighten the immediacy and relevance of Sadat’s speeches. 40

37 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author, Minneapolis, MN (21 November 2005), Appendix H. 38 Ibid. 39 Kimball, “Sadat, Larsen.” 40 Michael Anthony, “‘Coming Forth’ is a Reminder That Music Can Speak to Issues,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 15 April 1985. 234 Other reporters, such as Mary Ann Grossman also commented on the juxtaposition of an evening focused on peace with erupting violence in the Middle East:

The irony was almost overwhelming. In the middle of an evening dedicated to world peace and understanding, the guests found out that the United States had bombed Libya. 41

According to Larsen, after the concert reporters were everywhere demanding to talk to Sadat:

Meanwhile, I don’t know where reporters came from, but they came out of the wall, and they all wanted to talk to Mrs. Sadat, and I thought she would be horrified, and I made one comment to her about it, “Oh, my gosh, this is awful.” And she said, “Oh no, this is absolutely necessary.” And I was completely dumbstruck. She made the comment … that we Americans think and believe that we can have peace in our lifetime, but in her part of the world you take action for over a thousand years in order to achieve a goal like peace, and now that this was a necessary action on the road to peace a thousand years from now. That changed my life. 42

After the concert, Sadat refused to comment directly on the bombing. However, she did offer some general remarks on terrorists, believing that if terrorists do not respond to overtures, they are “brainwashed and they must be isolated.” 43 When asked about how world leaders should respond to terrorist attacks, Sadat suggested that they ask

President Reagan. She did feel that her husband would have been the only leader able to handle the terrorist threats in the Middle East through diplomatic means, implying that for other leaders, such as Reagan, violence was a valid response to terrorism. In addition, Sadat listed what she believed were three keys to addressing violence in the

Middle East, though it would not be easy, as cited in Kate Perry’s article:

41 Grossman, “Rain and Cold.” 42 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author, Minneapolis, MN (21 November 2005), Appendix H. 43 Kate Perry, “Sadat Says Terrorists Must Be Taught a Lesson They Won’t Forget,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 16 April 1986. 235 First, she said, Palestinians must have a homeland. … Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) must recognize each other and agree to sit down together and negotiate. … Israeli fears that a Palestinian homeland would provide a base for terrorist operations against Israel are without grounds. “Without a country they are doing these terrible things,” she said. Another important factor is to maintain control over the rising tide of fundamentalism throughout the Middle East. “It is something frightening,” she said. “It seems not only in Egypt, but in the whole world. They harm religion.” And, … a shaky financial situation causes “chaos of the masses” and is in part responsible for their turning to fundamentalism. Sadat says that she believes that there will be an end to Middle Eastern strife in her lifetime but that she doesn’t expect it soon. She counseled Middle Eastern leaders to adopt the approach Anwar Sadat took with Israel, which resulted in the historic Camp David Accords. “The leaders who are existing. Let them sit together. Sadat sat with the Israeli delegation and they solved it in a day.” 44

Members of the audience and those listening to the radio broadcast also found the themes of the choral symphony more meaningful in light of the day’s events. Larsen received numerous letters from people who had heard the broadcast on 14 April, as well as those present in the audience. Unfortunately, she did not keep the letters, but typed sections of them into a single document, omitting the names of the senders. Most of the notes commented on the nature of the work, especially playing at a time of violence.

From the letters:

While it may seem ironic or even poignant that the Benefit took place at the same time that America chose to strike back at international terrorism, it also may give more visibility to the peace efforts which you and Mrs. Sadat have worked on so well. It will make everybody remember more vividly where they were that evening and why they were there. 45

One radio listener made a tape recording which he or she repeatedly listened to:

44 Ibid. 45 Excerpts of letters written to Libby Larsen following the premiere of Coming Forth Into Day , Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN. 236 There aren’t many pieces that bring tears to my eyes every time I listen to them, but Coming Forth Into Day does that. I think it gave people some strength, especially in the wake of the U.S. bombings in Libya. 46

In an interview with Joe Kimball, Lt. Gov. Marlene Johnson described the evening as the most powerful performance she had witnessed:

I feel blessed to be here... The power of the evening was that a woman like Jehan Sadat, with such a personal commitment to world peace, can work with Libby Larsen to produce such a work of international significance. 47

Perception of Symphony as Time Passes

Separate from the circumstances surrounding the premiere is the question of whether or not the choral symphony deserved the acclaim and the response that it generated. After all, a review by Paul Somers of the November 1991 performance of

Coming Forth Into Day by the Princeton Pro Musica at Princeton University’s

Richardson Auditorium was hardly flattering, with negative comparisons to Faure’s

Requiem , which was also on the program. Somers further said that

It is not a complaint to note that no one can as yet write a large work on the theme of peace without being touched somehow by Britten’s “War Requiem,” and Larsen is no exception. The solo declamation of the baritone, the soaring soprano, the choral textures all speak a musical language touched by the British master. The other composer whose ghost occasionally hovers over the page is Randall Thompson. In “I am a man who keeps silent before the angry and foolish men,” the use of Thompson’s speech-rhythms style was most effective.48

As with reviewers from the premiere performance, Somers felt that the last movement was the high point, ending by remarking, “in the final pages Larsen politicizes triadic

46 Ibid. 47 Kimball, “Sadat, Larsen.” 48 Paul Somers, “Pro Musica, Soloists Make Fine Match for ‘Requiem’,” (Philadelphia) Star-Ledger , 4 November 1991. 237 harmony. After half an hour of tonal anguish the positive final text unintentionally blazes out the message that the forces of peace and goodness use pure major.” 49

The symphony was first performed during a time when people were fearful. The final movement, a grand choral symphony, is very uplifting. Roy Close says of the overall structure that

Like a traditional symphony, it is in four parts that roughly correspond to an opening Allegro, a slow second movement, a light-hearted scherzo and a grand finale that begins with a prayerful hymn … and builds to a radiant climax in B-flat major. 50

It appears that that “radiant climax” is what struck people the most, with Michael

Anthony saying that the last movement “evokes the symphonic style of Elgar.” 51 The contrast of the last movement to the mood of the first two movements also works to enhance the triumphal feel of the ending.

Conclusion

Larsen was disappointed that Coming Forth Into Day did not win the Pulitzer

Prize that year, although it was one of the finalists. The piece had been considered by many critics to be one of her best works at the time. 52 Larsen believed that the work did not win the Pulitzer because of the political fear associated with the piece at the time. 53

According to Larsen,

49 Somers, “Pro Musica.” 50 Roy M. Close, “Musical Plea Triumphant in Choral ‘Day’,” St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch (15 April 1986). 51 Michael Anthony, “‘Coming Forth’ is a Reminder.” 52 See, for example, Close, “Musical Plea; “Libby Larsen,” Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Centennial Edition, Nicolas Slonimsky, editor emeritus (Schirmer, 2001); reproduced in Biography Resource Center (Farmington Hills, MI: The Gale Group, 2004), http://galenet.galegroup. com/servlet/BioRC . 53 Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN) to Bill Thorpe (E.C. Schirmer, Boston) (29 May 1989). 238 The piece we made was a counterpoint to reality, and the coincidence of the events of reality that evening were astounding, and legendary, not that anything has become legend, but a legendary coincidence, when the reality of what we were talking about occurred. … What was astounding about it is the reality of what we were presenting in a distilled and carefully thought about piece of art was juxtaposed with the reality, the stark reality of what we were writing about at exactly the same time, and could be, was broadcast simultaneously. That was the real work of art. It was a complete cultural culmination. It can’t be duplicated because you can’t duplicate something like that. ... So, that art that’s been made about war and intolerance for thousands and thousands of years is usually done in retrospect or away from the reality of it, and yet, not in this case. [It was] immediate, so that it became a very skewed reality. What was mirroring what? ... Meanwhile we’re singing the hymn “Eternal Ruler of the Ceaseless Round.” 54

The reception that the piece received by those who heard it on 14 April was colored by the circumstances in which they were hearing it: a work that rails against war, upholds the heroes and heroines found in the midst of terror, decries the corruption of children, and ends with a glorious hymn to God. The transformation of the music from war’s harsh staccatos to lyrical laments, nursery rhymes, and hymns echoed the need many people had for hope that peace was attainable, if only for a moment during the span of the performance.

54 Libby Larsen, Interview by the Author, Minneapolis, MN (21 November 2005), Appendix H. Chapter 7:

Conclusion

Libby Larsen is a businesswoman and an artist, adeptly combining these two facets of her working life. She uses the commission contract negotiation process to help her focus her composition, such as in establishing performing forces, duration, and text choices. Larsen views the sweep of commission from contract to composition to performance as part of the entire composition process. Thus a piece is not complete unless it is performed, and she will not write a piece until she has a guarantee of payment. The idea in American culture that creating art and making money are mutually exclusive has fascinated Larsen, to the extent that she dedicated an entire opera to the subject with Barnum’s Bird .

In developing commissions with the performing organizations who are her main patrons, Larsen does not follow one model. Believing that the role of composer is in research and development, Larsen tailors her writing process to each performing organization. For example, in Eric Hermannson’s Soul , she used a workshop approach, composing material, rehearsing and performing, then making adjustments, reshaping and expanding the work, using feedback from anyone having contact with the piece. At the opposite end is Coming Forth Into Day , where Larsen worked in near isolation, with only minor changes to the score once rehearsals began. However, Larsen’s preferred method is working with a group of people in order to provide different perspectives.

Even though various issues arose during the creation of Barnum’s Bird , Larsen feels

239 240 that the end result was greatly enriched by the contributions of Bridget Carpenter, librettist and playwright, and Jon Cranny, librettist and stage director.

Furthermore, each of the pieces in this study illuminates different aspects of

Larsen’s compositional process. Larsen finds that brainstorming and idea sharing is invaluable when working with a team. Working with a team aligns perfectly with her belief in the composer’s place in society, as someone who is vibrantly active within the performing arts community as part of the research and development aspect of music- making. Her fondness for working with a team may also help explain why she prefers opera above other genres. A production team is essential when staging an opera in order to address all of the theatrical elements. Thus, in addition to Larsen’s musical investigation of the topic, costumes, scenery, lighting, and staging all have to be considered and thought through. Therefore, when composing an opera, Larsen is in effect the research and development arm of that opera company.

Larsen’s concept of the composer as functioning as the research and development arm of the commissioning organization has broad implications for both composers and performing arts organizations. Bringing a composer to a symphony orchestra or opera company can add richness and excitement by interjecting new ideas.

Larsen manages to create a synergy among performers, staff, and audiences of the organizations with which she works, making the arts truly alive and present to contemporary audiences. This synergy could be replicated among composers and performing arts organizations across the United States. However, this would only happen if the composer has enough confidence in his/her abilities to subsume his/her ego to the good of the company and the new work being created. While Larsen thrives 241 on the interactions with her colleagues, not every composer has the personality or the energy to work collaboratively in quite the same manner. However, her working method may transfer well to the younger generation, as the current education system encourages collaborative projects.

Larsen’s changing relationships with her publishers also have implications for composers in the future. The very nature of music publishing is undergoing a transformation as technology makes typesetting and producing musical scores much easier and less expensive. Larsen is experimenting with the self-publishing of her chamber works since her primary publisher, Oxford University Press, has stopped publishing new works of this sort. One question for the future is whether music publishing firms will remain relevant. Will they turn more to acting as distributors, or will they completely re-think their role in music publishing and how they work with composers? Or, will they stop publishing new music altogether, or perhaps only publish new pedagogical materials, which sells in much larger quantities than performance pieces?

In the current contract system, composers sign over the rights to their works to the publisher in return for royalty fees. In trying to generate revenue sources, many publishers re-purpose the music by selling licenses to companies for use in commercials, television, or movie soundtracks. While the composer does receive a nice royalty check, he/she also loses creative control over his/her own work. With self- publishing and website distribution, this is all very likely to change. Composers will then retain all rights to their intellectual and creative work. 242 Larsen is a pioneer in maintaining a website for personal promotion as a composer. As web platforms have evolved, Larsen has made continual improvements to her website so that it is now quite interactive. While she would like to have aural excerpts from all of her works on the website, various licensing issues make that impractical. She would also like to have a direct link from a listed work to the publisher’s webpage on that work for easy ordering. However, her two primary publishers have made that impossible, since their own websites lag behind online ordering standards. Thus, integrating web resources is essential if music publishing is to survive, especially with younger web users. The industry itself is losing sight of its own cultural relevancy.

Publishers have another challenge when producing modern opera scores. When an opera goes into production, many changes are made to the score and parts, since what the composer envisioned does not always translate into good theater. Thus, after the initial performances, the parts and score need to be reconciled, and the necessary changes forwarded to the publisher. Modern operas also suffer from not being produced more than once. With performances by more than one opera company, the piece can become more refined, creating a better stage production as long as the composer is open to adjustments. Making adjustments while an opera is performed again actually hearkens back to a long tradition of opera composers. Even Verdi inserted ballet into his operas when performed in Paris, making them more relevant to his Parisian audience.

Writing opera also poses a challenge when adapting the plot from a novel.

Larsen tries to reveal the main themes of the story rather than interpret the story. That is, she is not interested so much in creating an adaptation than in enhancing the author’s 243 own ideas. When she has interpreted texts, as in the third movement of the choral symphony, it was in line with the thoughts of her collaborator, Jehan Sadat, as Larsen was finding a way to enhance the meaning of Sadat’s narrative. Larsen tends to select topics that will resonate within American culture, such as Sadat’s themes of war and peace. Frankenstein highlights the consequences of technological advancement. The place of music in society as a redemptive force is explored in Eric Hermannson’s Soul .

The perception that art and entertainment are incompatible is pursued in Barnum’s Bird in a uniquely American historical context.

In setting music to her opera libretti, Larsen frequently makes use of quotation in order to bring unifying elements into these larger works. Quotation also helps enhance the meaning of the story and layer ideas at key moments, in effect creating a gloss on the action. This use of quotation is almost always done in order to deepen the meaning of the narrative. For example, in Frankenstein Larsen uses material from What the Monster Saw not only to provide an overarching structure to the piece, but also to comment upon Victor Frankenstein’s inability to accept responsibility for his action.

Larsen’s music is not often tonal in the sense of firmly established diatonic keys.

However, it is frequently modal, with her harmonies generated from overlapping vocal lines. She also utilizes contrasting styles within a work in order to augment the underlying nature of her characters. Barnum’s music, for example, is angular while

Lind’s is lyrical. Frankenstein’s music is atonal and frantic, while Elizabeth’s music is more melodic. Thus the components of her music in operas are designed to intensify character and plot development. The widespread appeal of her theatrical works is evident by commissions throughout the United States from the East Coast ( Barnum’s 244 Bird — Washington, D.C., Eleanor Roosevelt — New York City, The Nothing That Is

— Cambridge, MA) to the West Coast ( Every Man Jack — San Francisco), from the

South ( Picnic — Greensboro, NC) to the Southwest ( The Silver Fox — Houston, TX) and the Midwest ( Mrs. Dalloway — Cleveland, OH, Eric Hermannson’s Soul —

Omaha, NE, Frankenstein — Minneapolis, MN), as well as international recognition with I It Am for the British Broadcasting Corporation Proms. The overall results of her work are compelling music dramas that deserve to be heard again. Appendix A: Financial Tables

Table A.1: February 1993 Timeline and Expense Sheet for Eleanor Roosevelt

Start Date End Date Task/Event Estimated Amount

6/1/1993 6/1/1994 Grant application cycle 6/1/1993 6/1/1994 Research materials for libretto and visual elements General management expense 3/1/1994 6/1/1994 Legal securing of copyrighted materials: Legal fee $2,000 Royalty payments $2,500 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Make promotional plan (office expense) $200 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Securing production personnel 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Executive producer $20,000 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Composer (One-Act Opera) $32,000 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Librettist $8,500 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Singer General management expense 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Other musicians/actors (3 for 2 weeks at $300 per week) $2,100 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Music director/accompanist General management expense 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Stage director $2,500 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Costume designer $1,500 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Lighting designer $1,500 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Stage designer and visuals $3,000 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Promotion director (160 hours at $30 per hour) $4,800 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Recording engineer $500 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Music copyist $4,000 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Set builders (2) $1,000 6/1/1994 7/1/1994 Seamstress $500 7/1/1994 3/1/1995 Materials for reation of libretto and visuals Libretto $200 Visuals $5,000 7/1/1994 Premiere Materials for costume, lighting, set designs $4,000 6/1/1994 Premiere Production meetings 0 10/1/1994 Securing other musicians/actors 1/1/1994 Securing hall for rehearsal and performances (Ordway General Music Theater, State Theater, Science Museum Omni management Theater—approximately $25,000 for one week expense 10/1994 9/1995 Promotion—projected premiere date $2,500 September/October 1995 (telephone, press kit, mileage, print ads, etc.) 5/1/1995 8/1/1995 Layout and design of libretto and program $1,000 TOTAL $99,300

245 Table A.2: Lila Wallace Readers Digest Grant Budget for Opera Omaha 1

Expenses Original Revised Honoraria 500 500 Fees—Composer 17,000 14,000 Fees—Performers 7,236 4,226 Travel—Composer 2,500 2,500 Travel—Performers 0 0 Housing—Composer 2,370 2,370 Housing—Performers 0 0 Evaluation/Document 1,000 800 Sub-total 30,506 24,396 Other: Rehearsal Space 3,000 3,000 Marketing 3,000 1,000 Advertising 2,500 1,000 Dramaturge 1,800 800 Props 700 300 Costumes 1,300 800 Copying 1,200 1,200 Mailings 1,040 1,040 Seminar Fees 1,500 1,000 Seminar Space 600 600 Tech Support 1,300 1,300 Audience Hospitality 500 500 Security 500 500 Telephone/Fax 454 454 Other Sub-total 19,394 13,494 TOTAL 50,000 37,890

Ineligible Costs 12,700 12,700 TOTAL COSTS 62,700 50,590

INCOME UNO In-kind 5,200 7,390 South High In-kind 1,500 1,500 Admissions 1,400 1,000 Local Donors 16,900 14,000 LilaWallaceReadersDigest: 25,000 14,000 OFANA TOTAL INCOME 50,000 37,890

1 Memo, Opera Omaha, 25 July 1995, Libby Larsen archives, Minneapolis, MN. 246 Table A.3: Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust 1993 Commissioning Grants Recipients, in order of amount granted. Amount Composer/ Work Institution Librettist $4,000 “Blue” Gene Piano solo for Joseph Kubera Roulette Tyranny $5,500 Kim Sherman/ Service for the Dead in Bosnia Musica Sacra Erik Ehn Herzegovina , an oratorio for chorus and piano $7,000 Mario Work for string trio and guitar Speculum Musicae Davidovsky $7,000 Mary Jane Leach Taped voices and countertenor Experimental Intermedia Foundation $7,500 Bill Frisell Music for silent films by Buster Keaton Arts at St. Ann’s $9,000 Lois V Vierk Work for A Cloud Nine Consort Circum Arts Foundation $10,000 Paquito D’Rivera Woodwind quintet Aspen Wind Quintet $10,000 Bright Sheng Clarinet quintet Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center $10,000 Julia Wolfe Work for Bang On A Can All-Stars Bang On A Can $11,000 Robert Beaser Brass quintet American Brass Quintet $11,000 Dan Froot/ Dan The Editor Project , an interdisciplinary Dance Theater Hurlin work with music, movement and text Workshop $11,500 Cecil Taylor Collaboration with choreographer Min Brooklyn Academy of Tanaka Music $12,000 Dean Drummond Music theater work, Café Buffe Newband $12,000 John Harbison Work for voice and chamber ensemble New York Philomusica $12,000 Andre Previn Work for piano and wind ensemble Orchestra of St. Luke’s $15,000 Robert Ashley Foreign Experience , fourth opera in a quartet called Eleanor’s Idea $15,000 David Felder Orchestra and electronics American Composers Orchestra $15,000 Lee Hyla Work for chamber orchestra Orpheus Chamber Orchestra $15,000 Libby Larsen Work for chorus, soprano solo and New York Concert chamber ensemble, based on the life and Singers writings of Eleanor Roosevelt $15,000 Lenny Pickett Second act of Welfare , an opera based Dance Theater on Frederick Wiseman’s documentary Workshop film, with libretto by David Slavitt $15,000 Stewart Wallace Yiddisher Teddy Bears , an opera with Ontological-Hysteric libretto by Richard Foreman Theater $17,000 Joseph Concerto for Orchestra Concordia Schwantner $20,000 Anthony Davis/ Music theater work, The Circus of Dr. New York Shakespeare Susan Lao Festival Birkenhead $20,000 Philip Glass Orchestral work Brooklyn Philharmonic $20,000 Jon Faddis/ Lee Bee bop jazz opera based on the Lulu Mabou Mines Breuer plays $20,000 Charles First of three ballets by Peter Martins New York City Ballet Wuorinen based on The Divine Comedy

247 Appendix B: Contracts

Table B.1: A comparison of contractual items from Coming Forth Into Day , Frankenstein , Eric Hermannson’s Soul , Eleanor Roosevelt, Barnum’s Bird , Praise One , and I It Am . The table continues over several pages.

Coming Forth Frankenstein Eric Hermannson’s Eric Into Day Soul Hermannson’s Soul: Chamber Commissioner Plymouth Music Minnesota Opera Omaha Opera Omaha Series Opera Performing soprano, 4 principals, 4 Limitations: Forces baritone solo, supporting principle cast: 10; chorus, roles, 12 chorus: 32; dance orchestra chorus, 3 corps: 8; dancers, 26 supernumerary: 6; orchestra orchestra: 30; onstage musicians: 3 Hiring Plymouth Music performers Series Librettist Jehan El Sadat, Chas Rader-Shieber Libby Larsen, Philip Brunelle Title of Work Coming Forth Frankenstein Eric Hermannson’s The Willa Into Day Soul Cather Trio: 1) Eric Hermannson’s Soul Duration appr. 45 minutes 3 acts, 120 2 acts, under 2 hours 10-15 minutes minutes fifteen minutes (fully orchestrated excerpt) Text Eric Hermannson’s Soul Copyright Libby Larsen Libby Larsen permissions (music)and Chas Rader-Shieber (text) Fee $20,000 $40,000 (composer) $14,000 $15,000 (librettist) Fee payment ½ signing $7,000 signing Librettist: $3,750 $4,000 schedule contract, ¼ contract, 7/15/1997; $3,750 1/15/1996; submit orchestra $7,000 submit 8/15/1997; $3,750 $5,000 2/5/1996; score, ¼ submit piano/vocal 10/1/1997 $5,000 parts score, $6,000 Composer: $7,500 4/10/1996 submit 8/15/1997; $7,500 completed full 12/1/1997; score $10,000 premiere date 248 Coming Forth Frankenstein Eric Hermannson’s Eric Into Day Soul Hermannson’s Soul: Chamber Piano/vocal score 11/15/1985 9/1/1988 12/1/1997 2/5/2006 due (amended on contract to 2/16/2006) Full score due 1/15/1986 1/1/1989 5/1/1998 3/13/2006 Orchestra parts 3/1/1986 3/15/1989 8/15/1998 due Copying parts & Plymouth Music Minnesota Opera Omaha score Series Opera Ownership parts Plymouth Music Libby Larsen Opera Omaha: & score Series retains one set; rent parts to other directors for period of exclusivity (12/31/2003); then sell to publisher at 25% of original production cost of parts & score Premier date 4/14/1986 Before 4/10/1996 6/30/1990 (workshop public reading) Premier location Ordway Music Theatre Date contract 9/11/1985 2/2/1988 10/22/1997 (Jane signed (Libby Larsen) Hill, Opera Omaha); 10/17/1997 (Libby Larsen) Copyright Libby Larsen Libby Larsen Libby Larsen retention (music); Chas Rader-Shieber (libretto) Composer 3/13-3/15/1996 residency 4/1-4/10/1996 Royalties Waive None up to 5 performance performances, then royalty fees for composer/librettist first production 5% of gross box office receipts

249 Eleanor Barnum’s Bird Praise One I It Am Roosevelt Commissioner The New York Plymouth Music Baylor University Bach Choir of Concert Series through School of Bethlehem Singers Music Performers The New York Baylor Symphony Bach Choir of Concert Orchestra and Bethlehem Singers Choral Union Performing Chamber 4 soloists, chorus & chamber Soprano, Forces chorus, chamber chorus, ensemble countertenor & narrator, small chamber baritone soloists, (7) instrumental SATB chorus, 2 instrumental ensemble flutes, 2 oboes, ensemble oboe d’amore, trumpets, 1 horn, timpani, strings Hiring The New York performers Concert Singers Publisher Oxford University Oxford University specified Press Press Librettist Bridget Carpenter Title of Work TBD TBD Duration 35 minutes appr. 45 minutes 15 minutes 15-16 minutes Text Based on Psalms, Medieval words of writings Eleanor Roosevelt Copyright Libby Larsen Libby Larsen Libby Larsen permissions Fee $15,000 $30,000 $15,000 (includes $10,500 residency) 1 Fee payment ½ signing /3 signing ½ signing ½ signing 1 schedule contract, ½ contract, /3 contract, ½ full contract, ½ full submit parts submit score score 1 manuscript, /3 complete score & parts Acknowledgment TBD by Larsen wording TBD by Commissioned by & Brunelle; 2/1/2004 the BBC and the “Commissioned Bach Choir of by the Library of Bethlehem and Congress and the first performed at Odyssey Program the BBC Proms on of the Plymouth [date tbd] Music Series in conducted by Greg honor of the Funfgeld. Library’s Bicentennial”

250 Eleanor Barnum’s Bird Praise One I It Am Roosevelt Standard Yes to all licensing fees performances, apply but no rental fees Piano/vocal score 9/1/2000 1/9/2004 (to 11/15/2002 due publisher) Full score due 7/1/1995 10/31/2000 1/9/2004 (to 12/16/2002 (to publisher) publisher) Orchestra parts 7/1/1995 12/16/2002 (to due publisher) Copying parts & The New York Plymouth Music Oxford University Oxford University score Concert Series up to Press Press Singers $5000 Ownership parts The New York Plymouth Music Oxford University Oxford University & score Concert Series Press Press Singers Published within one month within one month version due of premier of premier Publisher 2/9/2004 1/15/2003 delivers vocal scores Publisher 3/1/2004 1/15/2003 delivers full score & parts Premier date 4/29/2004 7/29 or 7/30/2003 Premier location Jones Concert BBC Proms, Hall Royal Albert Hall, London, UK Date contract 12/24/1993 4/3/2000 (Libby 12/16/2003 11/5/2002 (Libby signed (Judith Larsen), (Libby Larsen), Larsen) Clurman), 3/24/2000 2/6/2004 (Baylor) 11/8/2002 (Bach 1/5/1994 (Plymouth Music 2/13/2004 (OUP) Choir) (Libby Larsen) Series: Frank 11/12/2002 (OUP) Stubbs) Copyright Libby Larsen Libby Larsen & Libby Larsen & retention Bridget Oxford University Carpenter Press Recording rights Plymouth Music first refusal Series Composer March 8-9, 2004 residency April 1-2 & 28- 29, 2004 Composer Publicity As determined by attends participation Larsen & Brunelle rehearsals & clause performances

251 Table B.2: Contracts with Librettists

Eric Hermannson’s Soul Eleanor Roosevelt Commissioner Opera Omaha Librettist Chas Rader-Shieber Title of Work Eric Hermannson’s Soul Eleanor Roosevelt Fee Gall receives 25% of commission fee of $15,000 Authorship Music by Libby Larsen Music by Libby Larsen credit Libretto by Chas Rader-Shieber Libretto by Sally M. Gall Text Approval or consent required by Alterations both Gall and Larsen Premier date Performance by 12/31/1998 Date contract Libby Larsen: 8/18/ 1997 signed Char Rader-Shieber: 8/15/1997 Copyright Libby Larsen and Chas Rader- Libby Larsen and Sally Gall retention Shieber Division of Larsen: 66 2/3% Larsen: 75% receipts Rader-Shieber 33 1/3% Gall: 25% Division of Larsen 25% Larsen: 25% receipts for Rader-Shieber 75% Gall: 75% libretto publication only Performance All subject to prior written alterations approval by both Larsen and Rader-Shieber Death Sole survivor retains artistic Sole survivor retains artistic rights, while heirs receive agreed- rights, while heirs receive agreed- upon percentage of new receipts; upon percentage of new receipts; upon death of both parties, heirs upon death of both parties, heirs reserve artistic rights reserve artistic rights

252 Table B.3: Contracts with Publishers

Eric Hermannson’s Barnum’s Bird 2 I It Am 3 Soul 1 Publishing House Oxford University Oxford University Oxford University Press Press Press Composer’s Grant All rights assigned to All rights assigned to All rights assigned to publisher publisher publisher Copyright Assigns to publisher Assigns to publisher Assigns to publisher Composer’s Acknowledges the Acknowledges the Acknowledges the Warranty piece is composer’s piece is composer’s piece is composer’s own original work, and own original work, and own original work, and that she has the that she has the that she has the exclusive right to exclusive right to exclusive right to dispose of the works as dispose of the works as dispose of the works as she sees fit she sees fit she sees fit Manuscript and Publisher receives Publisher receives Publisher receives Proof manuscript ready to manuscript ready to manuscript ready to typeset; composer typeset; composer typeset; composer proofs all scores and proofs all scores and proofs all scores and parts; all copyright parts; all copyright parts; all copyright permissions, including permissions, including permissions, including payments, payments, payments, responsibility of responsibility of responsibility of composer composer composer Composer’s Option Contract cancelled if Contract cancelled if Contract cancelled if to Terminate work not published or work not published or work not published or for sale within 24 for sale within 24 for sale within 24 months of delivery of months of delivery of months of delivery of manuscript; or not for manuscript; or not for manuscript; or not for rental within 6 months rental within 6 months rental within 6 months of premiere; if of premiere; if of premiere; if composer exercises composer exercises composer exercises option, all rights option, all rights option, all rights transfer back to transfer back to transfer back to composer composer composer Royalties 10% net receipts all 10% net receipts all 10% net receipts all 1 1 1 works sold; /3 net works sold; /3 net works sold; /3 net amount in rentals; no amount in rentals; no amount in rentals; no royalty paid on royalty paid on royalty paid on promotional copies promotional copies promotional copies Statement of Semi-annual Semi-annual Semi-annual Royalties statements, March 31 statements, March 31 statements, March 31 and September 30; not and September 30; not and September 30; not required to issue required to issue required to issue statement if royalties statement if royalties statement if royalties under $5.00 under $5.00 under $5.00

1 Memorandum of agreement between Elizabeth B. Larsen and Oxford University Press, Inc., 22 January 2001. 2 Memorandum of agreement between Elizabeth B. Larsen and Oxford University Press, Inc., 1 February 2002. 3 Memorandum of agreement between Elizabeth B. Larsen and Oxford University Press, Inc., 28 January 2003. 253 Eric Hermannson’s Barnum’s Bird I It Am Soul Composer’s Copies 10 free copies, 10 free copies, 10 free copies, additional copies additional copies additional copies purchase at 50% list purchase at 50% list purchase at 50% list price price price Agreements with Subject to ASCAP Subject to ASCAP Subject to ASCAP Performing Rights agreements agreements agreements Societies Publisher’s Rights to Publisher owns all Publisher owns all Publisher owns all Materials materials related to materials related to materials related to printing work printing work printing work Termination If after 5 years from If after 5 years from If after 5 years from date of agreement date of agreement date of agreement publisher no longer publisher no longer publisher no longer offers work for sale or offers work for sale or offers work for sale or rental, composer may rental, composer may rental, composer may terminate contract and terminate contract and terminate contract and buy-out plates, scores, buy-out plates, scores, buy-out plates, scores, parts, materials parts, materials parts, materials associated with the associated with the associated with the 1 1 1 publication at /3 cost publication at /3 cost publication at /3 cost of production and of production and of production and stock stock on hand stock on hand on hand Option Publisher right of first Publisher right of first Publisher right of first refusal of publication refusal of publication refusal of publication of next work written of next work written by of next work written by by composer composer composer Assigns Agreement binding to Agreement binding to Agreement binding to heirs heirs heirs Interpretation Bound by laws in New Bound by laws in New Bound by laws in New York state York state York state

254 Appendix C: Comparison between Libby Larsen’s Two-Act version of Eric Hermannson’s Soul and the Chamber version.

Table C.1: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act I, Scene 1 “The Visitors/The Conversion,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Two-Act Version Chamber Version Narrative Measure numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Margaret and Wyllis mm. 350-434; mm.373-374 Scene 2, mm. 215-295 arrive new Wyllis lines Margaret sees Eric mm.435-464; adds 4 Scene 2, mm. 296-311; measures of Reiñlenderar ; omits mm. 301 new Wyllis lines mm. 455- 457 Lalmingen mm. 465-480 Scene 2, mm. 356-371 Jerry Lockhart and mm. 481-549; minor word Scene 2, mm. 372-416 dance discussion changes; mm. 522-549 inserted into scene Asa Skinner mm. 550-590; mm. 591- Scene 1, mm. 55-95; 592 mm. 96-97 Congregation Stomp and mm. 597-639 Scene 1, mm. 102-149 Skinner; includes “Glory to the Bleeding Lamb” Lockhart mm. 640-651 Margaret mm. 651-656 mm. 413-416

Table C.2: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act I, Scene 2 “The Parlour,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Two-Act Version Chamber Version Narrative Measure numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Springleik mm. 657-664 Scene 1, 1-7 (variation) Quartet: “Song” from April mm. 665-688 Scene 1, mm.25-48 Twilights Margaret and Eric— mm. 689-848 musical encounter, includes excerpts of Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana

255 Table C.3: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act I, Scene 3 “The Confrontation,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Two-Act Version Chamber Version Narrative Measure numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Margaret and Wyllis mm. 849-864 Margaret tells of encounter mm. 865-876; some text Scene 2, mm.338-354 with Eric altered Wyllis sells ranch mm. 878-929 Margaret agonizes about mm. 930-1033 place, love and truth

Table C.4: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Prologue, comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Two-Act Version Chamber Version Narrative Measure numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Quartet: “Evening Song” mm. 1-46; expanded Scene 4, mm. 540-585 from April Twilights

Table C.5: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 1 “The Contract,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Two-Act Version Chamber Version Narrative Measure numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Wyllis mm. 47-100 Wyllis, Margaret and Jerry mm. 101-141 Lockhart; Margaret runs away Margaret meets Skinner mm. 145-203

256 Table C.6: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 2 “The Storm,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Two-Act Version Chamber Version Narrative Measure numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Storm music begins mm. 204-216 Quartet: “All the Way My mm. 217-304; at mm. Savior Leads Me” 238, Margaret and Eric enter Storm mm. 293-303 Eric sings to Margaret mm. 304-337; mm. 338- Scene 3, mm. 492-525 “You are like the sun” 363 insert; mm. 364-377 Scene 3, mm. 526-539 Instrumental, variation on mm. 378-415 Scene 4, mm. 587-622 Intermezzo

Table C.7: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 3 “The Letter,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Two-Act Version Chamber Version Narrative Measure numbers Scene and Measure Numbers Quartet: “Winter At Delphi” mm. 416-442 from April Twilights Instrumental interlude mm. 442-456 Wyllis sings part of Jack’s mm. 457-473 In Scene 4, mm. 587- letter 624, Margaret reads Jack’s letter over instrumental music Margaret aria: “It is all so mm. 475-491; words the Scene 4, mm. 630-650 little” same, music different Margaret and Wyllis discuss mm. 492-521 dance and Eric Quartet: “Winter At Delphi” mm. 526-555 from April Twilights Lena and Margaret prepare mm. 556-628 for dance Margaret tells Wyllis she mm. 629-675 will marry Jack but will always love Eric Quartet: “Winter At Delphi” mm. 676-702 from April Twilights

257 Table C.8: Outline of the Two-Act Version, Act II, Scene 4 “The Dance,” comparing the places where music from the Chamber Version is inserted.

Two-Act Version Narrative Two-Act Version Chamber Version Scene Measure numbers and Measure Numbers Skotsk mm. 703-718; continues underneath Lockhart and Margaret Lockhart and Margaret mm. 719-731 Valse e Anders Sveen mm. 732-776 Scene 5, mm. 651-695 (beginning of scene) Larsdansk in Five mm. 777-796 Scene 5, mm. 696-715 Instrumental mm. 797-813 Eric fiddles mm. 814-827; Eric Scene 5, mm. 716-729; virtuoso insert mm. 828- 842; mm. 730-742 mm. 843-855 Eric returns violin mm. 855 Scene 5, mm. 742 Springleik på Gjermundstille: mm. 856-871 Scene 5, mm. 743-750 Eric and Margaret dance Margaret and Eric go outside mm. 872-890 Scene 5, mm. 751-769 Margaret and Eric mm. 890-921; with new Scene 5, mm. 773-789 lines for Eric Margaret finds her one great mm. 922-974 moment Quartet: “Evening Song” mm. 975-984 Scene 4, mm. 540-585 from April Twilights Margaret and Eric mm. 985-1009 Scene 5, mm. 793-814 mm. 1009-1016; omits mm. 839-848 vocal part, instrumental only Lena mm. 1016-1026 Quartet: “Evening Song” mm. 1027-1038 Scene 4, mm. 540-585 from April Twilights Dance mm. 1039-1073 Quartet: “Ah” on ‘d’ and ‘a’ mm. 1074-1084 Scene 5, mm. 861-871 over dance music

Eric and Skinner mm. 1085-1096 Scene 5, mm. 872-883 Quartet: “All the way my mm. 1097-1104 Scene 5, mm. 884-891 Savior leads me”

Eric: “And a Day” mm. 1104-1107 Scene 5, mm. 891-894 Quartet: “Going Home” mm. 1108-1116 Scene 5, mm. 897-903, fragment “clap, stomp” accompaniment

258 Appendix D: Libby Larsen’s Research Bibliography and Tables for Barnum’s Bird

The Jenny Lind biography compiled by Andrea Erickson and referenced by Libby Larsen :

Adams, Bluford. E. Pluribus Barnum: The Great Showman and the Making of U.S. Popular Culture , 1997.

Andronik, Catherine M. Prince of Humbugs: A Life of P.T. Barnum , 1994.

Barnum, P.T. Struggles and Triumphs, or Forty Years’ Recollections. Buffalo, NY: 1875.

Bulman, Joan. Jenny Lind: A Biography . London: 1956.

Gerson, Noel B. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Biography . New York: 1976.

Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum .

Holland, Henry Scott and W.S. Rockstro. Memoir of Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt . London: 1891. [A two volume work prepared with the help of Lind’s widowed husband, Otto Goldschmidt. It terminates, though, at the very moment Jenny Lind’s tour of America began.]

Kunhardt, Philip B., Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, and Peter W. Kunhardt. P.T. Barnum: America’s Greatest Showroom . New York: 1995.

Maude, Mrs. Raymond (Jenny). TheLife of Jenny Lind . London: 1926. [Written by the daughter of Jenny Lind Goldschmidt.]

Pearce, Charles E. Sims Reeves: Fifty Years of Music in England . London: 1924. [Reeves and Jenny Lind sang together.]

Rosenberg, C.G. Jenny Lind in America . New York: 1851.

Saxon, A.H. P.T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man . New York and Oxford: 1989.

Schultz, Gladys Denny. Jenny Lind: The Swedish Nightingale . Philadelphia and New York: 1962.

Thorp, Roderick. Jenny and Barnum .

259 Ware, W. Porter, and Thaddeus C. Lockhard, Jr., eds. The Lost Letters of Jenny Lind . London: 1966.

Hall, A. Oakley. “When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden.” Ladies Home Journal , November, 1896: 3-4. [eyewitness account]

Maude, Mrs. Raymond (Jenny). “My Mother as I Recall Her.” Ladies’ Home Journal , May 1897: 12-13. [A tribute to the singer by her daughter.]

Sawin, Miss M. “Jenny Lind.” Graham’s Magazine , April 1849: 269. [A very long poem, describing the singer’s attributes.]

Smith, Fanny Morris. “Characteristics of Jenny Lind.” Century Magazine , August 1897: 558-59.

Upton, George P. “Jenny Lind, Artist and Woman.” Etude Magazine , December 1913: 851-52. [The author gives an eyewitness description of Jenny Lind’s arrival in Manhattan.]

260 Table D.1: Scenes and scenarios included in eight different drafts of the libretto for Barnum’s Bird , including the published version. The table has been broken down into smaller components for ease of reading, arranged in order of scenes from the published libretto. The symbol * indicates that the item is listed, but with no text.

Act I Prologue

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 “Hello and Welcome”, “Hello and Welcome”, Soiree at Pre-show: JL hosts “Barnum’s Curiosities” “Barnum’s Curiosities” Mendelssohn’s; European Salon as (Later eliminated) (more details) soprano & tenor audience enters; leave Chorus called ‘Sideshow Chorus called sing German lieder; when chorus begins Freaks’ ‘Sideshow Freaks’ chorus sings “Hello and Welcome”, opening material “Barnum’s Curiosities” Chorus called Chorus called ‘Sideshow Freaks’ ‘Sideshow Freaks’

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] Libretto 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] Living Room recital; Introduction: “Hello Prologue: Act I Prologue: “Hello “Hello and Welcome”, and Welcome”, chorus “Hello and and Welcome”, chorus chorus; [reworked] Welcome”, chorus “Barnum’s Curiosities” [2 quartets & 4 on the melody; also Chorus called ‘The notes key changes & American Sideshow’ changing parts]

261 Act I Part 1

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 “Being the Part One: The Dream PTB introduces “Being the Introduction” of PTB “Being the himself; spinner of Introduction” (later Act (LL indicates ½ steps), Introduction” of PTB; dreams; JL sings; I Part 2); “You know “You know me” (Act “You know me” (Act PTB talks of his own me” (Act II Part 2); II Part 2); JL singing II Part 2); PTB dreams; PTB material (later while Amalia listens material (later cut); eliminated); “You have (character changed to “You have a dream”— JL speaks to Amalia a dream” GB) later expanded “I smell of wish to run away opportunity” (Act I from opera; PTB tells Part 2); JL singing TT of his dream to while Amalia listens bring art to America

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] “Being the Part One: The Salon: Part One: The Salon: Act I Part 1: The Salon: Introduction” (later Act GB sings “Largo al “And now to begin”- JL & GB sing, TT I Part 2); “You know factorum” from Il chorus; introduced, chorus me” (Act II Part 2); Barbieri di Siviglia; GB sings “Largo al PTB material [LL note: chorus comments on factorum” from Il PTB aria too long]; TT; five singers: Bonja Barbieri di Siviglia; “You have a dream” song from Gumbo chorus comments; JL Chaff’s Ethiopian Glee beings “Echo Song” Book , Part II, Boston in D; 1848; JL sings “Wenn five singers lead TT ich in deine augen she” onstage singing: by Schumann [crossed “Minstrel Song” from out]; JL bored; quintet Gumbo Chaff’s sings “Tierran I skog” Ethiopian Glee Book , in English Part II, Boston 1848; cuts some chorus dialogue about TT; TT bows & leaves; remaining part moved to contract scene

262

Act I Part 2

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 *“Barnum gets the TT “Hey Boss” (JL, Chorus living TT “Hey Boss”; “I have Idea” Amalia & PTB newspaper, tell of an idea” material all shortened); JL’s triumphs Reporters extolling JL (eliminated)

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] “You know me” (Act Part 2: The Broadway Part 2 Broadway Act I Part 2: Broadway II Part 2); PTB Office: PTB “You Office: Office: PTB introduced material [LL note: PTB have a dream” LL cuts chorus intro; “I smell opportunity”, aria too long]; “You reworked and PTB “I smell “Moustache Man”, TT have a dream”; TT shortened [he’s bored]; opportunity” [LL mentions JL (‘Hey “Hey Boss”; “I have an “You know me”— marks solo or chorus Boss”), “So Jenny, idea”; “The American includes parts of lines & repeats some come along” Sideshow” [LL wants “Barnum’s curiosities lines, omits others]; streamlined, but with reworked for PTB to “You know me” with more depth] sing; “Being the Curiosities; Introduction”; “Moustache Man”; “Moustache Man”; TT “Being the mentions JL; “I smell Introduction”; “Hey opportunity”; “So Boss” TT; [LL Jenny, come along” reworks section]; “Being the Introduction”; LL continues cutting material intersperse PTB lines with chorus; “So Jenny, come along”

263 Act I Part 3

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 Dialogue between TT reads telegram to PTB has idea to bring TT reads telegram to JL Amelia & JL, who is JL (eliminated); TT JL to America, sends (eliminated); TT then discouraged with life then enters & makes TT as envoy enters & makes PTB’s (later shortened, JL PTB’s offer offer; GB now takes sings “Oh world” Amalia’s place in instead) libretto *“Jenny drives a hard bargain”

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] GB & JL talk [LL Part 3: At the Part 3 At the Act I Part 3: The Salon: notes JL 1 st statement Solicitor’s Office: TT Solicitor’s Office: JL sings “Oh world! Oh needs work]; TT reads enters office & [begin with a little life!”, GB & JL discuss telegram [LL notes propositions JL for quirky march]; TT success, chorus “Stop “needs distilling”]; [ll tour; Madam Pasta enters; TT propositions that knocking”, TT likes GB’s dialogue— (terrible singer); JL for tour; [LL cuts propositions JL for tour, good—funny]; TT “Being the some dialogue, Madam “So Jenny, come along” propositions JL for precipitous Pasta doesn’t appear at tour (JL’s part occasion”; JL signs all]; “Being the enhanced from contract; “So Jenny, precipitous occasion” previous drafts) come along” [throughout scene LL notes difference between TT music and JL/GB music]; JL signs contract; “So Jenny, come along”

264 Act II Prologue

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 Chorus: “Being the Part Two: The Chorus: “Being the Incubation” Groundwork; Chorus: Incubation” “Being the Incubation” [LL notes: “Sing a Song of Sixpence becomes instrumental train music]

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] Chorus: “Sing a Song Act II Prologue: chorus of Sixpence”; “Jenny Lind Valse and Sideshow Chorus: Caprice” “Sing a Song of Jenny”; Chorus: “Being the Incubation”

Act II Part 1

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 *PTB rides train with Train ride, PTB, PTB train ride Train ride, PTB, TT, discovers no one conductor, chorus conductor, chorus knows JL

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] Train ride, PTB, Part 4 The Train Part 4 Train Ride: Act II Part 1: Train conductor, chorus Ride: Chorus: “Being “Being the Ride, PTB, train the Incubation”; Train Incubation”; PTB, conductor, chorus, ride, PTB, conductor, conductor, chorus; “Being the Incubation” chorus; [debating minor edits for conductor’s last line]; punctuating music; “Sing a song of “Sing a Song of sixpence” [LL Barnum” [all new changes to “Sing a words, 2 verses] Song of Barnum, a showman in a pickle”]

265 Act II Part 2

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 * Barnum media Advertise: “Merchants Chorus enumerates PTB decides to machinery; of America” [LL notes merchandising of JL Advertise: “Merchants Chorus: “Merchants of for Jon Cranney, where in America; JL leaves of America” America”, rough form is the chorus? wants to Europe use chorus as a collective and as individuals]; cuts GB, JL dialogue where GB introducing himself

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] PTB decides to Part 5 and 6: Parts 5 and 6: Act II Part 2: Barnum’s Advertise: “Merchants Barnum’s NYC office Barnum’s NYC office NY office, PTB, “You of America”; & Aboard the & Aboard the Know me, I know you” JL & GB traveling Atlantic: Atlantic: TT, chorus, “Merchants while “Merchants” Advertise: Advertise: “Merchants of America” sing “Merchants of of America” [minor America”; “Sing a changes in word order; song of Jenny”; “Sing “Sing a song of a song of Jenny”; “Sing a song seasickness”; PTB of seasickness”; PTB Press conference Press conference [some while JL sings lines cut & rearranged] “Panyars dagen (The while JL sings Mariner)” “Panyars dagen (The Mariner)”

[Intermission]

Act II Part 3

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 *hires Belletti Boat Ride (LL cuts); GB and JL on boat talk of *JL arrives Travel dialogue (LL tour; chorus: JL products; cuts) PTB markets JL; JL arrives to media frenzy

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] Press conference with Act II Part 3: Aboard “Merchants of Atlantic, JL, GB “Sing a America”; Song of seasickness”, JL arrives chorus 266 Act II Part 4

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 *JL arrives to frenzy Press conference Chorus sings medley of Press conference with Elizabeth Sprague “Merchants of Coolidge Mother Goose America” Melodies

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] Part 7: The Reception: Part 7: The Reception: Act II Part 4: Press Press Conference; PTB Press Conference; Conference, JL, GB, welcomes JL; song minor word changes; TT, PTB, chorus, contest winner PTB welcomes JL; [LL Charity Taylor sings missing—deciding reworks the entire song contest winner where to place in scene press conference]

Act II Part 5

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] Auction (JL & GB Part 8 Auction: Part 8 Auction: [LL Act II Part 5: Auction, confused) [deciding whether to cuts dialogue, inserts JL, PTB, GB, TT, place song contest in Charity Taylor sings chorus this scene instead]; “Greetings to Change auctioneer America” song contest from PTB to TT; JL winner]; Auction TT as disturbed by auction; auctioneer—condense PTB tears up contract to pick up the pace and creates another

267 Act II Part 6

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 *GB falls in love with JL; PTB thinks he’s in love with JL

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] JL sings aria; JL Part 9 Premiere: Part 9 Premiere: Act II Part 6: Premiere, complains to PTB JL “Casta Diva”; [LL “Now attend the JL “Casta Diva”, PTB, about ticket auction noisy, chaotic crowd] sensational first night” GB, chorus chorus; JL “Casta Diva”; heckler inserted; JL Polka; “And now, the great American Tour”

Act II Part 7

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 Part Three: The Tour * JL sings famous Material written for aria; montage of tour opening cut performances; *PTB * JL sings about the insert himself; * tour, what audiences chorus interpolates expect scenes

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] American Tour: JL Part 10 American Tour: Part 10 American Tour: Act II Part 7: American sings while chorus [LL notes keep harried, “Being the moment Tour, JL, PTB, GB, narrates tour, frenzied air]; JL sings when Jenny goes on chorus, “Camptown interjections of TT, “Casta Diva” tour”; JL sings “Casta Races”, hecklers GB throughout scene; GB Diva” throughout makes occasional scene; GB makes comments; chorus occasional comments; narrates tour cites; chorus narrates tour “Merchants of cites; “Merchants of America” underneath; America” underneath; [not sure how to end the hecklers added; JL also chaos as JL shows sings “Bird Song” & exhaustion] “Home Sweet Home”

268 Act II Part 8

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 * confrontation—JL refuses to sing; ends tour

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 Composing Libretto Published Libretto [Jon Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] [LL notes “End still Part 11 Dressing Room: Part 11 Dressing Act II Part 8: Dressing doesn’t work”] JL refuses to sing; GB Room: Room, JL refuses to interprets for JL; JL “In which Jenny Lind sing, PTB, GB buys out contract; [find tired and fatigued interprets for JL, TT way to buy out contract refuses to sing” [LL simply; “she’s on stage cuts some dialogue]; and read the letter she JL reads letter ending has written” contract; PTB agrees

Act II Part 9

Draft #1 12/18/1999 Draft #2 3/11/2000 Outline 5/31/2000 Draft #3 6/25/2000 *JL in love with Otto; Discuss their artistic *JL sings simple song JL believes PTB in love differences for TT; * JL departs with higher art; JL more * PTB thinks he’s in while PTB searches for down to earth; goodbye love with JL a new act

Draft #4 7/12/2000 Draft #5 8/20/2000 [Jon Composing Libretto Published Libretto Cranney] 9/25/2000 [Jon Cranney] Part 12 Farewell Party: Part 12 Farewell Party: Act II Part 9: Farewell, “Being the moment in “Being the moment in JL, PTB, GB, TT sings which the exhausted which the exhausted “Home Sweet Home”, Angel”, chorus; TT & Angel”, [LL changes PTB finally understands chorus enter—PTB’s sideshow people, only JL curiosities say goodbye, TT speaks]; TT sings TT sings “Home Sweet “Home Sweet Home” Home” as tribute; JL & as tribute; JL & GB GB touched; PTB thanks touched; PTB thanks JL; 2 potential JL; all dance [LL cuts endings—JL says PTB ending] worst dancer, or PTB laughs at being worst dancer; chorus sings “And so goodbye”

269 Appendix E: List of the Executive and Honorary Committees for the One World Benefit Premiere of Coming Forth Into Day

Executive Committee

Kristine Aasheim, Chair Lee Hanley Ghaleb Abdul-Rahman Ellie Lucas Pauline Altermatt Colin MacKensie Philip Brunelle John Pellegrene Sally Glassberg The Rev. Hilary Thimmesh, O.S.B. Barbara Grigsby

Honorary Committee

Barbara Bush, Chair Dr. Jonh S. Kendall Dr. Charles S. Anderson Dr. Elizabeth T. Kennan Pearl Bailey Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick The Rev. Colman J. Barry, O.S.B. Dr. Henry and Nancy Kissinger Senator Rudy Boschwitz Prof. Paul Oskar Kristeller Dr. George K. Brushaber Mayor George Latimer Liz Carpenter Anne Morrow Lindbergh Rosalyn Carter Dr. Robert Maloy Dr. Leonard dePaur Former Senator Eugene McCarthy Brother Louis de Thomasis, F.C. Dr. Brendan McDonald Dr. Paul J. Dovre Former Vice President Walter and Joan Senator David Durenberger Mondale The Rev. Baldwin Dworschak, The Rev. Msgr. Terrence J. Murphy O.S.B. Dr. Ibrahim Oweiss Dr. Robert Edwards Dr. Anita M. Pampusch Betty Ford Governor Rudy Perpich Arvonne Fraser George and Sally Pillsbury Mayor Don Fraser Dr. Daniel H. Pilon Congressman Bill Frenzel Former Governor Albert Quie Dr. Robert M. Gavin, Jr. Rabbi Bernard and Leah Raskas Dr. Melvin R. George Sister Emmanuel Renner, O.S.B. Dr. Charles Graham Archbishop John Roach Werner Gundersheimer Sister Helen Rolfson, O.S.B. Dr. Thomas J. Hamilton Rabbi Max Shapiro Dr. Alan F. Harre Gloria Steinem The Rev. Ivan Havener, O.S.B. Dr. Lawrence Towner Sister Eva Hooker, C.S.C. Gloria Vanderbilt Lt Gov. Marlene Johnson Barbara Walters Dr. Kenneth H. Keller Eugenia Zukerman

270 Appendix F: Libby Larsen Interview by Deborah Crall on 19 November 2005

The interview took place in the living room of Larsen’s house in Minneapolis,

Minnesota. LL refers to Libby Larsen and DC refers to Deborah Crall. The original tapes of the interview reside with the author.

DC: When you sang Chant as a child, was it straight monophonic chant or did you ever sing chant with two or more voices?

LL: It was all straight monophonic chant. I’ve got my Gregorian Hymnal if you wanted to take a look at it or even copy an example, but it was straight monophonic.

DC: Can you tell me more about your first compositions where you engaged others in performance? Boyer said that it was in 6th grade during recess with songs based on Spanish rhythm, and in that case did you use Spanish text?

LL: Yes. I began by writing, concocting songs based on Spanish words that we were learning at the time. My first little song was “Los Pollitos,” which was “The Little Chicks.” And it wasn’t that I wanted to write about little chickens, it’s that I loved the quality of the word Los pollitos. It just was not at all like the rhythm of the English that I was learning or it wasn’t like Latin. It had bounce to it and so I wrote a little song.

Los Pollitos: Di peo peo quando tienen hongre quando tenen frio

“The little chicks peep when they’re hungry or cold.”

Anyway, I just began making them up. I guess you would call them jingles. Just around a Spanish word that was so musical that it just had to be musicized, which I was basically doing. But, pretty soon that led to much larger, elaborate kind of ritual games. Like in 6th grade I invented this game with a group of friends of mine. We called it the Elements. It became a very much call and response kind of game played during our recess periods, which allowed us to move around a large space and contact each other.

Really I think more a result of all our conditioning singing Gregorian chant in a large church space. We became very used to projecting our voices way out in the space and listening for the priest to intone to us so that we could pick up on his intonation and respond in chant. So that translated into these elaborate kinds of operatic games which spread out into the neighborhood, much to the nuns’

271 consternation because we really weren’t supposed to go off school property, but we did anyway. From then on, in 7th grade in particular, there was a group of us, and I would make up songs in rounds and in parts and we would sing them.

DC: Did you write these down?

LL: No. I didn’t. I would teach them by rote. Then in 7th grade the same teacher that we had a habit of making fun of by singing songs about, Sister Timathea, brilliant teacher. She, I often wondered what nuns talked about when they discussed the children because she, right away in 7th grade, asked if I would write a school song and write it on the blackboard and which then the class would sing everyday. Which I did. So that was all year on the blackboard in my hand. We sang it everyday. A really silly little tune. She knew that I was composing. She also knew that I could write things down because at school we could all read and write [music].

DC: A nun was your first piano teacher. Did she know the nuns at the school?

LL: Yes. We were all in the same building. Just over on 15th and York. It’s a little tiny brick building. We all read and wrote. She identified me as someone who was concentrated on doing that. We also drew, did math. But I guess she, and probably my piano teacher, they all lived in the same convent, so I’m sure there was a lot of discussion about various strengths and different qualities [of their students]. Of course there was. It’s not like they went home at night and didn’t think about the students. Especially the ones that are hard to handle. The ones you had to keep busy, precocious.

So it started in Spanish. I think that’s when I moved off the Gregorian Chant page, that is. Because at that point, I’d been taking piano lessons and singing Gregorian Chants, but I never moved away from the page with somebody else’s writing to the point where I made it up and I taught it to people. It’s a change happening in 6th grade and I think it happened through Spanish.

DC: Can you tell me more about your high school music theory teacher who is mentioned once in an article?

LL: Yes, I can. It’s been great getting ready to answer your questions. His name is William Lydell. I went to Southwest High School in Minneapolis. He taught at Washington High School, which is one school over from Southwest. But I came in contact with him the summer between my junior and senior year when the school system put together an institute called the Twin Cities Institute for Talented Youth.

Basically it was an enrichment program. But really one of the first sort of all district efforts at providing an enrichment program for students who wanted more

272 and I signed up for that institute. I wanted to study economics. That was my first choice and my second choice was music and I didn’t get into the economics. I’d like to say because they weren’t admitting women, but I’m not sure if I haven’t revised history. All I know I wasn’t chosen for economics and I was chosen for music. I’m thinking that this will be interesting. Well, what William Lydell wanted to teach was Hindemith theory. William Lydell had gotten his degrees at Julliard in piano. He was a concert pianist, but landed in Minneapolis as a choir teacher in high school for various reasons. We’re still actually very good friends.

We just launched right into theory through Hindemith’s method. The first day of the class he said “if you think that music is a lark, think again. It’s mostly hard work, and you’ll find that there’s great joy in it, but not in the way you expect.”

He introduced Hindemith’s approach to theory and the day he talked about the spiral of fifths, not the circle of fifths, was the day where I was blind-sided by the beauty of theory. Completely blind-sided and completely thunderstruck with the beauty of it. He took us from Hindemith theory to composing in that six or eight week period, I can’t remember. But it was really a methodical summer institute.

By the end of our work with him we all knew Hindemith theory and we were all composing. I composed a theme and variations as my big project. William Lydell, with the kind of background that he had, he brought over grad students from the University to look at our compositions. So he really built a bridge for all of us. A good strong bridge, that we could just walk into the theoretical aspect of composition, feeling completely ready.

I have thanked him for that many, many, many, MANY, times. Many times. We had no music theory at Southwest High School, it was very much a performance school. I sang in the choir at Southwest High School. It was very much a choral approach to music which was, we didn’t learn to sight read. I could sight read because I’d been doing it for eight years, been taught how.

DC: I read that the person that taught you was from the St. Olaf School.

LL: Yes. He was from St. Olaf, Oscar B. Dahle. I can show you his picture. He was quite a showman. He taught very good choral singing techniques in the St. Olaf style, which is a very focused tone. Not particularly warm, and very hard on women’s voices, as you’re not allowed to expand beyond a very focused kind of tone. But he taught us good breath support, and we all had a sense of a choral sound very clearly.

We learned quite a bit of repertoire of a varied nature, everything from the Mitch Miller hits that he was so fond of. He did music of contemporary composers, so his ear was very open. His tastes were varied. We did some Bach. We did patriotic tunes. We did white spiritual arrangements, or spiritual arrangements for white

273 choirs, to be conducted precisely and then swung. But we never went into any of the construction, the theory, the modes, nothing. It was really more about producing a great chorale sound with diction and good singing technique. But to me, that’s not teaching very much about music.

You have no chance to be curious about what’s on the page — how what’s on the page got onto the page. There was really nothing, nothing of that. I was so ready for William Lydell. Having the eight years of chant and singing, and all those years of piano. And then the chorale. I was so ready to learn how to make music, that theory, it was like The Secret Garden . It was just great.

DC: Do you recall when exactly you began working part time at the brokerage firm? What year in high school?

LL: I do. I graduated in 1968. I began working at the brokerage firm in 1967, so I was a junior in high school. The same year, that was the same year that I also went to the Twin City Institute.

DC: So you were both at the Institute and working during that summer?

LL: Yes. The brokerage firm was called Clarke Dodge, which is no longer here. I don’t know if it’s still a company. It was great. You know what’s interesting, I never thought about that year being the year I started work at the brokerage firm and I also studied theory. I’ve often thought that interest in economics and working at a brokerage firm [stems from the] if/then proposition. If certain conditions exist then something should happen. The economy should grow and contract, or we’d make money in stock or if/then proposition. Of course composition is so much about if/then proposition — that you set certain conditions in motion, then something should happen, and it would be a piece. I wonder if for me it was a brain synapse connection happening at the same time. I don’t…(trails off)

DC: It could be similar processes.

LL: They really are. And I do love finances. I really love to think about if/then. If we diversify an endowment fund this way — over this period of time it should grow to this amount. To me that’s exciting. If I have a certain group of instruments and several singers, and a three hour block of time to work in. Yes, it excites the same part of me.

DC: As an undergraduate, which professor encouraged you to audition to Julliard, Mannes and Oberlin, and was this while you were a freshman? And for clarification purposes, were these auditions for vocal performance?

274 LL: Yes. The auditions were for vocal performance. I, at that point, was unclear about being a composer and had been encouraged to be a singer and I was studying voice, thinking I might be an opera singer.

DC: Who encouraged you to be a singer?

LL: Everyone, but in particular a professor at the University by the name of Arnold Caswell, who has since passed on. He raced sailboats on Lake Harriet, which is two lakes down. It’s a small lake, so all the sailboat classes all raced together at the same time. Arnold Caswell sailed on that lake in a T-Boat, while I was sailing X-Boat then an M-Boat. Still, the lake is so small everybody’s all mixed up.

My sister Duffy, who was my crew, and I would sing all the time on the boat, just all the time to calm our nerves when it was too windy, to keep us from fidgeting when there wasn’t enough wind and we needed to hang on to every little breath of wind, just all the time.

Arnold Caswell encouraged me to go into music at the university. And he actually was the one who encouraged me to go into music. My parents didn’t, it was Arnold. And I just thought “Yes, of course, yes, that’s it!” Still, I signed up for a double degree in economics and music. But he said you should sing and I thought “yes that’s probably what I should do.” He didn’t know any of this background and so I auditioned in vocal performance. You had to audition in a performance degree at that time, I thought. I had piano. I could have auditioned in piano, but I auditioned in voice. Then during freshman year, to my voice teacher, Lois Widdick, I expressed a desire to audition at Julliard and she suggested I audition at Julliard and Mannes and Oberlin. We prepared Musetta’s Waltz as the audition piece, which is hilarious when I think about it. I loved to sing it. I really did have an agile voice at that point, because I had been singing all my life and playing with the voice, and I’d had good training. Even though Oscar Dahle made the choral voice very focused and therefore very tight, choral singing was only a small part of what I did singing because I sang all the time. So I auditioned with Musetta’s Waltz on the advice of Lois Widdick. She also had gone to Mannes so she had prepared the way to Mannes, where I was accepted.

DC: Why didn’t you go?

LL: It was a combination of things. The real twist of it was, she was the only person who was really supporting my wish to become a singer. I had no support from my family to go into music at all other than OK, sure, go try it. But no support. No dinner table conversations. No asking questions about it. No nothing. My mother to this day says, “You should have gone into advertising.” We had this conversation last week. Now she’s trying to get my daughter to go into advertising. I just want to ask her, “Why didn’t you go into advertising?”

275 And Lois was it, and I was afraid. To be honest with you, I was afraid. I would have had to leave Minnesota, but that wasn’t bothering me too much. Living in New York, that bothered me a little bit, because I couldn’t see the sky. I felt a little desperate. I actually felt desperate that I couldn’t see the sky. Now years later I completely understand it that. That was the instinct that was saying, “This is not you,” manifesting itself in that desperation to not seeing the sky. But at the time I just thought: I can’t do this, I can’t see the sky. I can’t live in the city. It was instinct and not enough careful guidance and support. During this audition, my dad took me up there to the auditions. He never asked, “How will you live? What will you do?” Never ever, ever. Which I interpreted unconsciously at the time, but now I know to be true, complete non-belief that I could do this. Yes, we’ll take you out and you can get this out of your system kind of thing. So I think that’s why I didn’t do it. I do think had I gone, Lois said, “We can set you up in a home. You can be taking care of children and live in a home.” She would have done that, but there was nobody else that said, “OK, Good idea.” Not one person. Had I done it, I would have had some kind of singing career, maybe not an opera career, but I would have taken the instrument as it was developed to the point, and developed it in a healthy way. And the kind of person that I am, which always sees creative ways to do everything, I’m sure I would have had some sort of singing career. It’s interesting, when you know what you need to do, but that there’s no support. No sisters, no parents, no aunts or uncles. Nobody.

DC: So you had no one sitting down with you and saying, ‘Ok Libby, this is who you are as a person. Let’s try to figure out the best thing for you.’

LL: Yes, I didn’t have anybody. Which is a problem. Yes, it’s a problem. And I don’t know why but I did a lot of therapy on it to try understand why and I, I don’t know.

DC: And as you went through your career as a graduate student, did they provide much help?

LL: NO help. None. They didn’t even come and visit me on campus.

DC: And how about financial support?

LL: Nope. Not a penny. No.

DC: What did they do for your sisters?

LL: They did not pay for any advanced studies for any so they were consistent in that way.

DC: They were consistent with their behavior towards you all?

276 LL: Well, yes and no. In the financial support they were consistent, so that is fine. But what I can’t understand is, at the same time I was over on campus working three jobs, trying to do my graduate degree, my littlest sister was over on campus getting her undergraduate degree and my mother was over there all the time with her. But my mother never once called me to even have coffee. I don’t know if they were… I don’t know why I tend to think that it was so maverick, it was so not in their plan for how they would be with their children. That they didn’t know how to handle it. That’s what I tend to think. And they had four other daughters, and only so much time. It’s a way I can live with it, but there are many ways to be really angry.

DC: That they did what fit their comfort zone?

LL: They did what fit their comfort zone the best. They didn’t want to take the journey of my interest with me. It’s not their interest. And they didn’t want to take it with me. My other sisters, one of them majored in English, that was the journey my mother took, so there was a real common interest bond there and another was home economics — my littlest sister. Lots of common bond interest there, but music, especially theoretical music, there was very little way for them. They’d have to start from the beginning to understand it.

DC: Yes, but in a way it’s kind of odd since your Dad played the clarinet.

LL: Yes. It is. It’s only now in his mid-80’s that he’s asking questions about how music works. Only now. He was always telling me how it worked in ways that are endearing but absurd, like the key of D having two sharps. But now, he’s at an age where he is much less inhibited about how he expresses himself. We had an interchange a few months ago where he just blurted out, “I just hate modern jazz. It’s really ugly, don’t you agree?” he said to me. “Well, now Dad, I just went to a Ornette Coleman concert. I just think he’s a genius.” Instead of him, his way would have been change the subject or cut it off, but he left an opening where I could talk about how you listen to jazz. Because he had said that what he really likes to listen to is jazz of the 40’s and I said, “Well, now Dad,” went over to the piano and I said, “That kind of jazz you listen this way, right?” I played chords he improvised the melody, the singing melody. He said, “Yes, yes.” “Well now Dad, in the last 60 years we’ve added thirds to these chords which means you progress mathematically in all kinds of different ways. And the listening experience is a much more complicated one, almost like 3D chess played at speed.”

But then, a few weeks later he came over here when he dropped in with my mom and he walked over to the keyboard and he said, “Show me those step thirds again.” Which is like, that’s the first time ever, ever in my life, he asked me about music. Which is interesting. So I wouldn’t venture, yes I would venture to guess, I don’t know if he felt competitive or that I was in a domain that had a special, very personal meaning for him. I don’t know why he relates to music. I know why I

277 do, but I’ve never asked him why he does and I don’t know what role music has served in his life. But for some reason my interest in music, which I always thought would delight him and delight my mom, they both love music, so it made me think … [trails off]

DC: Threatening somehow?

LL: Yes, yes. It’s threatening somehow. I don’t know if it’s threatening a personal part of their relationship to music. But definitely I figure it’s threatening, and they just didn’t want to go there. Yes, so there was no support.

DC: In an article from your early years, you have an alias: Country songwriter Florine McKay, as well as several others. So who were they? What inspired you to create aliases, how long did you maintain them and are your currently working under any other names?

LL: Yes, I did write under Florine McKay for awhile. I would write knock-off country western songs with the Florine McKay songbook, which I would be happy to show you. I just made the name up. I did it because I had great fun writing them. The lyrics for them are all written by serious writers, who just wanted to try their hand at country western lyrics. I thought, well there are instances when I need to write my own text for songs and I am not a lyricist nor am I a poet. I am not. I don’t have the rigors to make the choices intellectually that lyrists and poet do. But when I write my own text for songs, it’s an odd combination of the music just needing these words.

A lot of songwriters will say that doesn’t sit well with me because I like to be a lot deeper. I like to narrow down to the choices that I make from a wide field of knowledge. So, a wide field of knowledge. So I write under, now, under two pseudonyms. One is M. K. Dean. I got the name off a tea cup that I found at a house sale in the neighborhood. And it’s a tea cup actually from the late 1800’s. Beautiful tea cup and, I have published, parts of the Missa Gaia texts are written M. K. Dean. There is a set of pieces called “The How To Song,” where two of the three pieces are written by M. K. Dean. I bring her out whenever I need ‘just exactly that,’ not a poet. You can’t really find a M. K. Dean if you were doing a scholarly study. But their words work with the music.

And then the other one is Aldine Humphries. She writes text that just verge on cheesy, with humor. They’re humorous, just almost cheesy, for my taste. But they’re needed for that particular piece of music even if it’s a very, very serious music that need a certain kind of approach to words. Then Aldine will deliver those for you. So those are the two.

DC: So Florine McKay, was she also a librettist?

278 LL: She’s a composer. She’s a composer and these two are text. So, Florine is my other. I’ve been contemplating another composer, named Bobby Denny. I’m not going to do it. I was contemplating it because there is a repertoire of music that is quite developed in the gala choruses, especially the gay men choruses. And, it’s not a repertoire that I want to contribute to, but if I did, I would probably write under the pseudonym Bobby Denny. But, that’s just facetious.

DC: Do you currently pull Florine out every now and then and write something?

LL: I do. I do. And it kind of contributes to the Florine McKay songbook, yes. And actually there have been tenors in particular who have been asking if they could perform some Florine McKay songs.

DC: So how can they find out about her?

LL: I don’t know!!! But I… eventually maybe.

DC: Because it’s only in a couple articles in the early 70’s where she pops up.

LL: I don’t know!! I don’t know!! And even Oxford Press said “can we publish these?” No!! No!! No!!!

DC: The ones written before you got your doctorate”

LL: Yes. No. I don’t know. Can we publish your Florine — NO!! Later, like when…

DC: Like when you’re 80 or 90?

LL: Yes, and everybody knows we’re just having fun. Exactly. Exactly. There may be 30 songs by then and then it could be fun. Real fun.

DC: What was your position at Travelers Insurance?

LL: I worked at the insurance company as secretary to the Field Manager in a full- time position for six months. I quit the job and went to grad school in the fall of ‘72. When I was at Travelers, I was not in school.

DC: Do you recall your first commission?

LL: I do, but we should talk about the definition of commission. So for you, what is the definition of commission? Because there are three first commissions, depending on your definition.

DC: Well,in the context of the dissertation, we are talking about things that you are paid for. You receive some sort of remuneration for them. But, why don’t you

279 give me your three categories, because I can see how you would consider the first time someone asks you to write a piece for an occasion as a commission.

LL: Yes, because in the context of student life, that’s a commission when someone says, “Write me a piece.” So, there is that. It was a song on a Paul Bermon text for soprano, Christine Sorenson, who was a student at the university. And she asked if I would set this text so that she could sing it on recital. So I would say that that was the first request from a performer to write a piece for them.

DC: Could you recall what year that might have been?

LL: I might have it on the score. I have a big box called “Student Works” and I think it is in there. And then, the next definition of commission is that someone asks you to write a piece of music and gives you something. And that was Lawrence Young, who was giving his Ph.D. Organ recital at the university, and he asked if I would write a piece for his Ph.D. recital, and he didn’t have much money, but he said that he wanted to give me something in exchange. So I asked for Mars Bars.

DC: Will work for food!

LL: Will work for food! Yes! Chocolate and coconut. So he gave me a box of Mars Bars. So that is an important step for a composer.

DC: First contract negotiations?

LL: Exactly! Except the real bridge of asking for something, or, as a composer receiving something more than a performance, for the work that you do. And at that time it was fairly groundbreaking, because so many of the academic composers were defining commission as a performance. Even at the Minnesota Orchestra at that time, a commission was defined as, “we’ll perform it.”

DC: So this was in the mid-seventies?

LL: Yes. Mid-seventies. I asked Paul Gunther, the librarian at the orchestra about commissioning, many years later, and he said that it wasn’t until the end of the 70’s that there were negotiations for amounts of money. Interesting. And then, my first contract for money commission came from the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis to write a cantata for chorus and orchestra. And I was actually paid money for that. And that was also while I was working on my doctorate, so it would have been before ’78. But we can find the dates in scores, if I was smart enough to write them down.

DC: You used to encourage booing and hissing at Minnesota Composers Forum concerts. We were booed and hissed often? And can you recall any anecdotes or reactions by other composers to your works?

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LL: I’ve been thinking long and hard about this. And to be honest, really honest, we encouraged booing and hissing, but there really wasn’t much. I wish that there was. There were a few who would boo and hiss, but there really wasn’t much. A lot of staring and glaring, and lots and lots of coughing, or shifting around in seats — body language, slumping in chairs, rustling, big sighs. We really encouraged it, but it was just not in the genes here somehow.

DC: How about when your works were performed? Do you recall any particular instances of feedback?

LL: Only one. We also tried to create a very supportive, almost writers circle environment. So we didn’t like or dislike. That wasn’t the response that anybody wanted. We were more curious about how pieces were written, what brought a composer to write it, technical things. But once a composer just walked up to me and said, “You know, you are nothing but a glorified bureaucrat.” This was at a concert where my piece was performed, so I don’t know what that meant.

DC: So was this after you’d really taken on a lot more responsibility in maintaining the running of the organization?

LL: Yes. I was an administrator, and this was a teacher at the university whose piece was also on the concert. I only programmed my pieces once a year. Absolutely only one piece a year on all the concerts we did.

DC: You didn’t use the concerts as a display case.

LL: No. I’ve been absolutely scrupulous about that. And not even applying for the programs we formed and raised the money for. Because in order for an idea to really flourish, you just had to be scrupulous about these things. So really the only time I got a reaction that wasn’t one more, “Well, really interesting color,” or constructive, writerly conversation was this one composer. I think that was coming from a completely different place in him. Something completely other was going on. That’s not a composer comment.

DC: No. It’s not a judgment about your music, it’s a judgment about your role in society.

LL: Yes. And I don’t know…it was just so stunning.

DC: Was he quite a bit older than you?

LL: Yes. Quite a bit older. He was a composer I like and respect. It was just weird. He did have that habit. That might be it. Oh, well no, there was Charles Schrade, who used to be a critic for the LA Times, who was also a composer. And he told me

281 that my music was trite. And I said, “Well, one man’s trite is another man’s beauty.” Whatever. How do you respond to things like that? You’re ugly, and your mother wears grandmother clothes.

DC: This was the late 70s, which was a time when, one of my questions later kind of pulls into that too, when, if you compose in a certain way, or you didn’t compose in a certain way, you were betraying the academic and artistic school of art, to make true art.

LL: That’s right, and it was a very politicized and polemicized time. Also, the behavior around the Vietnam War and all of the protests were highly emotionally charged times. Much like it is now, with these partisans — if you don’t think like me, you are betraying me, kind of thing.

DC: Right, instead of being able to see the validity in different voices.

LL: Exactly. And I think why I was completely stunned the first time this happened was that I wasn’t out to betray anybody’s anything. I’ve always been out to, I know exactly how everybody writes, and I made a choice to communicate it a certain way. It’s not a betrayal of anything, because I knew from a very early age that nobody owns music. Nobody. It’s impossible. So the encampment behavior of certain periods of time like the late 70’s and right now, where we are beginning another encamped base in our culture, and I am sure it will begin to reflect itself in music. I see it coming. But that doesn’t, I think that it is behind much of the non-constructive kind of commentary that can happen from time to time. Now, it’s not good teaching. And it’s certainly not good collegial behavior. And it’s just not constructive.

DC: A 1979 article stated that you liked to focus on opera because of the many disparate elements. When did you discover this particular fact about opera and subsequently decide that that was your preferred type of composition project?

LL: This is a great question. I had to stop and think if there was a time. But, I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been composing longer form, ritualized pieces which involve singing and a plot somehow. That’s what High Mass is. The ritual of a High Gregorian Chant Mass, it’s narrative, and many disparate elements. So when I was working at the time, we can really pinpoint Travelers Insurance, because I wrote a one-act [opera] during that time, just because I wanted to, and have never gone for a period of time when I haven’t been writing an opera. So it seems very strange in this particular compositional environment when people say, “Have you written any opera?” And I say, “Sixteen and I have three more commissions.” They can’t take it in!

It is the disparate elements. To really do it organically well, it really is internal collaboration. It’s completely collaborative internally. You have all of the

282 technical aspects of writing for all the instruments involved. You also have theatrical aspects that have to marry the technical aspects of the music, for the piece. Then you have costume and dress, which if developed well within character, effects the tempo, it effects the rhythmic language of the particular character in the particular costume. It dictates great theater, which is many characters in many tempos in their own universe of psychological development. And that is what makes great opera. And it is also what dashes the hope of so many who would write opera. So, I find opera to be completely engrossing musically. And I find the criticism leveled, again from encamped behavior, that opera is somehow lesser, is by people who can’t write it. Because it is so much more than writing a symphony. So much more! Wozzeck is a great opera. Moses and Aaron is a great opera. It’s so much more than the encamped behavior about the tonality.

DC: It’s why Beethoven couldn’t write opera.

LL: Yes. Right. Why? because he couldn’t allow all the elements to have their own psychological elements. Yes. It’s true. It all has to work in one musical investigation for him. Whereas in opera, there are several musical investigations that all have to work together.

DC: Now, he did one of the greatest opera summaries in music with the Leonora Overtures, but he couldn’t carry it for long, sustained character development.

LL: No, he can’t. I don’t know why not, and I don’t know why Mozart could. But I know that I can, and it’s completely joyous, and it always has been, ever since I can remember. Always. So I have many, many, many ideas for operas all of the time. I just wait, and most of them I will never get to write.

DC: I’m just curious right now. You have the Jack London one coming up. What are the others?

LL: Picnic , the William Inch play I’ve wanted to write for a long time. It’s for the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, who have refurbished their big performing arts center and are going to re-open it in 2008-09 season. So they’ve commissioned an opera to open the hall, which is really nice. And there is another one I’m just negotiating right now, but don’t know what it is and the contract’s not signed yet, so I can’t really say it. Sorry.

I have a subject that I am going to go after a benefactor, and approach a company with. It has to be done on a fully professional level. It needs the whole process, like the Jack London. It’s just that in opera, in the way that it is conceived in our culture, it is a re-packaging industry. And so, there is no new product line interest, only new events generated, like the opening of a new hall.

283 DC: That’s why it is so difficult to get the second or third performance of an opera, or to get something entered into the repertoire, which is so sad, because they are hearing things over and over again, and yes, they’re universal and timeless and all that, but there are other things that need to be addressed and spoken to in our day and age.

LL: Absolutely. And it remains to seen just how universal and timeless the repertoire is. Already, La Boheme has been taken away from itself. That remains to be seen. We tend to think of timeless in the classical music world.

DC: Right, following the Canon. But we know that the Canon changes.

LL: Yes. We know that it changes, and that it ought to. From our study that we’ve been doing for the concert hall book, it is evidently clear that timeless has been assigned to a certain repertoire — our notion of it’s universal and timeless — has been assigned to a repertoire that has been generated over a couple hundred year period, and reflects a very specific cultural viewpoint. It is confounding.

I just went on the Opera America Board, the first composer they ever asked, starting in January.

DC: How long are you on the Board?

LL: I think two terms, so probably six years, maybe nine if it’s a three year term. If I can help them formulate a philosophy about new subject matter in opera, rather than “new” opera, then we may be able to see some things change. So the first thing I going to do is give them the speech, but based in opera. [Speech: The Concert Hall that fell asleep and woke up as a car radio ]

DC: That is interesting because I have been collecting a lot of material about what people say about opera in America. At some point I’m going to write a nifty little article about opera in America. In one of your wonderful interviews in Virginia, it was about orchestral music.

LL: With Victoria Bond?

DC: Yes! Oh, what a great interview.

LL: Yes. And boy, we really are friends, so we just chatted.

DC: You start talking about this whole idea of research and development, having a composer on staff and what-not. And I’m thinking, well, that’s what used to happen with opera. I mean, Verdi had a contract with Recordi the publisher, but he also had contracts with Milan, with La Scala, with specific opera houses to be their composer for that season.

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LL: Right. And you need that.

DC: And he needed that. There’s no way he could have written Rigoletto without that.

LL: Right. There’s no way.

DC: And all of these other works, the last third of his life wouldn’t have happened without that.

LL: Absolutely. That is what needs to happen. Opera houses need to …

DC: …especially taking the risk to develop opera composers. They need to see what happens on stage.

LL: Absolutely.

DC: And find out, “Holy cow, that doesn’t work.”

LL: Right. Exactly.

DC: Take Andre Previn’s opera Streetcar . It had some glorious music but it was really flawed in some places, because he hadn’t written enough in that genre and writing for stage.

LL: When you have, you really know what you’re doing. And I really have. I really know. Because the place that I go when I’m composing, is not into tonality, it’s on stage. You begin, once you become so fluent with “this character moves” [hums], and is always in the shadows, you can write a Leporello because you are Leporello, musically in the character, as the composer. And you have to be with a stage, and you have to be with a company, and the lighting design, just everything, for a good hunk of time.

DC: Well, you get to know the voices you are working with intimately. You know exactly what they can sing and what they can’t.

LL: Exactly. And the mythology about writing opera now is so completely off-base. I adjust all the time when I work with singers, and in song cycles. Of course you’re going to change it if it is awkward for the singer.

DC: You want them to sound good because it makes your piece better.

LL: Of course it does. And it is the most joyous, like the song cycle The Summer with Susanne Menztner and Craig Burton and James Dunham, we all got together in a room and we had the music, and we all said: “Okay, now. What works? What

285 doesn’t work?” Most of it works, but in the places that don’t, it has to be a collaborative solution. It makes the piece flawless, and therefore “timeless and universal,” in the context. So I don’t know why opera, yes I do, a philosophical profile needs to be developed around new material, that is not bound in the really surface prejudices about how audiences don’t like it or how singers can’t sing it. That’s all ill-informed. Non-practitioner prejudice.

DC: The data says, “We know we will sell out La Boheme , so let’s just do La Boheme , because we need to program something that will sell out.”

LL: Then don’t produce opera. Why are you producing opera if that’s what … So there’s room to grow in the opera world, and hopefully we can get, the only reason I agreed to be on the Board is because I think I can help them craft some words, a philosophy. And they say they want it. And you know what that means, it could mean, stay away or it could mean that they genuinely want to see if there is a solution. Which gives me the idea, before we even talk about solutions, I want them to be able to articulate what problem we’re solving. Really articulate it, because that hasn’t happened. What problem are we solving. And if the problem is we need lots of people in the seats, ok. That’s another set of issues.

You know I’ve lately been really thinking about a lot Ford Foundation’s infusion of 85 million dollars into the orchestral field in the 60s, to establish endowment funds, and what that did to the orchestra world (blow up sound) like phenomenal. They would have folded, but instead they went to contracts and it was the beginning of the 52 week contract at that time. New York was the first one.

LL: $10,000 a year. But, adjusted for inflation. I don’t know what that would be today, $10,000 in ’64. That’s where I’m at. What does that mean? But what’s interesting, I’ve been reading about how with the development of endowment funds then came the development by necessity, of development departments and marketing departments. Which really didn’t exist before that.

DC: There was no such. . . But what happened before is, it wasn’t that you had development departments or marketing departments. You had volunteers who did all that sort of work and they were usually women. But now you have two working parents. You don’t have that force of volunteers to draw from so much. They went to the professional arts management.

LL: They did from ’64 to ’74 which is when, of course, when those were my real formative years, so I was watching this, feeling this tremendous energy and growth in the orchestra world and in town here, but it, the St. Paul Chamber orchestra, during my formative years went from being a sleepy little group to the St. Paul Chamber orchestra and the Minnesota orchestra built its hall and did all these things. But then of course, that really put the orchestras in this market place bind. Square, smack, right in the middle of it.

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DC: Especially when you have people trained on marketing models come into a non- profit like that where you can’t be a market place commodity just by the logistics of your product.

LL: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so hindsight’s 20/20. But you could say, “Gee, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to these endowment funds—the big infusion of money in this field.”

DC: Or not do it in the manner in which it was handled.

LL: Yes, and it makes me think well—and you just said—orchestras were dying. Why were they dying, in your mind?

DC: It’s not that they were dying so much as that you had … the conservatories were putting out more and more highly trained performers than had been in the past. And so you had this high growth of musicians and they needed to find work somewhere, but there weren’t enough positions and I’m thinking that’s part of it. You had this highly trained workforce and not enough jobs. And part of it wasn’t necessarily that they were dying so much as that OK: In order to have musicians play for a season of 32 weeks, well they’re stuck there for so long for 32 weeks. What do they do the rest of the time, then, to earn a living because they weren’t being paid enough money for them to just play in an orchestra and live through the rest of the year. They needed to have something else, some work to do.

So part of it was the concern that they were finding when they started the research studies, they found that most musicians then had to get another job, and they thought that in a country as big as ours and wealthy and blah, blah, blah. It was a political thing. A political maneuver, I think, in a way, is to provide support for the arts, saying we’re just as good as Germany or these other countries, because they did cross national studies between how the arts were supported in different nations to see where the United States held out in supporting its artists. It was Japan, Britain, Germany, and France.

LL: Yes, that makes sense. Which leads me to think that philosophically the reason for supporting the arts lay more in competition than it did in value of the arts. Competition with other countries rather than the value of the arts in our county.

DC: Well, I think it depends on who you asked. Especially who was in congress at the time. For JFK it was, I think, it was competition between countries. But of course he was assassinated, it was before he was assassinated he gave a speech, it was a commencement address at Amherst, and in it he laid out this plan for developing the arts in America. Well, that is what Van Cliburn was all about—America comes of age as a cultural institution. Porgy and Bess toured the late 1960’s. Same thing. So I think this is sort of dove tailing or piggy-backed onto that whole

287 idea. But JFK then couched it in other terms, as the arts for the sake of culture, making it a non-political issue in his speech. Before it had been a political issue. When he was assassinated LBJ? Who took over after. . . ?

LL: LBJ, yes.

DC: Actually pushed through the legislation.

LL: The NEA legislation?

DC: Yes, and actually pushed farther and faster than Kennedy was going to.

LL: And what do you think LBJ’s impetus was?

DC: Culture. Ladybird was pretty much interested in culture.

LL: So it was the value.

DC: For him, I think it resonated with him and his wife, and it was the value and it was a legacy in part. He also saw an opening. It was a legacy to the slain prince.

LL: Right. Camelot. The furthering of Camelot. Interesting. And then after LBJ how do you see the value and the competition aspects of the arts sitting in the presidencies?

DC: You mean whether they’re pro or con or indifferent?

LL: Yes, or have any weight behind them, other than they were just there?

DC: Well, I don’t find it linked to political party which I think some people would argue. But it’s not. It’s that some presidents are more sensitive to it than others. Their wives are more sensitive to it than others. Currently, I have to say we have someone who is definitely insensitive.

LL: Not a lot though.

DC: Yes.

LL: But in terms of the energy of the arts being a, really being part of the agenda, it’s my impression, I also agree with you that it doesn’t seem political to me. Except for Jessie Helms who politicized the arts just like he politicized other things. He couldn’t politicize colored people anymore. It was a tactic there.

DC: His was, that’s when they were doing that big culture war stuff.

288 DC: When were you on the NEA panel? I’ve been trying to find out but they won’t get back to me.

LL: Really? During the 80s. I was on panels from the early 80s until they eliminated funding for individual artists, so whenever that was. I called them and said, “Don’t put me on any more panels.”

DC: Did you have any other previous career desires in addition to being a stock broler?

LL: I did first want to be a stock broker. I fleetingly thought about being an architect and then of course an opera singer. Yes, so really, those were the three careers, named careers, in my mind I was thinking about.

The opera singer was a way into music. It’s the only way I could understand into music at the time. I didn’t want to be an opera singer.

DC: Vocal training was so much a part of your background, your history, that of course it was the only way you could conceive of it.

LL: Yes, it’s true. It was the only way I could conceive of it. It was the only path I knew how to practice. I had all this piano, but it never occurred to me that piano was another way to music.

DC: Do you have copy of the 1980 film from the series “Encounters with Minnesota Artists” in which you were featured?

LL: I believe that I do. I think it’s upstairs. We can have a copy made of it if you want.

DC: I thought it would be interesting to see it because of what I read about it. This was the one where somebody followed you around for a day. How did you feel doing that?

LL: It was well, weird to have someone shadowing you all day.

DC: In your discussions about the commissioning of Deep Summer Music for Terrace, Minnesota, in 1982, you give much credit to the townspeople, who all chipped in to cover the commission costs. Excluding the St. Paul/ Minneapolis community has there been any other similar community response to your music?

LL: Yes there has. There are two commissions, one was the students of clarinet teacher Alan Woy, who taught for quite awhile at the Crane School of Music in Pottstown. Upon his retirement last year, his students all chipped in to have a commission for him which was a commission for two clarinets. So that all his students could play with him. Isn’t that wonderful?

289 And right now I’m working on a piece which I’m calling at the moment Seven Songs for Saxophones , which is commissioned for Eugene Russo who is a most esteemed saxophonist, as they say in Britain. But again the students all chipped in to commission a piece for him. I’m very honored. There’s something very special about a group of people each contributing what they can in order to create a new piece of music.

DC: I like the idea.

LL: I do too. I like it very much, just because there’s so much, it’s commissioning music rather than an organization commissioning an event, which is commissioning music which enhances an event. All three of these are people coming together because they want a new piece of music. That’s really nice. I’d like to see a lot more of this kind of thing, all over the country.

D: Me, too. That’s why when I first read about that I was so intrigued by the idea and wondered how many other communities of people had pulled together.

LL: I don’t know. I hope there are many that have done this, but in my case there are at least three. No, well, actually there’s another: Peninsula Women’s Chorus in Palo Alto, California. A while back they all chipped in to commission a piece in memory of one of their chorus members who had recently passed on. But again, that particular community of performers each contributed amounts of money. So that’s four in my lifetime. I love those commissions. Really love them.

DC: In an 1989 interview about “Four On The Floor” you said that it is a hybrid between Bartokian voice and boogie. What is it in Bartok’s music that attracted you so that you absorbed some of his style and modeled it?

LL: Here’s what I wrote down as I was thinking about this, I wrote: modality, rhythm, abstract percussive technique applied to bowed strings, and the vitality of the keyboard—the approach to the keyboard. Those things attract me to Bartok’s music. Then there is also a freedom that I feel when I look at Bartok’s music. Bartok was so free about interpreting his musical culture through his abstract music. That I feel very akin, very akin to his approach, that in fact the techniques of abstract musical composition can marry the folk music of a culture and create a piece of art. So all those things really attract me to Bartok. So in Four On The Floor , it’s really a Bartokian approach but with American folk music, of which boogie is included in my definition of American folk music, and writing rigorously for highly trained instrumental musicians trained in classical instruments.

DC: You’ve absorbed that type of technique and use that in pieces like Eric Hermannson’s Soul . And it’s in P.T. Barnum.

290 LL: It’s in P. T. Barnum, it is. You find it more and more in my clarinet music. There’s no quoting going on. It’s not about quoting or borrowing, it’s not that at all. It’s about allowing the modalities, the rhythms, the colors, the energy of the music of a culture to inform abstract instrumental compositional techniques.

DC: In the 1989 interview about Coming Forth Into Day you stated that you would like to work with Bishop Desmond Tutu. Whatever happened to that idea?

LL: I still would like to work with Desmond Tutu. At that time I knew a woman who knew him and so she thought that she could make contact with him, that we could. But, she never did. So, that’s where it is. I still would like to work with him. I’m hoping now I’m getting in a position so I can contact him myself. But no, you know it would take several introductions.

DC: In the 1990 interview with Victoria Bond you said that your pieces, and I presume these are orchestra works you’re specifically commenting on, were programmed well with French composers Stravinsky . What is it about their style that makes you feel they go well together?

LL: Another really good question! It was conductors who first started programming my music, and you’re right orchestral, with Stravinsky and French Composers. My orchestral ear really developed from Berlioz’s treatises on orchestration. My ear is naturally drawn to French orchestrations, but also to the kind of brilliance in the colors of the orchestrations. So that’s one thing I think that makes the program well together. That somehow they belong on the same dinner plate or in the same meal.

I share the same color palettes that will allow an audience to listen to the French music as French, and my music as my music, but listen to them, abstractly, together. Also, I think that my approach to how line works in music is much more akin to the French than it is say to the German or it’s the flow. It may be because of the Gregorian chant background, the fact of flowing across barlines. My approach to counterpoint is really more line against line than it is point against point. Point against point really stems from German composition not from French. While I use point against point counterpoint I often will use it as in the middle of a flow of the line. Or maybe just to introduce an idea but then remove much more into flowing line than we do into against point against point. I think line and orchestral ear makes it programmable. Also, lyrical, but not necessarily melodic, and that’s very French, is to be lyrical but not melodic.

DC: In November 1989, KTCA and the Schubert Club aired the first of three programs in which you were the host in recital. Did the other programs air? In your opinion, how successful was it, and were any subsequent programs attempted which involved you?

291 LL: The one projected program did air. It was not successful at all. And they didn’t attempt any other programs. A big zero for that one. That did not work. It was their idea. They scripted it. They asked me to host. I had no spontaneity in it and I don’t photograph very well. So, it was a failure. I don’t know why they wanted to do it, even. They didn’t really want me to talk about music.

DC: What did they have you talk about?

LL: Well, I introduced the performers. I was really sort of a scripted host. So it wasn’t, they had no focus for the program. We couldn’t talk about the music. It was really more they played and I introduced them, which is not good television.

DC: No. When I read about the program it seemed like you were going to have involvement or interaction with the performers and you were going to talk about what they were doing a little bit, and pull people into musical listening.

LL: Right,.which I think could have worked very well. But they scripted the entire thing and the people who wrote the script weren’t musicians.

DC: Can you give any instances of extreme negative reactions to your music?

LL: Samuel Lipman had a very, very negative response to my music — pages of negative response. And I thought, “If what I’m saying and writing is causing this kind of polemical response, then there must be value in it. If I keep working in this way, that over time, I will investigate what kind of value it has.” The Lipman article came in the New Republican in ’85, I think. Right at the premiere of the Water Music Symphony .

DC: During the Ghost premiere you were cited as visiting professor at the University of Minnesota. So what were your duties there and how long were you in that position?

LL: I was there, for I believe, but we better check this out again, I can’t remember if they were on quarters or semesters at that point in time, so I was either there for a quarter or a semester.

DC: So it was less than a year?

LL: Yes. Less than a year. I was visiting professor with the opera theatre. What we did during that time was we improvised an opera on the subject of Christina Romana—Christina, Queen of Sweden. So we did improvisional exercises and we completely improvised an opera and produced it.

DC: So even when you do take that rare academic appointment, it’s not a normal academic appointment

292

LL: No. The closest I’ve ever come is at Cal Arts, where I stepped in for one of their faculty who was on leave. Again, just for a partial year and it was during the Gulf War. I taught the analysis class and then private composition class, so that’s the closest I’ve ever come. But at Cal Arts, it’s not, we did do analysis, real analysis, which was fun and then teach composition. But Cal Arts is not a normal school, so I had a lot of fun there. Now for lunch.

DC: Thank you.

LL: It’s a pleasure and we shall continue.

293 Appendix G: Libby Larsen Interview by Deborah Crall on 20 November 2005

The interview took place in the living room of Larsen’s house in Minneapolis,

Minnesota. LL refers to Libby Larsen and DC refers to Deborah Crall. The original tapes of the interview reside with the author.

DC: We’ve been talking about the state of publishing.

LL: We’re talking about the fact that Oxford University Press, that I’ve been publishing with since 1994, has undergone a restructuring in England and is trying to and thinking about and probably will, eliminate all its chamber music and all of its American composers of that group. I sell more than any of their English composers. I’m really one of their top living composers.

So I’m in the process of gathering data and I’m going to England and meet with David Blackwell, who is the new head of the new music department, and his boss, who is an accountant mentality, and lay numbers in front of them and we’ll talk economics. That’s what we’ll do. Then we’ll say that will be an exploratory meeting in which I am preparing to be even more businesslike with them. To see whether I can either buy back my catalog or make demands from them on the kind of participation they have with my copyrights, if I can’t buy them back.

But that led us into a discussion of publishing in general and I was about to say that I’ve been developing my own website for many years now. Thinking of it as a virtual library, as a resource center for my music and my thoughts. Just my brain.

DC: Along those lines, you have some really nice links, like the letter to a high school student.

LL: And I was just asking you what you thought of my website. I have been thinking, given the situation in publishing at large. Because where can I go? It’s not: what publisher will have me. I’m sure I can find a publisher. The question is, what can a publisher offer that works in the musical environment we live in.

DC: Because this is a system that has developed from the late 1700’s, so it is completely obsolete, in my opinion.

LL: It is in some ways in other ways it’s not. But let me tell you, in my opinion, the part of it that is not obsolete is the lending of a brand name. To the body of work. That’s not obsolete. Here’s a good example. Neville Mariner was in town a while back. I went to a party that was hosted for him. We were talking. I worked with Neville Mariner in the 1980s. Along with Stephen Paulus, we were co-composers

294 in residence with the Minnesota Orchestra. We were talking and Neville said to me, “I hear that Steve is self publishing.” “Yes, he’s self publishing.” Neville said, “Oh gee, I would have thought he would have a publisher.”

DC: Oh, so it’s the mentality that’s lasted, that you’re really good if someone picks you up because then you’re respected by the corporate entity.

LL: That’s it. That’s still the value of the publishing business. That, and the quality of publication is still very much a value because you belong to house style. That’s very much part of it, and the fact that in America the publishing system is quite out dated in terms of access and distribution in music but in Europe it’s not.

DC: Oh, interesting. How is it different?

LL: We Americans think that the whole world is as technological adventurous as we are. We do. We think everyone has laptops and internet, and this and that. It’s simply not true. It’s just not true. The curiosity about technological advancement is part of the global economy at large. But, it’s not pervasive to all the fields in the way we think it is. So in Europe, Japan, and Russia, it’s still the 1700 publishing model very much at work. Very much at work.

Of the two systems, the one that developed in Europe in the 1700’s is the one that works in Europe. That’s where the publishing system developed and it works there because cultures evolve the systems they need. We did not evolve our own system, just as we have not in most of the classical music genres.

It’s a whole system that was transplanted to the now United States, with publishing being completely interwoven in that system. So it’s a conundrum. It’s a conundrum what to do. Right now I’m really weighing my approach to Oxford. Certainly, if they think I’m going to “oh, ok,” they are quite mistaken.

That’s not happening, not that way. So, my approach is to develop my website in a way that completely reflects the system in America. The accessibility in America and maintain the European approach to publishing, and link my website. What I’d like to do is link my website directly to the publishers in this way, so that if you, Deb Crall, are looking for a particular piece of music and you get to OUP, you get to their website, that if you put my name in the search engine in the website at OUP, right now you can’t find me because their website is completely non- American. At ECS it’s the same way. The websites are based in Library System cataloging and BIN cataloging that makes it hard to get to me. So what I would want to see if you got to my name on the website is that it would link you immediately to my website, for which I maintain much more royalties than the old publishing system allows.

295 So, Christopher Rouser, so many are using the publishing houses for distribution, not for production and that’s what I’m going to do if I can. That’s what I’m going to negotiate. I’ll use them for distribution. They can publish the easily publishable things like anthems, teaching pieces, and things like that, because that’s what Oxford wants to do. They want to do anything that’s cheap to do.

Of course it’s just the same as last night, Bill Peles reasoning with Edward R Murrow – ok that’s fine. [Libby Larsen, Jim Reese and myself saw the movie “Good Night and Good Luck” the night before this interview]. But I am saving money now to completely restructure my website to see if I can’t refurbish it, and add a new wing on the library. I guess it would be a sonic wing. I’ll be right back because I smell the wild rice. I want to ask you about what would you do.

LL: So we were talking about website and I was about to ask you to elaborate more. I asked you a very self-centered question, what do you think of my website? I started it when websites were brand new. Just thinking, “I could see what’s coming, so I’m getting in right now.” I made a vision decision at the time that the mission of the web site would be a resource library approach rather than sales approach. And now it’s been about ten years now, I think. It appears that resource and marketing, the hybrid of the two, appears to me to be the way of the future.

DC: I have to agree with that because I listen to AOL radio and they actually tie in with XM radio. One of the things I really like about it is, they’ll be playing a piece that you can click on to find out more about the composers, more about that piece. You can also click and buy the CD.

LL: You can?!

DC: Right, if it’s available. I really like that feature. It ties in both your listening pleasure but you get information if you want it, but you can also do the consumer bit of purchasing the piece.

LL: Interesting. For instance on my website we thought about all those things but they’re not under our control so that makes it difficult. You can click on a piece of mine and if it’s recorded there’s a link to Koch International or the recording company, or at least you know where the recording is, but you can’t get it. You have to take extra steps.

DC: It’d be nicer if you could link right to the distributor.

LL: Right. So let’s say we take the piece that I’m editing right now, In The Winter Garden . You find it, you click on it. Now what we have you click on it and there should be a page that comes up and on that page lists the performing forces, the program notes, information about it and any errata. So I’m also using the page as a resource for errata. So if you click on it, that page comes up. Would you want to

296 see a link that will get you directly to the recording and a link that will get you directly to the score. To purchasing score?

DC: Yes. To purchasing score.

LL: I also want to add video program notes. Downloadable video program notes. So many people, when they get a piece now, contact me by email and say. “we need program notes.” So I send them the traditional program notes and then they’ll contact me again and say, “Can you enlighten me anymore?” Which reads to me as personal interview, personal commentary. And so I was thinking, it would be really interesting to click on the Winter Garden , up comes the page, there’s a link there, or however it can be designed in now, so that there is a video of you and I sitting talking about the piece. That there is a conversation about the piece so that each piece becomes its own living room.

DC: Yes, I think that’s an excellent idea.

LL: Do you think that has value?

DC: Yes. Absolutely. One thing people find fascinating is that personal interview. It humanizes the work in a way.

LL: Yes, which is not part of the publishing system at all, the humanizing.

DC: No, because it used to be when pieces are performed, that composers went along with the groups that were performing and you do quite a bit of that.

LL: I do.

DC: But you can’t do that everywhere because your pieces are performed so frequently and we’re in a much larger space than they were in the 1800’s.

LL: Exactly. The country’s huge.

DC: So this way they get a little bit of that.

LL: That’s what I was thinking, too.

DC: Contact with the living composer.

LL: I was thinking that, and I was thinking it might be interesting to interview about pieces, and put them online. Then that becomes a resource for the individual listener or a classroom resource. Or it could be projected into a concert hall, if the concert halls would ever update their ideas about technological linking.

297 I have done that a couple times. I’ve had someone video tape me, and then I sent the video tape instead of me. Because it makes perfect sense in the land mass that we encompass. It just does, which we both know a lot about, how different the American land mass is than the European land mass. And frankly OUP, I think part of them wanting to eliminate dealings with Americans any other way other than the European system is that they really have no feel for how huge the land mass of the country is. They really don’t. When they come over, they come from Oxford, England, to New York, and that’s it. No traveling around the country. There’s no idea of the land mass and that’s a real problem. It’s a problem with almost all the publishing houses, is that so many of them are transplanted like Boosey & Hawkes, which is really an English publishing firm. The perspective is small country, rather than large land mass.

DC: Perhaps it’s time for America to own its music business itself.

LL: I think it is. Of course, I do. But what I’m going to try to do, and I think I can do it with the right lawyer rather easily. Get the right lawyer. I have to do a lot of homework. It’s not Jim [Larsen’s husband, who is an attorney]. Yes, he really is. And his friends, too. So I’m going to use my own personal monetary value to Oxford University Press and the time that I’ve been with them

It gives me leverage to help them think of a different way to work with bodies of work that are not particularly within their immediate understanding of how to deal with. And they may not want to, but it doesn’t matter. It will put me in a position to do what I’m going to do anyway. And I do think most of the publishers, with the exception of Hal Leonard, are quite unconsciously ingrained in a system of pages between binding that is really forcing them to become not only just repackaging businesses, but the content becomes repackaged too. So they may repackage Brahms, but the culture can’t really relate to the original content. I’m afraid it’s going to cause publishers to repackage the content in search of a market.

It’s clear. It’s completely clear, like a watered down Mozart or Bach favorites, that are completely watered down.

DC: That’s what they’re doing with piano literature now.

LL: Oh, yeah? Give me an example?

DC: Instead of getting the Anna Magdalena Notebook, for example, you can get Easy Bach. And there’re pieces extracted from all over but even if it’s from a larger work, it’s only from one movement, such as the easiest movement from the French Suite or something like that. Then it’s pulled together, and then you have this selection from the Magdalena Notebook. They’re doing that now, and they’ve done it with Mozart. Brahms is too long. They haven’t done it with Brahms, and I

298 heard that some people, some audiences, they don’t really want to sit and listen to Brahms for long. Especially to people who take the repeat in sonata form.

LL: It’s fascinating and the publishers will listen to the demographics of their audience. That they don’t really want to sit down and listen to Brahms. It’s just marketing. Once we switched over to demographics dictating the kind of content of the package we’re trying to sell, the marketplace in broad terms it began to effect the contents quintessentially, which changes the content, which therefore changes the art. So in the meantime we’re developing distribution systems like internet where the individual audience member can get directly to the art. You remove the marketing packaging company.

With the technological changes in the last ten years – it’s a tipping point. But what hasn’t changed is the culture at large that’s evolving the technology, the American culture. You go to the web first, not to the library.

DC: It actually reminds me of Frankenstein . You had the vision in the 80’s to put together this piece involving electronics and video, which is cutting edge for the time, but if Frankenstein is revived, you have to redo all of that concept stuff. The technology is so different now. I think it would reflect more of what you had in mind for Frankenstein , because you can do more now.

LL: Absolutely.

DC: And I think the development of the web is the same way. It would really be neat to do this but the technology wasn’t in place ten years ago. To be able to add video frame, to be able to add sound bytes, to be able to do all these links, you couldn’t do it then but you can now.

LL: Yes, you can now. I was so frustrated about fifteen years ago. It was so clear, but we just didn’t have the tools. That’s really only fifteen years, so very American, “Oh, fifteen years is such a longtime.”

And downstairs, in what is the workout room, is lined with paintings that an artist and I worked on a while back for a piece called The Adventures of Wonder Boy . It was my idea. What I wanted to do, again it was at that crux of time where I wanted to develop a piece that is an animated piece for concert hall that’s a serial. So that you could have a standard concert in a chamber music context, like we’re going to this afternoon, but during the season of this ensemble trio, which has six concerts, and the piece unfolds over all six concerts.

So it’s like, the early cinema, where you have the serial every Saturday. But this is Wonder Boy! And it’s a time when there just wasn’t the technology. So we made big paintings. But I saved them all because I knew that eventually we would have digital technology and there would be a way to transport the images.

299

And so now is the time to reactivate that piece. It’s just like with Frankenstein . Now would be the time for a new, second performance. Now would be the time, or anytime from now on is the time for the piece. It’s the same with web technology for individual artists.

The system, the political system, may have said we no longer support you, but the cultural system, meanwhile during that same period of time has developed the whole web technology which circumvents gatekeeper systems, the systems of imprimaturs, of, you are supported, you are not. Meaning if you are not supported you are not seen or heard, which is a very old system. The web technology lets anyone support themselves and be seen and heard. Now, who knows, as the culture evolves, I’m quite certain the media companies will try very hard to find ways to not let everyone have individual access and distribution. But for the time being the old systems are so ingrained that my hope is that web technology, the new distribution system for self thought grows so fast and so far beyond the system of intermediary control of content.

DC: Well, that’s one reason I think of print on demand system, where you’re not controlling what’s going on … like I almost envisioned links to other composers. It would almost be like a central clearing house for people. If I want to look for contemporary American composers I can go to this website and it will either send me links to the people where they take care of their own stuff or you can take care of it for them. But it still maintains their independence and control if they want.

LL: Right.

DC: You know, some people don’t want to be bothered with having to print, publish, and mail out their things. Well, fine, their personal website could link to that, as like a distribution center except for sending out scores and tapes or cd’s.

LL: So it becomes a facilitator. Interesting.

DC: I know if I set it up I wouldn’t, basically they would have to reimburse for charges that come out of it. I’m not interested in royalties systems. The only thing I would deduct would be the cost of printing, shipping, and however much it cost to pay the people who do it.

LL: Exactly. And so it would maintain individual right to taste.

DC: Not only the individual right to taste, but it would also maintain their individual rights as composers maintaining control of their work. Right now you have to sign your work over to somebody else. In this system, the composer would maintain all

300 rights to the piece, they wouldn’t have to sign it away to somebody else. That’s one thing that I find disturbing, actually, about the system.

LL: It’s awful.

DC: I don’t like that at all, and I thought if you have a central distribution system in a way, that’s web based, the composer, the artist, maintains the integrity of their work. You’re just, like you said, facilitating how everything is distributed and how people find pieces.

LL: Of course. Right. It makes me think with Oxford eliminating, they have just let go the whole editorial production staff. That’s gone in the United States. But the equipment is still there. So I’m thinking, maybe we could just buy off the equipment and just sort of go. I’m supposed to talk to Sean Finnegan this afternoon at my instigation. He is the person that bought all the equipment and it is at his house. I’ll ask him who owns that equipment and what’s going to happen to it. It could be that the time is right, right now. Just do it. Which would really be interesting.

DC: Because you’re looking at a radically different way of doing music publishing distribution in the United States. You’re especially doing away with the way they do contracts.

LL: That’s right. The contracts are completely antiquated. That’s what is prompting me to go to them and say, “All right, here’s the value you put into the piece.” Because in the case of Barnum’s Bird , I gave them all of the engraved stuff. I engraved it, because I engrave. I give them all the engraved stuff, which saves them an enormous amount of money.

DC: Because they don’t have to pay somebody to put it into the computer, to proofread it, any of that, it’s already done.

LL: No! And it’s already done. So we put before them the value of Barnum’s Bird and ask them to give it back.

DC: They charged $89 for the score.

LL: Right

DC: I hope you got a nice royalty check from it.

LL: No! Eight dollars and 95 cents! Because it’s for sale. Actually, I’m looking forward to this negotiation very much.

301 DC: If you give them the engraved score, it didn’t cost them that much to put that thing together.

LL: No! No!!

DC: They made a lot of money off that.

LL: Well, yes! This is why I really do need to have a good conversation with Sean some time today. I don’t know when. I really should do that. What I’m asking him for is to give me all his figures, his production cost figures for all of the pieces because he’s now gone. He’s left Oxford. I don’t know if he will or not but I think he may, as a gesture of solidarity and friendship only. So that I can then look at the production cost versus the cost I put into it. I need it for the leverage so that when I go for my exploratory talk with them and hear what they have to say to me. It’s really a fact finding for me to then bring to the lawyer who’s then going to come back to them and, shall we say, make them an offer they can’t refuse.

But in the meantime, I don’t know about even the equipment. I think it’s the right time for exactly what you’re talking about, now’s the time. It’s definitely the right time, and we need to think real carefully about this because it’s not theoretical, it’s real.

DC: It’s an exciting time, too.

LL: Very. Very exciting. And it’s really the right thing to do. All composers, except for a few that Schirmer handles. Schirmer has a different approach as far as I know. They were a publisher or are a publisher that I’m thinking about going to and saying, “What can we do together, if anything, what can we do together?” But their approach is copyright exploitation and that’s a good approach. That’s a good business approach, to buy the copyrights of the composer, and I don’t know if they do it on a selected basis. That is, represent the whole composer but buy only certain of the copyrights, and then try to exploit them by interesting film companies in using the music for films. That kind of exploitation.

DC: Oh, I see. If you don’t want to do film music then …

LL: If you don’t want to write film music, then the other way is that producers become interested in the piece.

DC: And they want to use it for part of the sound track.

LL: Like Barber’s Adagio for Full Metal Jacket. So that’s exploitation, which is a different kind of marketing of the music.

DC: Right. Because you have no say in it if you don’t have the copyright anymore.

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LL: Exactly. Right. So then the negotiation between the composer and the publisher is for what percentage of royalties for what services, not services but what products can be made from the piece. It’s merely a product negotiation.

DC: I think the composer should be able to maintain control over their work in that sense of how its used in other aspects.

LL: So do I. Instead of signing it away, and then it can be used for anything, even band arrangement, all kinds of arrangements, other people can arrange your music, repackage your music, and…

DC: You should have the option to say yes or no.

LL: Exactly. Control over it. Like writers do, which would be a much better contract arrangement. Interesting. It is the right time.

I’m keeping my eye on my watch. We probably should bring this to a close right now.

303 Appendix H: Libby Larsen Interview by Deborah Crall on 21 November 2005

The interview took place in the living room of Larsen’s house in Minneapolis,

Minnesota. LL refers to Libby Larsen and DC refers to Deborah Crall. The original tapes of the interview reside with the author.

DC: In separate 1980 articles, one said that you had two styles. One was “cerebral” for instrumental music and the second was “accessible” for theatre and I inferred that meant vocal. In the other article you state that you love composing opera and if you could that that would be all that you wrote. Do you see any contradiction between the two ideas and please clarify what you might mean as your styles as you understand yourself today.

LL: I do not see a contradiction between the two styles. And I do think of myself as having two styles which stem from the idioms of the instruments. In fact the idiom of the voice is quite different than the idiom of instruments, as they were developed at the end of the Romantic Era. What the voice does naturally, instruments also do naturally. However, instruments are mechanical and offer other possibilities than the voice naturally offers. And so I don’t see a contradiction between cerebral composing and what you’re calling vocal, the other style. Now maybe we should talk about cerebral, so I can give you definitions.

DC: Perhaps that’s what it is. You’re attaching a term that I don’t quite understand.

LL: Yes, it could be, so I’ll describe cerebral. To me cerebral is accompanied by considerations of physics of the instrument in space and it’s also accompanied by rational extension of natural possibilities. That the physics of an instrument suggests, is also rational extension. Now this has to do with words: the rational extension of the sound of a word itself offers all kinds of intellectual rationalized investigations which are musical, where a word or an instrument other than voice, offers possibilities which are not necessarily naturally idiomatic. Words also do the same thing. Now so I don’t see a contradiction—why I made the statement about only living in the world of opera is truly a compositional statement. Meaning that opera offers the possibility of working cerebrally with the elements and working theatrically with the elements. Which every piece of music offers you that possibility but opera offers…

Or if it’s a completely rational investigation as an opera, or mostly rational, like Elliot Carter’s last opera, which I went to the premiere and, really struck with the choices for rational investigation through the medium of operatic theatre that he made as a composer and how actually unsuccessful as a theatrical presentation the

304 piece is. It is very successful as a rational investigation, but as a theatrical presentation, no, it is not.

But opera offers the composer a complete ecology in which to investigate any kind of cerebral problem or cerebral investigation and any kind of theatrical. So when I work in opera, as we’re addressing how the style is now, so I’ll just talk about opera. Because I’m writing two operas right now. I’ll be writing at least one more, which will make the grand total somewhere in the twenties by the time I’m no longer embodied on this Earth.

Conductors and opera directors over the last two or three or four operas have said to me that the operas are equally as interesting in the pit as they are on stage.

DC: That says a lot.

LL: It says a lot. Yes it does. And that it’s great satisfaction, I don’t want to say pleasure, but it is satisfaction that the conductor is able to investigate the lyrical flow on stage or conduct the singers, while at the same time conducting the orchestra in a very different way. So, for instance, I’m going to try and give you a specific for instance, if I can think of one. In Eric Hermannson’s Soul the theme the Norwegian tune [sings a tune] is constantly transforming itself in color, in the orchestral writing. So that the string writing takes a very nuance left hand for the conductor to keep listening and hearing how the colors in the orchestration are nuanced, in order to support the psychological development of what’s happening on the stage. So for instance, the strings are asked in one moment to drone, in another moment to play in harmonics, in another moment sul tasto , and meanwhile kept very fluid — the tune is always presented on the page as needing to transcend any bar lines. So the cerebral development of the theme, through very subtle re-orchestrations, re-instrumentations, that’s the stuff of symphony, symphonic and chamber music writing. Whereas on stage, that’s the stuff of operatic writing. Two different theories. Two different worlds. For me a complete investigation of the idioms, the histories, the styles, really a complete investigation of how music is evolving globally and technically. It’s not a contradiction at all. If the brain has any chance to work globally in music, for me opera is a place that best accommodates.

DC: So what you are talking about with how you handle the strings with Eric Hermannson’s Soul and the fiddle tune, really did remind me when I listened to it of, not that the whole, I mean it doesn’t sound like Strauss at all by any stretch of the imagination, but the way he delights and plays with his motives like that is the same way you do.

LL: That’s interesting.

305 DC: In ways like your approach to it is the same even though the sound constructs are different.

LL: Very different. That’s truly interesting. And I was thinking, “Do I do this in symphonic or chamber music writing?” Not in quite or such a psychological narrative way. I haven’t consciously made a decision to approach the use of motivic material, of construct materials, in purely chamber or orchestral.

DC: The thing is he doesn’t really do it in purely orchestral music either, it’s in his tone poems, where there is a narrative.

LL: Right. You know, it is a narrative device. It’s a very strong narrative tool. I don’t know a better way to suggest the narrative of psychological development in music. I don’t know a better way, and in fact, that narrative, the psychological development in music, is one of the things that music offers us that really the other art forms, they offer them, but not the way music does.

DC: No, no. It can be either subtle reinforcement or in your face changes.

LL: Exactly. And music offers the possibility — because it’s abstract and every person listens uniquely — it does, it offers a unique communicative possibility in the form of emotional recognition. I think that’s it. I find abstract sculpture is about the closest thing. Yes. Abstract sculpture is the closest. It suggests possibilities but it never demands, it doesn’t insist upon a framed interpretation. Is that right?

DC: Actually I think I see what you’re saying that, it’s not an obvious picture of something, therefore you actually bring more to it than is present in it.

LL: Exactly. Music can never say, “I am sad, I am happy.” As composers, we don’t tend to title a piece, Moving from Sad to Happy , or even think of it that way. That is not what composers think about. The sad oboe. The attempts so many people try to assign to music — the saxophone which on my mind right now because of the Seven Songs I am writing. I’m so interested in the kinds of cultural associations that we have attached just to the sound of the saxophone and those things can be used theatrically. Like Steve Paulus in his Postman Always Rings Twice took advantage of the fact that we for some reason have assigned the role of wanton sex to the sound of the saxophone. What a crazy thing to do.

DC: Smoky sax line?

LL: Yes, smoky sax line. And in some ways I kind of think, there must be another way to do this. But it’s a shortcut into a set of emotions, in the unique listener that music can provide. So we as a culture have assigned smoky sex to saxophone music.

306 Meanwhile I’m working on abstract saxophone concerto, which means a different color. In fact, I’m working in very different colors other than the sort of growley, whiney, the bending tones that the culture associates with saxophone and late night hours and drinking and smoking and illicit sex.

It’s just an instrument exciting a certain physical response in space. But, I know that in fact if I am working in it I want to create, I want to invite a physical or emotional response in a certain song in Seven Songs , that I can combine saxophone with a certain color, as per a certain color in the saxophone and use other kinds of colors around it, in order to create a difference between “Song Six” and “Song Five.” It’s just music. That to me, is not a cerebral investigation, that’s a theatrical investigation. The cerebral part of that investigation will be, if I choose, if I ask for a certain color in saxophone I know how the physics of how the saxophone works in space. It’s very different if I combine the color of the saxophone, the physics of how the sax works in the air with the physics of how the piccolo works in the air quite different than the physics of the sax combined with the physics of an amplified bass. And then the notes if it’s an amplified bass playing an open A, that will give a very different quality than an amplified bass playing an A-flat. It’s very different just because of the physics.

DC: Right. They resonate differently.

LL: Exactly. And so I need to set up pitch sets and constructs that will allow the physics of how the instruments work together. They’re an operative ecology. It’s not just a question of choosing. To me the whole construct of which pitches for which parts of the piece has a lot to do with the physics of how the instruments excite the air. It has an awful lot to do with it. I often will choose open strings if I’m working with strings to create a feeling of an inability to grasp something that’s big, bigger, because the open strings work in the air in a much different way than stock string.

DC: So many choices.

LL: Oh, I can’t leave composition, it’s a complete fiesta every day. Every choice brings with it this universe of possibilities of if then propositions.

DC: In a book review article in your personal file, the following author and title where circled: Carol Adams. “The Sexual Politics of Meat A Feminist Vegetarian Critical Theory” and Frankenstein is discussed in the review. And this was actually in your papers on Frankenstein. Did you read this book and do you recall what your response may have been to Adams’ ideas?

LL: I don’t recall reading the book. So I don’t know. I really don’t recall reading the book.

307 DC: You may have just been intrigued by the review itself.

LL: I may have been, yes. I may have been. It’s quite awhile ago. Can you refresh me at all?

DC: She is talking about violence and feminist vegetarian. She was proposing that the male violence associated with hunter-gathering and scientific endeavor, which is exemplified actually in Frankenstein , because of scientific endeavor and then create the monster and all this violence ensues. But that in the feminist ideal world you wouldn’t be eating meat. Therefore you wouldn’t have this violence. If the sociology of culture was more vegetarian-oriented you wouldn’t have the need to kill.

LL: Which is an interesting experimental hypothesis. I may have read, I think it’s the review I read because I don’t recall reading the book. And if I did I’d probably own the book, because I like to own what I read if I can.

I didn’t read the book, but I did read the review. That whole question of violence is very much part of Frankenstein . That scientific arrogance combined with ego takes us, transforms itself into the exhilaration, it’s almost a high, a runners high at the possibility of creating.

There’s a point in which any scientist, I used Oppenheimer at the time, it really made people angry but I meant it. At what moment in time did Oppenheimer realize that he had a decision to move ahead without knowing the consequences or to just withhold a piece of information from his colleagues that would stop the process. Or to say the consequences of this are so dire, that we’re not going to pursue it. It could have been 1/100th of a second that flashed through his brain. It could have been and it could have been. I think at the time also on my mind was the question of the Ford Pinto. Which—what does the Ford Pinto have to do with Oppenheimer? That’s how my brain works. Jim was talking about the, because of a case he was working on, he was talking about the fact that the Ford Company knew that the Pinto could very well blow up and kill people and that it had in fact in its insurance dealings it had provided for that possibility. It had provided for a number of wrongful death lawsuits, as many companies do.

So somewhere in the whole process of developing the product, somebody and I hope it’s a lot of somebodies, have had that flash moment where they say, “You know, if we put the gas tank here in the car, the possibility of a rear end an explosion will result in death,” yet instead of saying, “Let’s stop!”, who knows why, but in the culture say “Nope, let’s go forward and we’ll see what happens.” It’s the “we’ll see what happens” that feels to me, that puzzles me. My dad’s a scientist so he would, and he also likes to hold forth at the dinner table while we all listened. When we were little we never got to, “Hey Poppa. . .we’re working on _____,” lot’s of pontificating, I guess is the way, “I’m a scientist and I know.” So

308 I would listen and I would say, he was working for Pillsbury at the time, and he was talking about various chemical additives to food, some one of us would squeak out the question, “But what about if people get sick?” My dad would, who is a moral man, would say, “That will be your generation’s [problem], not me. We’ll just have to wait and see because that’s how science proceeds.” As we have this investigation and so we’re going to, “our best calculated guess is that—but the consequence we can’t foresee and besides that it will be your generation’s problem to solve,” is what he would say. It’ll be your problems to solve. Life is not

DC: But that’s shifting. It really is. I have some friends that work with FDA and the way they’re approaching things now, you have to prove otherwise first. Then you can use this product or this additive.

LL: Which is terrific. It’s one of the consequences.

DC: Show me the consequences first, then go.

LL: Then. Which delights me no end. Yet it shifts very slowly. The reason it’s shifting is many, many people have died. Gotten sick and died. And the same with smoking, same with — again and again and again. Star Wars, that we can send guardians up into space, who — it’s that scientific investigation taken to its scientific conclusion, meaning we’ll put it out there. There could be bad results, but that’s science. I’m confounded by it and delighted that we consider consequences at that flash point of, “Do we move ahead or not,” that the culture at least in food is now saying, “Consider it much harder.” Maybe consider it much harder and lay out to us the consequences as you’ve considered them before we put this thing into production.

And is this author this Carol Adams the author?

DC: Carol Adams, yes.

LL: Is she suggesting that in fact if we didn’t eat quite so much meat that this kind of behavior would modify itself?

DC: Yes.

LL: But you understand she’s doing exactly — it’s the same thing all over again. Maybe we lose something that we so desperately need that we just walk around and kill each other. Vegetarian cultures also have violence in them. But it is interesting. To me this investigation of the consequences, that flashpoint where we move ahead or we don’t move ahead or we wait instead of moving ahead or we at least utter the words that if we do this, this could happen. Just utter those words in

309 a way that brings it home physically to the person who’s uttering the words. That’s a point at which I make art. It is. That’s the point at which I make art.

Four on the Floor , a lot of people respond to the firstness of that piece as, “Oh, what a lot of fun.” The second listening, it becomes, “Boy, it’s really dangerous for the performers because it moves so fast and they have to concentrate.” Then the light begins to dawn. That the piece is, it’s not about “let’s boogie our way through life,” it’s about what happens if we do boogie our way through the decisions to use, to put technology in the hands of people who have not considered the consequences, which we do it every day. Every single day we do it. I’m sure we’ve done, “we” being the corporate we, have done this for 2000 years. It’s only now the technology is so, the consequences of destruction, of mass destruction, and by that I mean destruction that ranges anywhere from innocence, the destruction of innocence to death — mass death. They are just breath taking. Breath taking. Yet, we do it. We even glorify it.

In my dad’s generation when he would talk, say, “That is your, that’ll be your generations problem to solve.” Pollution was another one he talked about. He also voted the first round in 2000, he voted for George Bush, the second, and again. He actually came to my house to tell me I really needed to vote for Bush and I said, “Dad, I can’t do it. I cannot vote for what appears to be big business here which means it’s about the amassing of wealth. I can’t do it.” And my dad said, “Well, you know, Cheney’s a good man.” Meaning he had considered it and he made a decision. And he said, “And besides it’s progress,” which was always the rationale.

We had to make progress. That’s what’s radical in the culture right now, is the amassing of wealth, individual wealth in the form of dollars, not intellectual wealth or community wealth. Dollar wealth is a real problem right now, and I do think it’s that generation with a core of, maybe it is the Depression idea that “this will never happen again.” And it is individual wealth. My dad, one of the things that really makes him happy, is to take out his ledger book, and to do it by hand, balancing his books forever. And to look at a number that’s larger, and it really makes him happy and colors the way he deals with other people. For instance, there are times when his grandchildren have really needed some of those numbers. Now they really needed it, but he can’t do it, and it’s not out of maliciousness. He can’t do it. He can’t lower that number in a way that isn’t — he’ll sell his stocks which are making the number larger in order to buy other stock to make the number larger. He could sell his stocks, take some of that money, help a grandchild through law school which makes the wealth of the family, the wealth of, it’s a different kind of wealth. Larger! Grow! But he can’t, it’s that love of numbers, looking at the number getting bigger and bigger and it does result, in that you have a home you have food, but it’s out of control. Scholarships. That number could become a scholarship number. It’s just a number. Faith in number.

310 DC: You state in an Eric Hermannson’s Soul interview that you made a deliberate choice not compose opera where people die. However, in Frankenstein many people die.

LL: It’s true.

DC: When did you make this decision about the portrayal of death on stage and how did you come to it and how has it subsequently shaped your approach to compositional subjects.

LL: That is a great question because I had to stop and think very carefully about what, when and how. It was after Frankenstein , right after Frankenstein . But it wasn’t because of Frankenstein . I received a commission right after Frankenstein , well during Frankenstein, to compose work for the Cleveland Lyric Opera. And as part of the commission process, I went to see how the opera operates. They were producing The Rape of Lucretia at the time and I had an odd reaction that got me thinking, and here’s what it was. While I was watching in the audience The Rape of Lucretia , I was furious. It was a great production, but I was furious to the point of not being able to speak. I just was in a red rage, I was so angry. At the party afterwards I was talking to, was it Gary Briggle? It could have been, I think he was in Rape of Lucretia , and Michael O’Connell, who was the director of the company, and I said, “I wish you would never produce that piece again.” That’s the first thing I could say. They said, “What are you talking about?” and I said, “Because there must be another metaphor for power, for sacrifice and power. There must be another metaphor other than violating human beings. There’s got to be another metaphor, and I really meant it.

That got me thinking about the metaphors, it’s again consequence, the metaphors we use in opera to suggest the larger metaphors of the culture, to me opera works when it dwells in one of the seven deadly sins. When the subject and the presentation really abstractly suggest one of the seven deadly sins: power, greed, lust, and sacrifice, that’s another deadly sin, tends to be a balance for them, but it’s all related. It’s sort of a counter weight to power, greed, lust that makes it work in the narrative. What is the narrative that can allow us access to the contemplation: What are of the seven deadly sins. With the Rape of Lucretia it’s rape. Our conversation went on, to talk about rape as metaphor. They said, “Well, she’s not really raped.” I said, “That’s not the point. This is not a feminist issue. This is the metaphor we put in front of us to contemplate the deeper, the seven points upon which we base our culture. And of course, and that I began to think, there must, I want to see if I can practice this in my own work, so I don’t want to see death on stage. I don’t want to see it on stage. That it’s suggested, yes, like Charlotte’s Web . We don’t see Charlotte being stomped on by somebody or snuffed out with DDT. She dies, but there’s no death scene. Therefore it’s much more sophisticated, in the Greek way.

311 The Greeks knew a great deal about what the imagination, what to do in order to suggest to the imagination that it go deeper than the moment presents. So I decided that when I write I would look for subjects that were not as obvious. Where the metaphor was not as obvious so death and personal violence now, there are degrees. In Picnic for instance, there are some scuffles. There are scuffles. Lots of scuffles. There are emotional scuffles, intellectual scuffles and there’s one physical scuffle, and someone goes away. Everybody goes away, which is really interesting in Picnic . So everybody goes off stage and my job, my investigation is, it’s the going away, the act of going away that could be portrayed as death. You die. You’re done. You’re going away. But that’s physical death. It doesn’t really address one of the seven deadly sins. There are better metaphors. So in Picnic when Hal goes away, his going away is his decision and yet he’s not running away. He’s going away because the culture that he was born into is a culture in which he cannot survive. He has to be somewhere else. Even though he desperately wants to settle down, just live a normal life. Just settle down and stay someplace. He is so good looking. He’s the epitome of the football hero — good looking guy who didn’t want to be that, he just was that. And he comes into this environment and causes reactions in all the women around him. He doesn’t cause it. It’s his being there that causes it and all he wants is to just find a nice life for himself and settle down. He’s a very nice guy. But they kill him, basically. They kill his possibilities to live and he has to leave. That’s death. But it’s not the guy he scuffles with who was his college roommate, doesn’t beat him into the ground. The physical violence is not the violence. I personally think that physical violence is the cheapest shot possible.

DC: Right, it’s the psychological violence that’s worse, the making life untenable for somebody.

LL: Yes, somehow the psychological violence that’s rampant in our culture, it is making it untenable. The suicide rate among teens, it’s hard to talk about. It’s really hard to talk about. And I think it’s due to the psychological violence we’re visiting upon our young generation. We could talk about this for days and days, and probably, this is what I’m getting at in Picnic , come to think about it. Because Hal and Madge, you think the story is about Hal and Madge and how they see each other and fall in love and you know it won’t work. That’s not it at all. It’s really about psychological violence visited upon these two. Hal, I think is in his early 20’s and Madge is 18 or 19. Now I have a daughter who is 19, so maybe I’m more acutely aware of what is projected. Of, what the post-1950s culture is projecting on to that particular generation at that particular point: the teen years which you either pass into becoming yourself, we hope, or you pass into becoming what culture wants you to be. What you perceive culturally is your lot and is your path. Right now, in our culture I think this is the biggest, I think it’s psychological violence that we haven’t even begun to talk about. And we’re screening it. We’re smoke screening it with fundamental religion, which is the extreme of: you be this way or you be, you go fight war. That’s killing our kids. They don’t want to be

312 there. They don’t even know why they’re there. And yet the evil of it is that so many of them say I don’t know why I’m here but I’m willing to die. It’s a mortal sin. A cultural mortal sin that we’re visiting upon

So how did we get here? I’ve so digressed. I’m sorry.

DC: We were talking about the Rape of Lucretia and the shifting of

LL: Oh, yes the shifting. The Rape of Lucretia , and right after Frankenstein , because I’d been dealing in, Mary Shelley uses murder in her book as a metaphor, and I set the book. So in a way I practiced the very thing that I was exploring in Frankenstein .

DC: You had done the very thing that you were reacting against.

LL: Yes indeed, I had. And it was very effective. And I think that I was confronted for the first time with the responsibility offered to a creative artist, to a creator. At its extreme, it’s an Oppenheimer moment. Am I going to show everybody getting hung and killed, which I did, because of the book. It was a very maturing moment, artistically maturing moment. I didn’t really understand at my core that a creative artist, a shaper of thought, not a shaper of thought, a suggester of perspective, writing, dancing, whatever, had as much moral responsibility as its core as it has the excitement of shaping. At what point does an artist say, “If I do this, this could happen.”

DC: So it seems that after writing Frankenstein , which was about that, you had an epiphany about it.

LL: Yes, I did. And it enormously complicated things. Some people will say, “Well, didn’t you believe in your own work?” But that’s not it. Of course I believe in my own work.

DC: You believed in it, but you were focusing on a different aspect of it because you were still focusing on technology and responsibility.

DC: I tend to think that we, as artists, are mirrors of our society, but what part of society is it that we want to mirror?

LL: Exactly. When society is a mirrored ball, with many little planes, many dimensions.

DC: And you have chosen to refract something different.

LL: Yes, I have. It’s much harder, I can tell you that. It’s much harder to make a theatrical invitation.

313

DC: Well, the operatic conventions are such that, Tosca has to leap from the parapet, and if she didn’t, they’d be terribly disappointed. So, you’re going against the conventions of the genre. But, if we’re trying to make the genre our own, in today’s society, the conventions have to change.

LL: Yes, they do. They have to change. And I knew that, and I was dealing with that in Frankenstein in technological ways. The conventions of production was one of the things where I was completely, completely cognizant of, all kinds of productions. Of sound productions, of proscenium stage productions, of all kinds of things. I was completely cognizant of that. And maybe because I was so cognizant of that, it freed up more growth to make me cognizant of the conventions of metaphor, stage metaphor, that probably were appropriate, maybe even avant garde, in an earlier time. Now I began to think about, “What are the consequences of an operatic culture that produces again, and again, and again the Rape of Lucretia , which is a great piece. However, the response to the metaphor, I can’t allow it anymore. I just can’t. Physical violence as the turning metaphor for what the opera, what the libretto is investigating. Not that way. Other ways.

DC: One could also argue, too, that it has been done. It’s been done very well. And now it’s time for something else, anyway.

LL: True. Yes, you could argue that. That’s an argument that people can understand. Without going, “Whoa! The emotions around this are pretty complicated. That must be an artist!” It’s a question of framing the discussion in a way that can lead people to it.

DC: It appears that you were not informed by the University of Minnesota when they decided to perform Eric Hermannson’s Soul . From what I read, you became aware of this when they contacted you about a problem they were having with the orchestration because of the electronic keyboard. Do you want to comment about this first, then we’ll get to the question?

LL: Yes, I was contacted about Eric Hermannson’s Soul . I did know that they were performing it. And it appears that I wasn’t. There is a very good reason, actually, because it was a mess. The parts and the materials. The mess was around the performing materials for the orchestra. And it was a mess. What had happened was that there were a number of corrections and adjustments that we made from the premiere that needed to be put into the parts and into the materials. I had an associate at the time that assured me that it had all been done.

DC: So can I just clarify, the original parts and score and everything used in the premiere, did Omaha Opera keep those?

LL: Yes.

314

DC: So then these would have been adjustments that then had to get into you own personal copies?

LL: Exactly. That needed to happen. I can show you with In a Winter Garden , I am very careful about making lists. My worker who was to have done that didn’t do her work.

DC: You do have the list of corrections because I’ve seen them. But they weren’t then transferred into your personal score and parts?

LL: They were not. I had two associates working at the time. The person who was in Brad’s position was the overseer of the other person, and it didn’t happen. So I delivered the materials, assuming that they’d been corrected. And at least what I had looked at was corrected. But I didn’t go over every single part. I assumed that the two people, I assumed the job was done. I had been shown evidence that it had been done.

DC: So, they showed you the ones they had done.

LL: Yes, and it was just awful. It really was awful. So needless to say, the one associate was let go. She is a musician, but she was on her way to med school, and I found all kinds of things that were supposed to have been done after my other associate had also moved on.

DC: Does this mean that you then had to go back through other parts and scores for other pieces they had been responsible for and check everything?

LL: Yes, I did.

DC: Was one of these associates still working when P. T. Barnum went to press?

LL: Yes.

DC: Because there are also problems with the Barnum score.

LL: It could be. In the P.T. Barnum scores there’s another thing at work.

DC: That’s another question we’ll get to later. So, that clears up that mess of correspondence. It’s a huge chunk of correspondence, and I was wondering what was going on.

LL: There are two other complicating factors, which we’re still clearing up with P.T. Barnum. One is with OUP. At the time, at Oxford University Press, the person who was handling the three of us who are house composers was also a person who

315 was saying to everyone what a great job he was doing, but not doing anything, just the minimum. So, exactly the same thing was going on at OUP that was happening at my office at that time. What I was doing is I was providing, as I was contracted to do, the work as it was in progress. Then, the idea is, of course that the publisher would then put the materials through a process that would get it to the engraved form, one way or another. So with Eric Hermannson’s Soul , I wrote it at the moment that that fellow needed to be, shall we say, ushered on, and I was the one who precipitated his ushering, by keeping careful records. I keep very careful records.

DC: I’ve seen correspondence when you’ve gone back and forth with these issues. I’m trying to piece it together, because sometimes there is only one side of the correspondence, and that’s their reply, and not your response to them.

LL: You may not have some of my responses on paper because I don’t put it on paper, for a reason. Especially in instances in where I knew I was going to have to precipitate him getting fired. But, that is really, really delicate. He’d been there long before I came to the house.

DC: That’s something you do in phone calls, and personal contact when you’re at the office visiting.

LL: Exactly. You don’t put it on paper. You leave a paper trail for certain things, and for other things you don’t.

DC: Well, the paper trail is comments about getting things corrected. So, that type of thing I could follow through, but I know that I’m missing an element.

LL: And it is the element of, he really was taking Oxford for a ride, which really bugged me, but, it’s fine, that’s Oxford’s problem, but when he was really messing up my music, and he really was, it was really bad.

DC: Some of the changes that had to occur were massive things.

LL: Huge things had to happen, and he needed to leave. And also, Suzanne Hare, who was the one who said she did but didn’t. She had to leave. She left sooner than I had expected. I thought I would take her until she left for med school. Then what happened with Barnum’s Bird , is also with Oxford press, they really, when I went with Oxford, Susan Brailove was the head of the editorial staff. There was really no system for engraving. This was in ’94 when I went to Oxford. Oxford operates in the old style that we discussed yesterday, and they still do, and probably will. What that meant was what they were used to was a composer who would give them a pencil sketch, or a pencil score or an ink score, and then they over time, just as E.C. Schirmer is with In a Winter Garden , would engrave it. But this was at the exact moment in time when performers, by and large, were expecting to

316 have engraved materials at the premiere. And Oxford, was just like, “What?” They can’t deal with it now.

DC: Yes, once Finale was perfected.

LL: Yes, and that’s when it changed, it has to be engraved. Do it. I will do it. Performers are willing at the premiere to tolerate and expect changes in dynamics, and we want to check notes and all those things, except for choral performers, who are by and large babies in the way they approach the written score. At that moment in time, Oxford, had not, they were thrown for a loop. They couldn’t adjust. So I would deliver Finale, because that’s the way I deliver stuff now. It’s Finale, or I might deliver a hand-written, I keep my hand-written sketches and scores, but they get Finale, because that’s what the people at the premiere get. So Susan, she hadn’t a clue what to do with it. She retired. She’d been there a long, long time, and is much respected and venerated. And then Chris Johnson came on, and Chris is really smart, we were right in step with each other. So Chris then finally developed a system where they could receive what I gave them, and turn it around with corrections in time for the premiere or just after the premiere. That’s where Oxford American is today, but that took some time. So with Barnum’s Bird , and they had to figure out do I pay for it, do they pay for it? And this is all new news in the publishing business. And so with Barnum’s Bird , I delivered, and we did go through a proof-reading, back and forth.

DC: Yes, that’s where I found so many corrections that I wondered if somehow they got the wrong score delivered to them.

LL: I don’t know actually.

DC: Because it seemed like there were so many corrections that had to be made.

LL: Oh, you mean, back and forth?

DC: Right.

LL: No. They got the right score. So, tell me what you’re thinking.

DC: I just wondered if they somehow received a score that was somehow before the final score that you all had worked out as the performance score. Because it just seemed that there were a tremendous number of corrections. A huge amount. More than just somebody had entered it in and made a few mistakes entering it in.

LL: Well, that is also the nature of opera. There were lots of word changes because we were figuring out how to work with each other in this way. So I was writing and producing the piece at the same time I was getting them the materials.

317 DC: So it was a matter of them adjusting the score after the performers had seen it?

LL: And adjusting after the premiere, so there were cuts and changes, a change in the ending.

DC: In the literary world, after the receive what they consider to be a final proof, and they have it type-set, and then you get the proof back to proof-read, if there are more than so many corrections per page, you pay for them. What happens in music publishing?

LL: It’s the same thing. If there are more than 10% changes after you deliver a score that you say is final, then you pay for them.

DC: But in the process of Barnum’s Bird there wasn’t a final score?

LL: No. No final score. And in fact, one of the great joys, part of the relationship with Oxford, which is now gone, is that they were as excited about working on the piece during the process of getting it premiered as I was. So we didn’t really adhere to the 10%. The only time that went into effect was with Bid Call , which is for saxophone and cello, where I delivered the score and I said, “This is final.” And we proceeded apace. I delivered it too soon with the word ‘final’ on it. I sent the score to Paul Brough, who commissioned the piece, and said, “Take a look at it.” He came back, not with corrections, but with suggestions that would make it much more user friendly to the performers. And I agreed. Of course! If you have a master performer saying, “This will make it better.” So I sent those on to Sean Finnigan, and he blew a gasket, because he’d done so much work. And, he was right to blow a gasket. I learned in the process, that if I am going to have performers look at the score, not to proof-read for mistakes, but to look at the score and say, “If the page turn were here…”, I need to move that ahead in my process. We had just gotten it completely worked out, and then …

DC: Oxford changed its mind.

LL: Yes.

DC: So back to Eric Hermannson’s Soul , one of the things that came up in the correspondence between issues with parts was, there was this big thing of, “Oh my gosh, we don’t have this big electronic instrument, we don’t have the instrument to be able to use this part.”

LL: Exactly.

DC: They were able to work that out because they were able to get your instrument. So they were able to do that. But, I was wondering out of this then, do you hesitate to use electronic instruments and technology in your scoring, realizing that the

318 devices may soon become obsolete, and therefore making the piece difficult to perform? And does this fact about technology ever effect your compositional decisions?

LL: Yes. Yes, yes and yes. I’ve been trying to blend technology into traditional concert hall format for twenty years. I make very careful choices now about what I can do and how I can do it, because the equipment is obsolete. There’s two issues. The equipment becomes obsolete. The other issue is can the hall accommodate the sound. How does that work? Because so many halls just have a big cluster speaker. That’s the traditional speakers, even in new halls. With Disney Hall, I expected it to be more sophisticated somehow, and it’s not.

It’s a box hall with two sets of cluster speakers. I just was…yes. So. The problem is, my thinking about it is way ahead of the ability to produce it [sound] in the non-profit concert hall tradition. Not in the commercial tradition, that’s quite different. So what I do now, and it seems to, it’s a poor substitute, but it works, is instead of asking for the instruments, I now make a CD of the sound and cue the score: “play CD here.” That works, but it’s so rudimentary. It just breaks my heart how rudimentary it is.

DC: Yes. It’s like going back to the “Saxophone and Tape.”

LL: Exactly. And that’s how far the technology, and not even the technology and not even the students! If the hall were wired, they would do it, because that’s the world they live in.

DC: It’s too bad, too, because you lose some of the spontaneity of live performance not having the person who’s playing the techno-instrument there.

LL: That’s right, you do, which means you set the piece in time, and that breaks my heart, too. So I now have begun to evolve a series of pieces for performers, it’s sort of the “Saxophone and Tape.” But now it’s performer and CD, and the CD has all kinds of interesting and subtle things on it, but it’s still: “I’m on stage and I press a button.” With Frankenstein we did a live mix. It can be done. But the conventions of production, it feels that it is really a lot of work and really hard to do.

DC: And yet rock bands do it all the time. The put it up and take it down overnight.

LL: All the time. Exactly. I wrote a piece for chorus and finger cymbals and brass quintet to be performed at Red Rock in Colorado. And I knew there was going to be sound there, and they were rock guys. But the quality of sound, the ear for how sound should be, just the quality of it was so wrong for the piece. On the other hand, technically to produce it, it was great. So if I had to choose, I would take the Red Rock over the, “I’m a performer push a button.”

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DC: It’s almost that what you need to do is say, “I’m going to produce this opera, and I want these sounds. Go hire these rock guys that work for the Civic Center.”

LL: Exactly. You need to include it in the budget. You have to get these guys, they are part of the orchestra. That is how I am now presenting it, is that part of the orchestration is sound, mixed sound, and it’s a lot of explaining and a lot of work. Like with Jack London , it’s fascinating actually, I said from the beginning, “There’s going to be electric sound.” Well, one of the extreme dust up we had was that the opera company director, would “not have microphones in opera.” Well, this opera requires them. “Opera singers do not need to be miked.”

So how we’ve solved it so far is that sound mix is part of the orchestration, so it is in the instruments. So as long as it’s in the instruments. However, I’m writing in whispering into the vocal production needs. So, yes, it’s effecting me greatly. I want everybody body miked all the time, and I want a sound mixer as part of the ensemble.

DC: And they don’t realize that a sound mixer is a performer.

LL: No, they don’t, that it is one of the instruments of our time.

DC: A good mixer is worth their weight in gold.

LL: You’re telling me. And this is the ‘how instruments change’ section of our work together. Old ones and new ones, and the sound board is so much more important than people understand as an instrument, except for Philip Glass, he got it right away.

DC: It’s so fascinating to me as a historian, this is reminiscent of Gershwin bringing jazz elements into opera and into the symphonic genre.

LL: Right, and it’s a struggle. It’s a complete struggle all the time, which you wish you didn’t have. But, on the other hand, you persist. Then you have people like Mort Subotnick, I made him a friend of mine because I admire his music and I admire his brain. And when I went to work at Cal-Arts, he’s the one who brought me there, and I’d been studying with him for a year on my own on a grant, because he’s the pioneer. One of the handful of pioneers. That man thinks about fifty years ahead of everybody. He just lives fifty years ahead of everybody in terms of sound in technology. I think that it’s frustrated him deeply as a composer, because he’s not quite as cognizant of the absurdity of the world, of the lag time. And so it’s been almost impossible for him to create, literally create. He could make pieces, but he lives in this world of where sound is, that the world just simply isn’t there. I keep thinking, if we could find a great philanthropist to make it possible for Mort

320 to do his work, and I to do my work in the way we know it needs to be done. I want my own Bayreuth. I really do. I do.

DC: Well, when I win the lottery.

LL: Me too. Maybe I’ll just really start casting fate to the wind and go to Bose and talk to them and say, “Listen, there are a number of us, not too many of us that you can’t handle, but a number of us who needs this, and you know how to do it, and we want to do it, and what can we work out. What can we work out to do this?

DC: The next set of questions will be on Frankenstein . In the 1987 commission for What the Monster Saw , was attaching the subject to the orchestral piece completely up to your discretion? And then how much did you discuss this with the music director, who I think was Ed London.

LL: It was completely up to my discretion, and I chose to write What the Monster Saw as a study for Frankenstein . And I discussed it with Ed. And it’s just so cool.

DC: So he said, “Oh yes, we’re attaching a subject to this and making it a type of tone- poem,” which is what it was.

LL: Yes. Ed’s a complete composer, and his response was, “Oh, cool!” Which is great, as it is for all composers. And I also knew that at Cleveland State University, where that chamber orchestra is housed, Rudolph Bubalo is there. Rudolph Bubalo is a great composer with electronics so I knew that I could work on a synthesizer. The equipment was there, the environment for working with the equipment was there, meaning, the whole support for the investigation. The equipment at that time was a DX-7, and everybody at that time thought that was going to be where it would stop. We knew we had the right sound in the auditorium, the right projection equipment, we had the DX-7, we had a bunch of students who were all Rudolph students, and Rudolph, so lots of performers who knew the instrument. I also did projections to go along with that piece from the Barry Mozer edition of Frankenstein . So, that was a complete study with what happens with projections and electronic sounds.

DC: So, in a way it was a perfect commission to explore something that you had been thinking about.

LL: Yes, perfect. Not only did they let me do whatever I wanted, but they were very excited about it. “Oh, we’re going to try this, and this, and this!”

DC: They thought it was cool they could use their new toys.

LL: Exactly, which was what I thought would happen with operas companies too. Oh, cool, now we get to XYZ. Instead, “You want us to what? Film??” At the time I

321 was smart enough to think, “It’s too soon, it’s too soon, and hopefully, it will be as easy as pie in a number of years, and eventually it will be so antique it will be completely funny.” And I think I’m getting there. I just need now to get a new performance of it. Yes, I think we’re there. Well, we’re getting there. We’re not there yet.

DC: For Frankenstein , how were you approached about a commission for the Minnesota Opera, and did you have sole say in choice of topic, or was there a dialogue first between yourself and the company? In other words, how did the discussion of the topic ensue?

LL: I went to them and approached them with the idea of Frankenstein , and the idea of how I wanted my production ideas. And we had wonderful discussions about the possibilities of production. I really was, at that time, I wanted it produced, and I still think it would be best produced, more as a rock space situation than as a proscenium. So, they were very excited about all of the things I was excited about, too, and willing to try. And we were all here, so that really worked well. So, I brought them the idea, and we all wanted to work on it, and that was a really lovely production process. Fraught with all the stuff, but everybody believed in the idea, which is not often the case with a new opera. Even though a company commissions an opera, it’s not obvious that they believe in it or in its success. You often enter into an ecology of…not suspicion, but an alien…

DC: A faint doubt about the project?

LL: Faint? No, a strong doubt about the introduction of “new.” Just the whole idea of new, or modern, or contemporary.

DC: Which is ones of the flaws in the way opera is conducted. Companies don’t even think that you have a place in production.

LL: The companies don’t and the training system doesn’t. The entire system does not believe that new work has a place in the system. They don’t believe it. They know there is a place, but they don’t believe in the place of it. From the studio, from music education K-12, the whole system has no belief in new works. Curiosity about, duty to produce, excitement surrounding the production of a new work. But systematic belief in it is not part of the system, and so you often enter into an environment of doubt and failure.

DC: I know what you mean. It used to be that when a person studied with somebody for private lessons or what-not, the teacher would write a piece to help them learn something. But now they just pull something out and say, here you are going to…

LL: Sure. When was it a teacher would write a piece?

322 DC: All through the, even through the 1800s. That’s why we have a collection of Czerny, and why Scarlatti wrote all of his pieces—to teach his student, the princess in Spain—to teach her some certain thing. All of these collections, even Bach’s collection for his wife, in order to teach her certain things.

LL: It’s interesting. Where it’s happening is in elementary and secondary, lots of band conductors. They’re starting to write again to teach, but it will take a long time.

DC: I think you’re right. It’s the contemporary action of the learning process with the composers of new music, and, “Yes, we can just do this and whip this out, and you guys can have a new piece, and figure things out.”

LL: Right. You know, you’re right, and well expressed, too. “Contemporary action”— that’s a good phrase. Can I borrow it?

DC: Yes, you can.

LL: That’s a really good phrase. A really good way of talking about the issue. The question is, is there doubt, extraordinary doubt. A couple of panels that I’ve sat on at the Opera America conferences, I have just come out and said this, “That it is very, very difficult to work in an environment of doubt and an expectation of failure.”

DC: In the staging of Frankenstein , were you consciously aware of adhering, with some slight variation, to the Aristotelian theory of tragedy, which is the idea of unity in time, place, and action?

LL: No. When I read that question, I thought: “I did?” No. I wasn’t consciously aware of it. So explain the theory more and maybe I can tell what I was thinking about that turns out to be this theory.

DC: In his theories of tragedy and staging tragedy, there is this idea of unity between time, which means all of the action takes place within a specific time-frame. There’s the unity of place, which means it also takes place in one place. You don’t have changes of scenery. When you did this tier of action in the proscenium of the stage, jutting out from the stage, there’s only one set of action that takes place set in a specific time—the old Frankenstein and he ship’s captain—so you adhere to place and time there, and the action also occurs there, in that time and place. You also do that with others. For example, when Justina is hanged, her action takes place in a specific space on stage. The monster’s actions with William takes place in a specific space, and most of William’s action occurs in the same place on stage, I noticed. He is almost always on the same side in that area.

LL: That, I think, is the director.

323 DC: And the idea of the library and what takes place there is on the same tier. So this idea of unity and what is happening with different characters is actually maintained throughout most of the opera.

LL: Yes. Mary Shelley is responsible for the sense of time and place. The book is brilliant in that way, so perhaps she was conscious.

DC: I’m sure she must have been with her classical training.

LL: Exactly. Nick Munie, Nicholas Munie was the director, and he probably translated Shelley’s consciousness of Aristotelian theory on stage. Nick placed the singers, placed the action. I made it almost impossible to ignore or to work around in direction with placing the screen. Since the screen needs to be as large as the action on stage, because it’s two perspectives—a protagonist and antagonist perspective—that I may have unconsciously set in motion what Nick did.

DC: That’s right, because the screen doesn’t move.

LL: The screen does not move. It’s in its own place and oddly enough, it’s in a time, but it’s in psychological time. Because the monster moves over impossible space and place, bounding over the mountains, the way that Shelley has set it up. In three bounding steps the monster descends from the Mer des Gras. That is set on the stage, the visual of it, whereas time and space are not, as the monster perceives and moves. And everybody else’s actions are specified time and place, which is really Shelley, or at least the way I read the book.

DC: Well, no, theatrically, it’s brilliant, the way it is, especially if you know anything about Greek theater which gives it this whole other depth of meaning that is present. And it really is amazing.

LL: You mean in the staging?

DC: Yes. It’s brilliant.

LL: Yes. It was brilliant. Nick, he hated the libretto. He really hated the libretto. So maybe because he hated the libretto so much, maybe he focused even more deeply on, “What am I going to do with this?” He just hated the libretto. His suggestion was that I keep the music but throw out the libretto. Fine, but give me back my metaphor. We had a huge fight, which is part of the process. I really did want to adhere to the book, so I wanted the captain to be on the ship. I wanted the metaphor of the ship, which is also a metaphor for travel, space and time. Nope. He wanted to interpret the piece so that it was all the ravings of a madman, who was in a psychiatrist’s, in a lock-down basically. So that the captain was a doctor and than Frankenstein telling the tale was imagining the whole thing. Well, that’s an interpretation of it, but it changes, oh my goodness, it completely changes the

324 sense of time and space. So, we duked it out, and he, I actually had let one director go, who had wanted to turn it into a star vehicle for Mandy Patinkin. Not. It’s not a star vehicle piece. It’s hard. But Nick, he hated the libretto. He just hated it. So that was interesting—to work in that atmosphere, too. Again, an atmosphere of doubt and failure.

DC: But what is remarkable about that then was how he was able to use that hatred to his advantage by doing this brilliant staging.

LL: Yes, and it was brilliant staging.

DC: He must have had to think much more creatively about how to do the staging.

LL: He had to have. Yes. I don’t know if he read the book, actually, come to think of it. Maybe he did, maybe not. But I felt that one of things that he hated about the libretto was that it suggests a logical narrative, but it doesn’t offer it necessarily, and it does rely on, which I did deliberately, relies on the audiences’ knowledge of many different ways of approaching Frankenstein : Young Frankenstein , the cinematic approaches to Frankenstein , the plays. Frankenstein has been worked on hundreds of times, and it relies on the audience knowing that, so referencing also other approaches to the narrative, and so, I didn’t feel like I had to tell the story as if no one had heard it before.

DC: Well, that’s right, because it’s part of our public consciousness.

LL: Exactly. So I think that was frustrating to Nick, because he just hated the libretto. But he didn’t hate me.

DC: Artistic disagreements.

LL: We did. And it always makes it a much better piece. But, boy, you have to be willing to enter into it, and not collaborate with a computer. Never mind.

DC: That’s okay. That was another discussion. I saw a July 1993 contract for musicians for a documentary non-air recording for Frankenstein . According to documents, you paid the fees. What was this recording?

LL: Yes. This was National Public Radio. Who wanted to, I had asked if they wanted to record it, and they wanted to record it. So they sent out their, Bruce Scott, and another member, and they did the live mix recording.

DC: So did they record the whole entire opera?

LL: The whole thing, yes. And broadcast it, too. I paid, there was an extra musician fee that had to be paid to the orchestra and to the singers. It was $1200, and that

325 was not part of the opera budget, and so I just did it. I paid it. I thought, “Yes, of course,” to make this happen. So I did it, took it out of the commissioning fee. I think I made negative five cents an hour on it.

DC: Do you know how the Fowler high school music text book came to choose Frankenstein as one of his examples?

LL: I do. Charles Fowler, because I’m not clear in which edition of the music texts, because it’s been reworked and reprinted many times, but in its first printing, Charles Fowler contacted me and asked if I would be willing to be one of the three composers that he wanted to highlight for American music. And it was Copland, Ellington, and me. And sure, yes. We had a great working relationship. As part of the text they wanted to study and use examples of music pieces. I might have been working on Frankenstein at the time. But he chose Frankenstein , and I think Four on the Floor . And I’m not sure if there was another. I know the Marimba Concerto has been part of the series. So that’s how it was chosen. Charles chose it.

DC: It was really neat. It was really interesting to see the discussion about it for the children to think about it.

LL: Yes, and I did not work on that part with him. It’s his idea, and it has to be that. I can’t and nor do I want to control how people see the music.

DC: In 1994, Northwestern University was planning a performance of Frankenstein which did not materialize. Do recall why?

LL: No, because I think they just chose something else instead. I did however, have the score engraved myself, which I’ve got here, the score and the vocal score and the parts. I worked with Carol Barnett, who I’ve worked with for years, and years, and years. I think they just moved on to something else.

DC: Okay, because there was a flurry of communicaes about missing parts and measures.

LL: Yes, and in fact I thought, we’re just not going to do this again. I’m going to have it engraved. This hadn’t happened with Eric Hermannson’s Soul , yet. It’s a problem with opera. With theater it’s a huge problem because things change during the premiere. So a part may have been written, and at that point it was still hand-writing, so the first round of materials of the score and parts is as fluid as the first production. So it really, unless you have a battery of copyists right there on the spot copying as you go, as you work on the premiere, there is a period of time when score and parts have to reconciled for future performances. And so that’s what that flurry is around, and so then I had it, I just thought, “We’re going to get

326 it engraved, and in a way to work with it.” But then, I think, especially with college companies, the tenor may have dropped out of the class.

DC: Or everyone got laryngitis.

LL: Exactly. College productions are what they are. They’re terrific, but they’re extra fluid.

DC: Now, how is your relationship with your copyists when there is sort of a pressure to hurry things to get them done?

LL: Excellent. Tracy Bradshaw and Paul Gerriky are my copyists. We’ve been working together for years and years. They know my style and I know theirs. I try very hard and they know it. I work as hard as I can. I can’t work any harder than I’m working to get to them in a timely fashion materials that they can work on. We have a great deal of respect for each other’s work and a great deal of personal concern for each other’s well-being. So it’s fine. I will even say, “I might be down to the wire on this one, will it be okay?” And they’ll say, “No, it won’t,” or “Yes, it will.” I don’t imagine they like it, and if you talk to them I’m sure they’ll give you an idea of what it’s like. But I work as hard as I can. I can’t work harder. I know why Mozart died. When you have a brain

DC: The pressure of trying to get everything done?

LL: Yes, and you really, really, really have to keep your body in as good a shape as you can keep it, for no other reason than to just support the activity of

DC: I don’t think people realize how much work composing is, because it’s not just getting the thoughts down on paper. I think you must spend just as much time getting the parts in order than it takes you to write the piece.

LL: Absolutely. Absolutely it does.

DC: And I don’t think people understand what the post-writing bit is.

LL: They don’t understand that and they don’t understand that the marketing departments want you to describe the piece a year before it’s ready, and title the piece so that they can attract people to come to hear the piece.

DC: Which you can understand.

LL: Certainly. It’s completely understandable. The system demands decision making and production on a level that is not compatible with how the art form developed, which was as a monastic activity. So the only way to deal with it is to keep yourself as healthy as possible so you can stay current.

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DC: There is one article you wrote for one of the choral journals where you’re talking about commissioning, and if you want to commission pieces, start from when the premiere is and back up—these are all the things the composer has to do, so you have to approach them more than two years in advance before the date of the premiere. And I thought, that must have just blown people away to realize how far in advance you have to have things done in order to get them the parts in time for them to learn the piece.

LL: I think it did. That’s why I wrote it that way. Thank you. Robin Perry, who is the editor, it was Chorus America, The Voice, she asked if I would write on commissioning. We know each other rather well, and I suggested that we do it that way. She wanted a primer for people who wanted to commission, and I’m glad that you think it works, because I thought this is the only way to approach it, is to go backwards, so that they can understand the amount of work on all different levels that has to happen. And I was able then also to scold a little bit about singers who expect perfect engraved parts, and refuse to sing. Because that’s happening in the choral world, where the singers will say, “If I can’t have it perfect, I can’t read the score.” Of course, what you want to say is, “If you can’t sing it perfectly, you can’t sing the score.” Like must be like here. No mistakes for you, then.

With instrumentalists, it’s not a problem, but singers have no perspective, it’s true. They really have no perspective. So I am learning to say in a jocular way, “No mistakes from you, then.” In other words, you have no respect for the process I go through and no perspective on it and I know your process from beginning to end and beyond, so, how about a little like consideration here. I was able to express that in that piece.

I wrote it as a permanent primer. That’s how I wrote it. That it is a permanent and transferable primer. It works for every, all of those, except for selection of texts, it really is a primer for anybody who’s commissioning to make it possible for the composer to do the best work. Or even to do the work. And of course professional commissioning organizations know that.

DC: Yes, they do. But it’s when you are getting commissions from semi-amateur groups, who want to test the waters, so to speak, with commissioning a piece but don’t really know the whole business of it.

LL: Yes. That’s right.

DC: How did you first conceive of the idea of the Triptych?

LL: I had three commissions coincidently happen at the same time and they were for similar performing forces, chorus and instrumental ensemble. They happened in

328 this order: from the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, and then from MIT, and then Baylor University in Waco, Texas. I don’t know how this happened, but I had become over the years, and I really haven’t traced, even conjectured where this interest came from, but the notion of three in one, is something that I’ve been thinking about for most of my life.

DC: I remember you wrote that paper about the triads, the history of the third. Could some of it have come from that?

LL: It did. It came from that research. But more importantly, the concept of zero is a concept that I have been dealing with all of my life, all of my conscious life. The question of what is zero and how does it function. When I was five and six years old and being instructed in Catholic Church, pre-catechism, before the rulebook, I must have had some insight brought about by my first and second grade teachers, one of whom was very old. Sister Helen Marie, my first grade teacher, was very, I thought she was ninety-two years old. She was probably fifty-four, my age. She did retire, however, when I was in third grade. So she was older and experienced. And then my second grade teacher, Sister Mary Irene, was brand new, really had just received the veil maybe one or two years before. So I had at least two life perspectives. When we started to learn math, maybe it was the way in which we were taught the elements of music, math, reading and color, but I began to contemplate infinity. This is before catechism. I would lay awake at night contemplating infinity and eternity. It kept me awake.

DC: No, I understand, actually. When I was four or five I started having nightmares of this huge black void that you just got completely lost in, because it was about infinity.

LL: Infinity. You were contemplating infinity.

DC: Yes, and I would wake up in the middle of the night just terrified at the insignificance of nothingness.

LL: Me, too, and I’m so glad you said it that way, because I started contemplating being and nothing. And this makes me wonder how many children of that age are aware of contemplating beingness and other than being. Because I would lay awake at night and think about it. So that by the time we had gotten through arithmetic and began to think about math, which was sixth grade in my education, the difference, the concept of zero as an arithmetical proposition completely confounded me and therefore confounded my teacher, that zero was something when it was actually nothing. Well, the debate that I had with the nun that year, and four or five of us were at that point of how can zero be something and nothing at the same time. Of course, we were removed from general math and set to study by ourselves. And from that point on, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, this group,

329 we learned math from each other and from the book, not from the teachers. But I have been thinking about zero ever since then.

Now, come back to the Bach Bethlehem Choir commission, and I, Greg Funfgeld, again said, “All I have to offer you is the tradition of my choir, and an orchestra that knows me.” And they had not commissioned before. This was their first commission. So I knew right then and there that given that tradition, the tradition of Bach, that that was it. Now I could begin to embody musically this investigation of one-two-and three and zero. When all three commissions came in, I think things happen in mystical ways. I wanted to study the Trinity, the notion of the Trinity with the Bach Choir, the notion of being and nothingness, zero, with the MIT choir, and the perspective of one with the Baylor choir.

DC: What’s so fascinating about that is that it fits the personalities of each group.

LL: It does. Each group is an interesting manifestation. The schools or each group is an interesting performance manifestation of the whole investigation of zero-one- two-three. With I It Am I had in graduate school been introduced to the writings of Julian of Norwich, and the writings of the mystics, pre-1400 church mystics and was completely fascinated with them. Because, of course, my grade school dealings were both mystical and cataclysmic, if that makes sense. Rule based, but also mystical because it was pre-Vatican II Council. So mysticism in the Catholic Church was still very, very much part of the practice. It’s a part that I really mourn. I think it was a big mistake, but that’s me. That’s a personal response, a big mistake to trump the mysticism in favor of populism, popular access.

I had taken Anglo-Saxon in graduate school. Did terribly at it, took it twice, and still would very much like to pursue it. So I had a way of moving into Julian of Norwich’s writings in the Anglo-Saxon, in the ancient languages. It’s not pure Anglo-Saxon. So I read her revelations and based the libretto, which I fashioned, on her revelations about the Trinity, that the Trinity is a study of three in one, the same way that zero is a study of being and nothingness. A side benefit was, I began to understand that the Trinity before the 1400s was gender ambiguous. It was Mother, Father, and Holy Spirit. But it wasn’t for gender reasons. It was yin and yang, a representation of yin/yang and the mystical holy being that are all part of one—three in one and one in three. It was for me, very much a study of I am It, It is Am, I am I, really, the Trinity as Trinity as mystical study rather than Trinity as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a much more literal gender interpretation that was the study of at Baylor, contemporary interpretations of Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We’re arguing over literal interpretations. And I knew when I wrote I It Am that I also wanted to deal with literal interpretation, ‘praise the Lord,’ and all that, with Baylor. So I made a mystical investigation of the Trinity with I It Am , and then a much more literal interpretation of the oneness of the Lord, the way that we are currently investigating in our culture, so much so that we do have a religious war going on.

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DC: Right, because we are losing the mystery.

LL: We’re losing the mystery and the Catholic Church, I wonder if it considered the consequences. I have struggled since sixth grade. I struggled with, can I practice my beliefs through the Catholic faith, in Catholic religion. Can I do that? I’d like to, but I can’t.

DC: Well, they stole it from you.

LL: They did. And I, the closest thing is the Jewish culture and practice of faith. I probably will convert to Judaism, once my mother’s no longer, it would completely break her heart.

So, the Triptych really is as much a personal journey without saying that in public “it’s mine.” It’s not in a userous way, it’s a personal journey, understanding that my personal journey in this area is also the personal journey of many, many people. [I spoke with] Dr. Baruch Blumberg, who is on the council of the Kluge Center, about zero at length. I have to send him the Triptych , because he’s really interested in it, because he too is interested in zero. In fact, when I moved into the investigation of zero for MIT, I found a spiritual community of people who through the study of zero see the world in a much different way than many people see the world. It tends to be physicists, architects, probably you, probably your brother, and I learned as a side of my researching zero, I then learned culturally about the western culture’s adoption of zero as a cipher, but as also an opposition to geo-centricity in opposition to zero. Zero in the eastern religions and cultures is an expression of the supreme being, but in western culture, the Aristotelian geo- centricity was, and probably still is, the basis of our belief sets and how we believe in God. So when we adopted zero, it was really brought to us as a trade unit. And yet, at MIT, MIT would not be possible without zero. And all the manifestations of space travel, to me, that would not be possible if we hadn’t adopted zero in the 1400s. If hadn’t at least begun to deal with zero as a western culture.

DC: Well, just look at binary code, 1-0-1-0.

LL: Absolutely. Without the consideration of zero our technological culture upon which we are building our future, would not exist. So, from the mystical exploration of the trinity for the Bach Bethlehem Choir, I then moved to the consideration of zero for MIT. I based my research in the fact, it’s a fact to me, but it’s a complete speculation culturally, that we may place more faith in number than we do in the idea of a supreme being. I think it is a topic worth articulating and airing.

331 DC: It could be one of the fundamental divides between these religious extremists, even though they don’t realize that’s what they’re discussing.

LL: That has crossed my mind many, many times. I do know that I found for the second part of the Triptych, which is the center of the Triptych, that when we projected ourselves, the idea that we could send a human being out to the moon and get them back again, that we had supreme, unerring faith in zero, while our faith belief, practice system of faith, was built on a complete rejection of zero. So I chose for the MIT contemplation, take the transcript of the Apollo 13 flight in which because we believe in zero we develop a space program, and send people out into space, and we got into trouble because of it. Then it became a human and moral—a moral humanistic issue in the culture at large.

We would like to say it was faith that brought the astronauts back, and in fact it is, all kinds of faith. Faith in what? is my question. Faith in what got the astronauts back to safety, to earth, back to humanity. Faith in zero? Absolutely. Faith in God? It’s a question. Faith in instinct—that becomes part of the issue, especially the wonderful part, this is not part of the Apollo 13 flight log, but it’s a part of the aftermath in the movie, that Jim Lovell knew that he could trust his instincts and told the story of the moment when he was a test pilot landing on the aircraft but the lights went out and the communication went out. In fact, all of the things that made the technological communication possible were removed. He then saw the phosphorescence of the fish below and knew that that trail was following the boat, and landed the plane that way. Well, that’s faith in his own experience and instinct and knowledge, but it also begs the question of the creation of the phosphorous element in the fish, how that becomes a completely mystical moment. Faith in what? Was it faith in God? Was it faith in number? Faith in instinct? Faith in what?

So, the investigation of zero finds itself in the libretto for I It Am in the transcript of the launch, and then in Psalms. It’s troped in Psalms in the libretto. I think it was just Psalms and the transcript. No, well, a few other quotes. The final quote is Euclid, and the philosopher mathematicians also find voice in the piece. Music for the piece is based on Fibonacci series, which is a mathematical series but also a natural phenomenon. I was delighted when that idea came in my head. Yes! It is the two in action here—the natural existence of the Fibonacci series and then the physical manifestations. So the mystical exploration of the Triptych becomes both a mystical and scientific exploration of the meaning of zero, in the global meaning of zero.

I even have to muse upon the fact that the religious war, the Muslim versus Christian religious jingoism that brings us to kill each other in the name of God, may find its roots in the fact of zero in the Eastern culture, meaning all things are possible and not there at the same time, may be coloring what death is in that culture, in a way that our culture cannot understand because we begin with one,

332 and zero is a way to get us into negativism. But we begin with one, and so that may, in some very deep place, be influencing the way we think about life.

DC: I think that’s true, because in some cultures, they age differently than we do. When you are born, you turn one after a year, but in other cultures when you are born you are one, because they include the whole gestation process.

LL: As do I.

DC: So the aging, and even thinking of birth they begin back further than we do.

LL: And that is a fundamental difference. Life is zero. Birth is zero. Maybe I’m the last one to think about this, but I’ve been thinking, this is not a war about religion, this is a war about the concept of being.

DC: Fundamentally, I’ve always thought about it as a war between cultures, and the idea of who we are as a people, which is part of, or a spin-off of ‘what it means to exist.’

LL: What it means to exist. That’s the war that is going on. And the futility of it is that we think it’s about contemporary lifestyles choices, or to fight for the soul. Maybe it is fight for the soul, but I don’t know what the fight, I could probably think about this all of my life, I won’t know it until I’m not in my body anymore, and then I’ll know. The desperation over the definition of being, it may really just be a complete love of being embodied, that there’s something desperately beautiful about being embodied, desperately beautiful. And that primally, each one of us who is embodied, our struggle is to live with that beauty and not want it to end, even though it’s completely confusing, because you’re in a body. The embodied nature of us, we keep manifesting into these foolish arguments, the Beatles are right: “All you need is love.”

DC: With I It Am , correspondence for this piece was limited. Do you recall how you approached for the commission?

LL: Yes. I got a call for from Greg Funfgeld, who is the director of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem. It was right before I was visiting Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on other business. I was there with the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra for the premiere, was it Notes Slipped Under the Door ? I’m not sure because I did two pieces with them. Greg and I both knew and were very fond of Arlene Auger. Greg said, “I want to talk to you about a commission. If you’re a friend of Arlene Auger, I know who you are.” It wasn’t like, I know your name, it was like, I think we’re going to be great with each other. So it was completely about process, trust and process, from the very beginning. That’s the place in a commission where everybody goes, “Aha! Now we can really create!” Not make, but create.

333 We met at the Bethlehem Hotel while I was there. Greg moved like I move. Really fast. So we had a very fast conversation. Meanwhile, the computerized piano was playing, except it was broken so you only got ghost tones, of whatever piece, but it’s still broken. It has to be the best computerized piano in the country, because it’s broken so you only get vague shadows of whatever piece it’s playing. I want to write a piano piece about that piano, where you only get this and that. You know the piece is in there, and you can even figure out what piece it’s playing, but oh, it’s so cool. So, we had this very fast conversation. We talked about Arlene and I think I brought up the piano. Then we talked about the commission. He said, “What I have to offer you is this tradition, this choir, this orchestra. We do Bach and you should know that and you should consider it.” He didn’t say, “you should consider it”, but it was very clear.

DC: He wanted to make sure that you didn’t write something so totally off the wall that the group would be thrown for a complete loop.

LL: Thrown for a loop, not like or dislike, but had the context. That’s all he said. He didn’t say, “write about this, write about that.” He just offered the services of his group. So I kept him informed of what I was doing. Although, we knew right away that this would happen, that we would work well together, that neither of us had time for much of the kind of conversations that are often necessary in a commission. And we didn’t communicate much during the commissioning process, just because we had already connected. We had that trust built. This is going to work. I know who you are, you know who I am. We are of like mind and like spirit.

Well, we didn’t do a lot of communicating, but where we did is exactly where we should: in the rehearsal processes, he and I over the score, or with the choir, a completely wonderful process, like the one that I described in the Chorus America article. The only thing that was irritating to me was that the choir wanted to have completely perfect engraved materials six months before the premiere, and we’re still in the process with Oxford of trying to figure out how to work this. Six months before the premiere is, that’s a publishing habit that’s been engrained in the performance world. It’s not a habit that is conducive to decision making in the compositional process. And I knew that they would not be looking at the piece until months before. I also know that Greg needed to learn the score and all those things. It is just very angering because Oxford was then very nit-picky about, “We have to have it done.” Six months before for everything proofread, done, is really a publisher habit, and it’s not compatible with the compositional practice. But this is happening more and more in the commissioning world. The habit is, six months before, so that they can feel good that it’s on their shelf and they’re organized and they can produce.

DC: But then you miss out on the final step of the commissioning process, which is the way things have to shift when the performers actually get the piece.

334

LL: Exactly. You miss out on that, and it’s really for administrative comfort that this has happened. But this was their first commission, too, so we all love each other to death. But, it is something to be interjected into a general discussion.

DC: So this is really along the same lines, when you are doing contract negotiations, I’m a little puzzled about this, because you signed a contract on 2 November 2002 with the work to be completed by December 2002, which doesn’t give you much time. So, how long did you wind up working on the piece, and how did the contract fit this way?

LL: It was a complete mess. The commission happened well before.

DC: But no contract had been signed.

LL: No because, this is Oxford again, they wanted to negotiate the contract. Part of the money was coming from America and part of it was coming from the the BBC Proms. They wanted to negotiate the contract, and that makes sense. However, they didn’t do it, and they didn’t do it, and they didn’t do it, and it came down to the point where I said …, but I wrote the piece.

DC: Was the piece written, or at least conceived of by the time you signed the contract in November?

LL: Oh, yes. Absolutely it was. And I kept saying to them, “Why don’t you just let me deal with Greg. We’re the ones who are doing this, let me deal with him. I can call London.” Nope. This precipitated someone else being let go at Oxford, this time from the English office. Of course they want to get rid of me. I’m a trouble maker.

DC: Yes, you keep bringing up people they need to fire.

LL: And they do! If they’re going to do business, they should do business. But that’s American, apparently.

DC: But that just totally blows me away. The English side of Oxford, they have a composer who’s composing something commissioned in part by the Proms. You’d think they would have been right on the ball with that.

LL: Wouldn’t you, though? The anger management tools that I have, I could probably write a book on anger management for creative artists. Really. Seriously. It’s mind boggling. All the time, completely mind boggling. When Greg Funfgeld and I knew exactly what we were doing. We sat down, and in five minutes got it worked out. Then Oxford, now I’d really like to put dates on this, it may have taken them two years to get the contract.

335

DC: I was wondering how long, the contract was 2 November 2002, was when you got it and signed it, and you were the first person to sign it and date it. The last person to sign and date it didn’t sign it until 27 November 2002.

LL: That’s completely fast, considering this whole, well it came down to this, is that, I’ve got lots of e-mails, because I kept checking in, “How’s it coming, how’s it coming?” Finally I said, “I don’t have a contract, I’m not delivering the piece. No, you’re not getting the piece. Therefore you can’t copy it.” If I didn’t have a contract, I’m not delivering a piece. So they finally did it, but oh!

DC: I thought, this is absolutely ridiculous, the time frame that was listed in the contract. But if you explain it this way, the piece was already written by the time they got the contract. I just couldn’t understand this.

LL: Exactly. I’m not sure too many composers could do this. It was written and sketched, completely ready to go on paper, but I didn’t put on paper until the contract was signed. Once I get it on paper, other people own it. All kinds of ownership happens, even though there are copyright laws, but it’s committed. So, I did sit down between then and then and write out the whole piece and orchestrate it, the whole thing. That takes stamina.

All along with the publishers, both of them, my next venture with them, is, “Well you have to give it to us.” Well, I can’t give it to you. A year ahead of time, I notified them that I had a commission to write five easy pieces for piano, and they would be performed on this date, so I’m going to write the pieces. I’m going to get them to you nine months early so that we can really work this process. I did. A month before the premiere, they figured out they better engrave them. And I reminded them all along, and I kept all my correspondence, because it is mind boggling. And now with England, I’m told from friends in New York, that it might be two or three years before they could get a piece engraved and published. But we’ve talked enough about that.

DC: On to Praise One . How did you arrive at your subject for April 2004 piece for Baylor? I noticed in your correspondence with them that the discussion surrounding the time of the premiere changed due to the part of Baylor, apparently.

LL: Yes, that’s right.

DC: So when the contract was signed by you, which was 26 December 2003, the publishers needed the final copy by 9 January 2004, which gives you about two weeks.

LL: Right. Same problem. Do you see a pattern emerging here?

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DC: So this was in order to have the vocal scores to Baylor by 9 February 2004, which means that they promised in one month to have the parts engraved and out to Baylor. Because this is the Oxford University contract. So, the vocal score to Baylor by 9 November, which was a month, and then the parts to Baylor by 1 March. Which is then less than a month. How long did it take you to write and orchestrate this piece, and did you have it written well in advance of the contract?

LL: Meanwhile, I’m working at the Library of Congress.

DC: Yes, I know. I think this was when you were swearing quite a bit.

LL: I was swearing quite a bit. Hopefully not in the hallway. Hopefully only in our office.

DC: I’m using a euphemism. You didn’t swear but you were grumpy at times.

LL: Very grumpy. And who wouldn’t be? I wrote the piece, again, I had it in my head. I had been very careful to approve the texts with Baylor. If I run into a series of problems with especially religious institutions commissioning pieces and then becoming embroiled in the current state of the issues of censorship and interpretation and theology and fundamentalism. So I’d done all my spade work and got everything prepared and I had the piece in my head.

DC: Since you are talking about the text and getting that done, did you have the text all set before they even moved the premiere to a year later?

LL: No. I didn’t.

DC: So that was one reason why it was moved?

LL: No it wasn’t moved because I didn’t have the text.

DC: No, it was moved on their part. Something happened with their funding and they had to re-apply with their administration. It had nothing to do with the creative process. Do you recall in the time frame when the texts were all set?

LL: The texts were all set as I was working on I It Am . I knew what I was going to do for the whole Triptych , and was talking to Oxford about the whole Triptych at that point.

DC: So that was in 2002.

LL: I just put it all in my head. I compose in my head as much as I work at the piano. I’m always working in my head.

337

DC: And you just waited until things were signed and dotted then wrote it out?

LL: Yes, which is a habit that I’ve developed over the years of working with Oxford.

DC: So did this make it really crazy for you just to have two weeks after the contract was signed, to get the parts to them?

LL: Yes, crazy because there’s only 24 hours in a day.

DC: Crazy because you didn’t have enough time to write it all down and orchestrate it?

LL: Right, and I don’t think I would have been as grumpy if it had not been for the psychological atmosphere at the Kluge Center. In which, this is what was really on my mind when, its hard to say because it sounds so egotistical, but you have a person of the brain caliber of Bob Salidini, working in a center with brain caliber of the people who are there as chairs and associates. It felt as if I had a festering burr inside of me that I couldn’t get out. It wasn’t annoying, that’s not it. It was completely violent to the thought processes that we were all trying so hard to practice, everybody: Peg, Pross, all the chairs, all the scholars, everybody. I don’t worry at all about having two weeks for…, because I know how to move into time that’s not time. I live there—that’s how we found the house we bought yesterday that we saw the day before. I’m completely comfortable operating in time that’s not time. But, when something is disruptive as that personality was, I want to stop everything and get him gone, which is why I got gone two people at Oxford, because they were both the kinds of personalities that were completely disruptive to the work at hand. And I couldn’t get him gone, nor could I express myself in ways that would help balance the anger inside, and I was exhausted. It takes, to live in time that’s not time and produce work that’s as detail as the work that we do as composers, it takes a focus that is not practiced in our culture very much.

DC: No, because you lose yourself in the project and…

LL: And that’s not the way we’ve set up our civilization. That’s why I’m so angry about the lack of mysticism in the Catholic Church, about the, because there was a place where you could lose yourself.

So, was it frustrating? Yes, it was frustrating only because of the personality that demanded focus at all times in the most disruptive ways, which is why I completely stopped talking to him and looking at him. Consciously, I just practiced, “you are not in this place.” It was the only way I could deal with it at that moment because of all these other things, and doing all this research that we were doing, which you so, took on such a burden to do, and did it so well, and writing this piece, and trying to travel back and forth. It just was wrong. Exhausting.

338

DC: Okay. So now The Nothing That Is , I found in some correspondence you say that the copyists at OUP did not do a good job with the piano/vocal score.

LL: That’s true.

DC: Didn’t they engrave the particular score you sent? Or did they extract from a larger score you sent?

LL: They extracted from the orchestral score.

DC: Did they not have the piano/vocal score?

LL: The deal was that they would make a piano/vocal score from the full score, because I write in full score. So I write in full score then I make the piano/vocal score and we were trying. We all really love each other. So they were saying, “Well, we’ll make the piano/vocal.” But I think they didn’t understand at all that a piano/vocal is not an orchestral score that’s been put through a reduction program in the computer.

DC: Right. There are things you leave out or adjust to fit the piano.

LL: Exactly, to fit the piano. So it was not a good representation at all. So the choir could not get into the piece. It took me being there, which I am always there, but in this instance, I changed my approach to working on the piece with the choir because they weren’t with it. They didn’t get it. So I sang with them. I sang with every, all in the spirit of, “Hey, this is a creative process! I’ll sing here and there,” helping them to try to get the color into them and the energy.

DC: Did Oxford not send you a piano/vocal score for you to look over before it was produced?

LL: No, because of the time.

DC: Because they did the last minute thing again?

LL: Yes. Hence my giving them a piece eight months in advance to see what would happen.

DC: So this idea of having Oxford do something like the piano/vocal score, have you tried that again with them?

LL: No. I’m not going to do that again.

DC: So that was a failed experiment.

339

LL: However, I learned from that experiment and with In a Winter Garden with E.C. Schirmer, Stanley Hoffman, who’s their senior editor and is also a very fine organist, and he said to me, “Can I make a keyboard reduction? I want to make the orchestration more playable for the keyboard.” Well, that’s what you’re supposed to do. So I said, “Yes, let’s do it, and we’ll proof-read back and forth.” So that’s been an excellent experience.

A good piano reduction should improve the possibilities of the piece in rehearsal. And this does. He’s moved octaves, and things that aren’t in the orchestration, but make for better keyboard. And that’s exactly what should happen, but this didn’t happen with Oxford. Remember again, we’re feeling our way through the process.

DC: So maybe it is a matter of them finding or hiring somebody who’s good at that type of work.

LL: Right, and all of us learning as we go, which we were doing really well. Sean Finnegan’s a great editor, but he’s a guitarist, so his perspective is different. Paul Thomas, who is the engraver that he works with, is a great engraver. I don’t know his musical background, because I didn’t deal with that. I know Tracy and Paul Gerrity, mine, but I don’t know that Paul’s a musician. He must be. He has to be. But it depends, if he’s a trombonist, he has a different feel for it.

DC: So the premiere of the piece for MIT was also postponed for a year, this time at your instigation?

LL: My fault. My instigation, because of what was going on at the Kluge Center. I couldn’t get the piece done. I couldn’t get to the piece mentally.

DC: I understand completely. It also appears from one note that you barely finished it in time for the following year.

LL: That’s right. That’s true. It was prioritized personal reasons that needed my mind, and which I prioritized on purpose and would do again. That’s why, in that case. It was two years of being away from my mind. Plus I had neck surgery, and oh, a lot of things happened. I was learning to deal with diabetes. Just that alone is enough. It’s just that so many things converged all at once.

Now, I just also want to say something to you about pieces and timing. This question of ‘on time’ has always been something that I’ve always dealt with, with every single piece. I make cleaner decisions, compositional decisions, under pressure. The decisions that are clean in this way, that they connect the cerebral controlling part with the instinctual part, in a blend that best works for me when I’m under pressure. And that pressure is deadline pressure.

340 DC: So part of your whole process in focusing actually also is encapsulated by trying to get things done at the last minute, it forces you into this mode of what you call timelessness.

LL: Yes, it does, time without time. And it is not bad business, and it’s not ditzy-ness at all.

DC: No, because you get it in on time.

LL: Right. I get it on time, and many performers completely understand and work the same way. It gives you an edge, because you’re afraid a little bit, not terribly afraid, but it gives you an edge. But what I worry about is our culture deadlines. We’ve invented computers to cut off your bank account because you didn’t pay at one o’clock in the morning. And so, the perception of what’s on-time and what’s not on-time is a delicate issue. I think, that Mozart dealt, that everybody deals with the cultural on-time, six months ahead, six minutes ahead, what’s on-time versus the creative needing a time pressure to work in to make decisions about what are infinite possibility.

DC: I can understand you use the cultural time frame to your benefit in this way.

LL: Yes, but it also adds an extra stress in that people whose needs are met on cultural on-time frames.

DC: The people who call and check on you to make sure?

LL: Yes, and I’ve just come through that process. I’ve just come through a process just like that with this wind, which I should be finishing instead of doing this. But, yes, they would call and say, “You said Friday, it’s Monday.” And I did say, “You know, I’m not going to deliver a piece on a deadline because of the deadline. You are going to have the piece in plenty of time to rehearse. You have the title, we’ve been talking all along. I will deliver the piece when it’s qualitatively ready.” That makes them uncomfortable, but there it is, when it’s qualitatively ready. And then it’s how everybody deals with it. “Well, our performers are very, very busy.” Right. They have no idea.

DC: Let’s move on to some other pieces. Coming Forth Into Day , the information I have on this piece is absolutely wonderful, so it’s really good, but one thing that really struck me was how ironic that it’s premiere was on the same day that American forces bombed Libya. So did you have discussions about this with Sadat and Brunelle afterwards or with other people?

LL: It came as such a surprise. I discussed it with other people, not with Mrs. Sadat. Although, it was a great learning experience for me. I don’t know for her. I did, we had to make a decision whether to put on the concert or not. We decided we

341 would. Now what that means to me in that context, I had learned from working with her on the process that this is a woman who deals with the fact of assassination as part of her being, not as her position but as her being.

DC: Of course. Her husband was assassinated.

LL: And she was sitting right next to him.

DC: And she’s a target herself.

LL: Right, and as such, she would always put her desk right in front of the window. She would always put herself in places where she could be assassinated, as a sign of power.

DC: ‘I will not give in to fear?’

LL: ‘I will not give in to fear. I am a powerful person—I am a powerful being—not a person, but a powerful being, so I will not give in to fear.’ There, of course, were always layers of security around her, but she herself, like the Pope, before the Pope-mobile. One of the great signs of leadership is to put yourself in a vulnerable position. So, when this happened, and it happen about two hours before the concert was supposed to start, so, a series of phone calls, and the security dogs and everybody searched the theater for bombs and explosives.

DC: Right, because there were a lot of political people at the premiere.

LL: A lot. Senators, and yes, indeed. It was a real decision. Plus I, at that point, was very pregnant with Wynne. So Jim and I talked very carefully about, should I go on stage at the end of the concert—which would be the most vulnerable time for assassination, because it’s the loudest time. We thought really hard about it and I said that I will go on stage. If she goes on stage, I’m going on stage. We’re all going to be up there. The performers have no choice, they’re going to be on stage, in the context of exactly who Mrs. Sadat is, in the world, so that we did. We did all of that. And backstage we had NPR on, which was simultaneously broadcasting the piece, and interjecting it with the bombing of Libya. Meanwhile, I don’t know where reporters came from, but they came out of the wall, and they all wanted to talk to Mrs. Sadat, and I thought she would be horrified, and I made one comment to her about it, “Oh, my gosh, this is awful.” And she said, “Oh no, this is absolutely necessary.” And I was completely dumbstruck. She made the comment, I wish I had had the presence of mind to write it down verbatim, but to paraphrase it, it was that we Americans think and believe that we can have peace in our lifetime, but in her part of the world you take action for over a thousand years in order to achieve a goal like peace, and now that this was a necessary action on the road to peace a thousand years from now. That changed my life. It completely did. But that was the only discussion we had. We both were

342 interviewed for Time magazine, and I stuck to my own perspective, that this was just: you don’t kill human beings. She made a very innocuous but politically smart [statement]. All of us who were against the bombing, none of us were quoted. Those who made comments that it was a great action for a great cause were all quoted.

DC: Of course—it was all propaganda.

LL: That was the only discussion with Mrs. Sadat. Some discussions with Philip Brunelle about it, but not many, and lots of discussion with friends, and many people, even to this day, who were there at the premiere or were listening on the radio will bring it up just say, “Extraordinary, extraordinary.”

DC: Well, there are all of these notes and cards and letters you got after that had those comments on them about how much it hit them. They heard this piece and then the bombing, the juxtaposition of the two were just amazing.

LL: Phenomenal. Yes. Working with her was so different than working with a poet or a playwright, a shaper of a reality, one who invents a reality and shapes it. Working with her was working with reality—in the selection of the texts, and the reasons for the texts being selected, was literally dealing, working with reality— the starkest of reality. So there’s no way to be romantic or cerebral in the way that we’ve been talking about cerebral. And what’s astounding about it was that it was working with reality. The piece we made was a counterpoint to reality, and the coincidence of the events of reality that evening were astounding, and legendary, not that anything has become legend, but a legendary coincidence, when the reality of what we were talking about occurred.

What was astounding about it is the reality of what we were presenting in a distilled and carefully thought about piece of art was juxtaposed with the reality, the stark reality of what we were writing about at exactly the same time, and could be, was broadcast simultaneously. That was the real work of art. It was a complete cultural culmination. It can’t be duplicated because you can’t duplicate something like that. We barely had simultaneous broadcast technological possibilities. So, that art that’s been made about war and intolerance for thousands and thousands of years is usually done in retrospect or away from the reality of it, and yet, not in this case.

DC: It was almost like an immediate mirror of the action.

LL: Immediate, so that it became a very skewed reality. What was mirroring what? Very skewed. Meanwhile we’re singing the hymn “Eternal Ruler of the Ceaseless Round.”

343 DC: With Eleanor Roosevelt , the correspondence with Sally Gall is illuminating, although I’ve only had her responses to your comments, not your original comments. It seems that you had a rich dialogue with her regarding the shape and essence of piece. How did you find working with her as a collaborator?

LL: I’m going to come clean on this, because I’d love to make up a story about it, but I didn’t collaborate with her during the writing of the piece. I know why, too. It was a Salidini situation, actually. Not Sally. Sally, I knew her work and I knew her personality. I didn’t have email yet, and she in a very loving way helped me get email, learning to have that as a communication tool. I was dealing with the woman who commissioned the piece, Judith Klurman, who is a completely dramatic personality, and very well-meaning, big heart, lovely, but she would do things like she would tell me what the performing forces were but then next week it would be different forces.

DC: Yes. I saw some communicaes about that.

LL: It would be different spaces, different forces. She was going through her own creative possibilities about the performance possibilities for the piece in a way that was really unsettling to writing the piece because space and performing forces are of prime essence to the composition of the piece. So I didn’t know what to tell Sally. I didn’t know how to collaborate with Sally. I hired Sally to write the piece and I knew that she would write it and knew that her research skills were consummate and I knew her style. So I was quite willing to accept the form that she gave me in the libretto. Had I had email I could have separated the noise of the director from the process. I could have protected the process of collaboration, but I was at sixes and sevens, so I didn’t collaborate with Sally, not until towards the very end. We’ve worked together several times since then. So that’s the truth of it. I had a rich collaboration with her in my mind. But that’s not collaboration, that’s conjecture and control. And she is the kind of librettist who is a real true librettist. She understands the words are there and if it is strong and there and good structure and what have you, words will change. It would be interesting to compare the libretto she sent versus the score. She was very much part of proof reading the libretto as printed, proof reading the words in the score. We had some collaboration about should it be “sisters and brothers” or “brothers and sisters”— just placement of words. But not the way I like to collaborate.

DC: So she did her research, came up with ideas, wrote stuff, sent it to you.

LL: Yes. We visited Val-kill and the Hudson Estate, but to be honest with you, I don’t know if it was before or after the piece was written. I’d have to go look at the correspondence with it. I get very fussed up as a composer if I don’t know who I am writing for and what the space is. Judith was very much part of wanting the piece to be for a chorus and a narrator, but what about a soloist, a singing, vocal soloist? What were we going to do about that?

344

DC: I remember—“I have a mezzo, I have a soprano, pull it out of the chorus.”

LL: Yes. So I finally wrote it so that it could be divided up among members of the choir, or a soloist. I just wrote it that way. And Sally very wisely put in Eleanor as a narrator, so we had something we could work with. Also, Eleanor’s voice, we did a lot of research into her authentic words, they are not very musical. I already knew how to recognize political rhetoric, political choices of words, from working with Mrs. Sadat. Eleanor Roosevelt was brilliant, she said things that were so meaningful without any language that incited anyone. But, there, I imagine for Sally, we had discussion about this, what do we do? We can’t set her words. We can try to find some of them that we can set, which she did brilliantly, but we’re going to have to invent around it. So that’s Sally’s point of view. It’s also my point of view. Actually, we collaborated more that I thought we did. I think it was a big layer of guilt that I was dealing with, thinking I’m not working enough with her, because I was not working as much with her as I like to.

DC: You exchanged ideas about the shape of the piece, and how to present the piece.

LL: We did. And she visited Val-kill and Home on the Hudson before I did. And we went together when we went. I think she likes the piece. She’s a professional. I think she likes it, but if you were to interview her, I’d be very curious to hear her perspective on it.

DC: The final printing of the score was full of problems. Do you think that the wrong version was sent to OUP for engraving thus creating all the problems?

LL: No. There are problems with every piece of mine that’s published, so much so that I’ve come to say to people, “We’ve been working on Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms core repertoire for years, and we’re still questioning certain things, so there are going to be problems.” In this case, this one is interesting to me, because I, everybody proofread this: Sally, me, Sean, everybody. So what problems? When you say problems, what did you find?

DC: There was a great deal of going back and forth between, some words were wrong, notes and parts, the violin part was left off…

LL: Oh, so in the process of producing the score. You didn’t find it in the finished score.

DC: No.

LL: Oh, that, to me, is completely normal. It’s not a problem. It’s just part of the process of getting it engraved. It’s exactly what we’re doing with Winter Garden

345 now. We’ve gone through, everybody’s proofreading, and I’ll say, “We need an accidental here, we missed a tie,” that’s actually all very healthy.

DC: Okay. On to Barnum’s Bird . One thing I found confusing: the premiere was announced as the performance at the Library of Congress, yet the Plymouth Music Series performed the piece earlier in Minneapolis.

LL: Yes, and did a sold out run of it.

DC: So, why the fiction?

LL: Politics. Completely politics.

DC: It was a good six months before.

LL: Yes. That was all completely politics. For some reason, in order to be performed at the Library of Congress, you would have to talk to Philip Brunelle to get another perspective on this because he’s the one who did all that arranging, the word ‘premiere’ had to be attached to the Library of Congress. So he said, “Sure, fine. We’ll just do previews here.” So we did previews here.

DC: Were there any changes at all between the two performances?

LL: No. We staged it here, costumed it here, did everything here. I wrote it with two venues in mind, so I designed my thinking about the piece so that it would read very well in a space like the Coolidge Auditorium. Also, the run we did here was at the Jeune Lune Theatre, which is a space much more like the Southern Theater. So my philosophy for writing opera, after Frankenstein , has been that you ought to be able to produce it on a flatbed truck, with nothing but the flatbed. The music and the elements of the piece should be able to carry the piece, which is true of Frankenstien , too. You could do it on a flatbed truck now with a rear-view projection. You don’t need to see people hung, strangled. But, yes, it was purely politics.

DC: I kind of thought so, but I just didn’t want to say, this is what I think.

LL: Well, I think there’s an advantage to it to. In a way, it helps the piece, the pressure on the piece to be perfect at the premiere, which is part of the music world that’s so strange, not part of theater or dance. I’ve begun to suggest to companies that they want to do multiple productions. That maybe the first one be given the honor of the preview, that this company might be best for previewing, or call it a premiere series of performances, ways to let the piece grow in way that are completely natural rather than forcing the one performance perfection model.

346 DC: Well, because as the performers inhabit the characters, the more they grow with it, so the performance becomes more ingrained in them, more automatic.

LL: Absolutely. With opera, if I were king of the forest, I would have a company created by the field which chooses a number of pieces a year and puts them up and then that production, the whole production, lock, stock and barrel, goes to the various opera companies as part of their seasons. It makes so much more sense in every way to work it that way.

DC: Well, take acting troupes, the more they act together, the better. Even if it’s different pieces, they’re acting together, they know each other’s timing, the better their work becomes.

LL: Exactly. The other way is to do what’s happening now. That is, a consortium of opera companies will commission a piece and then share various elements of the production, but they don’t share singers. So that puts an interesting conundrum into the composer. You worry about composing in a way that is franchisable into the voice types that are training to be Susanna. So you think hard about things, compositional decisions are colored much more heavily by the franchise production model than it would be by the repertory company model. Like with Every Man Jack , we have now chosen the exact right singers for the exact right parts. What we want to do is send this production around, with music that is not franchisable easily within the rehearsal conventional frame.

DC: When you can write for that voice, it gives you different type of control over what you do.

LL: Indeed it does! I’m writing for Rod Gilfrey, I’m not writing for a baritone.

DC: That makes a huge difference in how you write.

LL: Exactly. I’m writing for Rod Gilfrey [Jack London], I’m writing for Jennifer Lane [Charmian London]. You’re writing for the singers and then the singers take the piece. It makes so much more economic sense, artistic sense. It makes sense for the art form, in an art form that is in heavy economic problems because it’s adopted a franchise model of production. So, we’ll see, maybe I can put this idea forth in Opera America.

DC: This is actually an idea that was suggested in one of the economic studies in the 1950s for a touring opera company, that would have regional opera groups that would then tour within the region.

LL: Yes, that makes sense. I think though, that this, since we do have a number of standing opera houses now that have developed since the fifties, companies that are strong but are grappling with the core repertoire as what is producible within

347 the system they’ve developed, then it makes perfect sense that they could then contemplate the costs of bringing in the company that has the new work, even the conductor, or maybe not, but certainly the singers.

DC: Well the way conductors travel around so much anyway, to be guest conductors at other venues instead of staying at their home venue, they’re kind of doing that already.

LL: Exactly. They are. It’s already there, but then you have the old art form, focusing on how it can stay in business which is then trumping the growth of the content.

DC: Bridget Carpenter is credited with co-writing the libretto for Barnum’s Bird in the score. However it seems that Jon Cranney also worked on the libretto. Can you elucidate on the shaping of the libretto?

LL: Yes, I can. Bridget Carpenter is a very talented young playwright and came to the project with all kinds of enthusiasm and talent and a certain quality of language that was perfect for the piece. We worked very much together in the way that I do like to work and she gave the original shape to the piece. At that time she was living in the Twin Cities and she was working with the Guthrie Theater and writing new plays. And then her life changed so that she moved to Hollywood and started working for DreamWorks. We were still working on the libretto, so that put distance. However, she kind of reached the end of what she knew—of how she knew to work with the material to make it a libretto. So Jon Cranney, who ended up directing the piece, came into the project. Jon and I then shaped the libretto so that it was a libretto rather than a play. That’s how it worked. It’s really Bridget, Jon and Libby who made the libretto. And it works. It completely works. And Bridget, her perspective is brilliant, really, really brilliant. Her language, I wanted very current American language, so that I could contrast it with language from the period.

DC: But she was a playwright not a librettist.

LL: A brilliant playwright. She’s a brilliant playwright. Ahh! Her plays are really fabulous. She’s really a talent. It actually worked just fine because we had me thinking musically on the libretto, Bridget thinking theatrically and playwright, and Jon was a director helping shape and focus the combination of Bridget and Libby so that it became a perfect libretto.

DC: Yes, for the type of piece it is, it make sense to have that shaping of it.

LL: Absolutely, it does.

DC: In the way it is mimicking the vaudeville acts.

348 LL: It is. Very deliberately so, which was the construct that we decided would really work well.

DC: It does, it’s quite brilliant how it is put together.

LL: It’s the three of us. This is a place where sum of the parts makes the whole better than any of us are. Bridget was particularly brilliant at developing Barnum, all the soliloquies and all those, I’m here for the show—that’s Bridget, and that’s Barnum.

DC: We’re on to other…What does it mean to you when people describe music as “appealing?”

LL: I have a hope of what it means. I hope what they mean is that somehow they can connect to it in a way that allows them to listen more openly. That’s what I hope it means. I have a fear, which just comes from personal insecurity, that it means that it is tonally appealing—that it somehow is not alienating to the ears tonally—and that is just so not part of what I think about.

DC: Well, it will alleviate your mind to know I read a definition by a musicologist who was talking about how we talk about twentieth century music, she said, “Appealing is just a catch phrase used to describe music that people can relate to.”

LL: Oh, good.

DC: And that it’s the avant garde, the shocking computer music that we don’t want to hear, that they use “appealing” as a catch-all phrase to say that not all new music is really far-out-there sounding.

LL: Right, the only way you can listen to it is by understanding it as rational extensions of parameters of music—that’s the only way into it. Then yes, that does alleviate my fear, because completely, part of my definition is to communicate.

DC: She had analyzed all of these writings by critics to determine what they were trying to say.

LL: That’s very interesting. The fear specter really comes more from the “pretty” music. I think there was one review of Eric Hermannson’s Soul where they said it was like music that you could curl up on a couch and listen to, and I remember thinking at the time, “Why would you write music that you couldn’t curl up on a couch and listen to?” As theater music, for a theatrical reason, no, but only for a theatrical reason. But I don’t know what he meant by that either, that’s not really criticism.

DC: It’s perception.

349

LL: Yes. In fact most of the musical investigations that I do with an eye towards how will it communicate are trying to provide windows of accessibility without dictating what you’re accessing. So, that’s interesting. Thanks for telling me that.

DC: You’re welcome. I notice that in several of your works, such as Eric Hermannson’s Soul , Frankenstein , Barnum , that you use quotation. Now the quotation can be either from a pre-existing work of your own or from pieces that you’ve culled from other sources, like What the Monster Saw in Frankenstein , but one can even argue that the Eric Hermannson’s chamber version is quoted when the two-act opera comes into being, because material from these quotes undergird the large formal structure of the two-act operas.

LL: That’s true. That was deliberate.

DC: You answered my questions, which was, was that intentional?

LL: Yes, completely, especially in Eric Hermannson .

DC: I read one reviewer who referred to the fiddle tune in Eric Hermannson as well as other musical ideas in that particular opera as “Wagnerian leitmotivs.” So would you construe them as such?

LL: I don’t know what, when somebody says a “Wagnerian leitmotiv,” I don’t know what they mean by that, other than there is a particular bit of music that is played in the opera and then presented in a way so that you consciously recall or associate. If that’s the definition, in Eric Hermannson’s Soul , definitely I wanted to do that, especially with the opening tune, the fiddle tune. It is completely woven and developed throughout the opera on purpose. Some Margaret, there’s some Margaret tunes, bits of her music that are developed, but really the ancient Norwegian tune, and its spiritual, so yes I did want to keep reminding people of the—not that Eric was coming or going, it’s not about action—and here comes Eric!—but no, it’s not the Warner Looney Tunes approach, a cue approach. It’s for psychological development as a way for people to keep in mind that Eric comes from a completely different spiritually cultural tradition, and that while they really can’t be together, which they both understand, Margaret and Eric, which is the tragedy and the beauty, why they really can’t be together is that their cultural traditions are fundamentally so different that they can’t bring them together. It’s not economic status, it’s not wrong side of the track, it’s not, it really is that he was trained to be a Norwegian fiddler, which is much like Hawaiian hula, it’s trained in a certain kind of spirituality, which is realized through the fiddle in Norway. And she was thoroughly trained, they’re bother masters of what they were trained to be, she was thoroughly trained to be a Victorian philanthropist.

DC: An aristocrat in New York?

350

LL: Yes, exactly. I guess we could coin a term, that she was trained as a industrialist aristocrat, yes, trained to serve that system. And it’s the serving of the system that is her tragedy, and it’s the withholding of the culture from Eric that’s his tragedy, and that’s how they find each other, neither of them real, be the masters that they are in the positions that they’re in. So I use, instead of using Cavalleria Rusticana throughout, that’s a quintessential moment, that’s a distilled moment of cultural, moment in which we completely understand that Margaret is of the culture that carries a gramophone with her and plays Cavalleria Rusticana while she’s writing letters. Eric is of a culture where his fiddle is with him at all times because he is, it’s a strong wording, but he’s a priest. He’s a cultural priest. So Cavalleria Rusticana , that was very easy to show that world, but very hard, I think, in our culture to hang on to the Norwegian fiddling tradition. And that’s why I chose that particular bit of music to act as, you would call it “leitmotiv.”

DC: Writers and critics in the seventies and eighties deplored the use of quotation in modern composition. I think part of it stems from what originality is and that whole concept behind it. What would be your response to them given you use quotation?

LL: Yes, I do. In the seventies and eighties? Which was when I was in school. I saw that issue, [as] the issue of academic philosophy. At that point in time, the positions in university and colleges, the position of a composer, was usually a graduate position, and the dictate of the graduate professor was at the time, to do original work—that’s what your research is. The research mandate is to do original work, which at that time, the work was in original language. It was original musical language derived through scientific, through invented and defined methodologies.

DC: Like serialism or minimalism?

LL: Yes. One of the “-isms,” yes. The last of which was minimalism. We haven’t really had an “-ism,” now we’re into re-packaging “-isms.” So you know that the era of the authenticity is over when we start re-packaging. At the time, and I understood what that was all about, it was also combined though with a strange sense of bitterness and territorialism that I thought long and hard about the bitterness of it. I tried to understand why is there so much anger here. For a while I thought, well, so many of these professors fought in World War II, this is one thing that went through my mind. I’ve actually done some collecting of conversations of composers on this subject. That in fact, composers are by nature very sensitive people, and so many of the professors either found in World War II or the Korean War. And I began to wonder if at some point in time they were so repulsed or frightened during their war experience that when music offered them the possibility to not deal with emotion, that it was a welcome relief. And then I thought, however, the result is that you communicate with yourself or a close-knit

351 group of people who can take the journey or process along with you and appreciate your work as process. I constructed a reality for myself which combined those two elements and thought that the bitterness was about that music really is a communicative art form more than it is a process. The communication of process is really not what architecture thrives on, or the … process is not communication, necessarily. What was so lacking was accessibility—any communication of pain, or coldness, or the things that are very much part, brutality, are very much part of the listening experience—are off-putting, are part of the listening experience of that particular repertoire, with some notable exceptions. I felt the bitterness stemmed from a very deep understanding, maybe not articulated, in fact, there’s no communication going on—it’s very lonely in there. It’s pretty lonely. So after I thought that through, then I started thinking about how can people access, the question entered my mind, who can hear what I have to say, which is a fundamental question when you’re writing—any kind of writing—is who can read what I have to write and who can listen to what I have to say musically. So sometimes I quote as a way of creating a connection. Sometimes I quote as a way of proposing an investigation. In Barnum’s Bird , most of the quoting is about proposing an investigation. It’s not about, “Hey, do you know this tune?” No! Nobody knows the Mustache Man .

DC: When I was watching it with my dad he kept saying, because I said that Libby quotes a lot, and so he would say, “Is that a quote? Is this Libby or is that a quote?” And I’d say, “No dad, this here is a quote.” Then he’d say, “Is this Libby?’, and I’d say, “Yes,” until finally I just said that I would tell him when it’s a quote. But he was so intrigued the way it makes this brilliant puzzle as you’re listening to it.

LL: That’s exactly how I set it up. It’s a puzzle between how music was heard at the time and what was the source of that music—the banjo, the minstrel show—and how we hear music today versus how we heard the music at the time, and within this framework, where is the voice of the composer, as we know it academically. Oh, I’m so glad you caught it! Lots of people, well not lots, but people caught it. And different people caught different things. Several people who actually were in the advertising business who happened to come to the show really got it in that way. They really got it. And other people, oh, yes. There’s a lot of windows of accessibility, but not to easy listening. That is not the point of a window of accessibility, is so that you can easily listen to it. That’s not it.

DC: No, because sometimes during that piece you layer the quote and juxtapose it against another quote and then have your part going through in the rest of the chorus, and that’s when it gets really neat.

LL: Yes! Because it is! Compositionally it’s the three worlds, it’s three different performance traditions. One led to high art, one led to the variety show—the Ed Sullivan Show—and still in all the place of the authentic writer as composer of the

352 music is not there, except for Stephen Foster. I want to study Stephen Foster a little. Anyway, was that what you asked?

DC: This is one we could talk about for ages or not. I would love to enter into a discussion on what you think about the commissioning process from inception to publishing, although I do have an awful lot of material on your collaborative process. But especially in regards to your larger works for stage or orchestra and voice, how would you change publisher/composer relationship and I am wondering about things such as rental versus sales, recordings, the dissemination of music, internet challenges to the industry, and industry versus art. Some of this we already have discussed, actually.

LL: I just gave the Concert Hall talk to the music staff at American Oxford. The perspective I put on the talk was that Oxford Press, and that can be extended to most other publishers, developed around to service to printed page in that what we do as publishers is service: first, the printed page and second of all, those who would receive the printed page. And that’s my belief with publishers, because that’s what it is, is to get the idea into a form on the printed page that can then be transmuted to other people. That’s not in jeopardy in the culture. What is in jeopardy in the culture is, I wrote an aria which I call “The Librarian Aria” that was part of Tumble Down Dick , which was my Ph.D. thesis, and that aria was about the love of the smell of buckram, the organization of the shelf and the smell of buckram, which I love. I love the smell of newly published books between buckram. But it is the “between buckram” that has changed completely, technologically in the last ten years, well more than ten years, now it’s about twelve. We’ll just put the date at about, what 1990? Is that a good place to put it?

DC: Yes. That’s when laser printers came out and were reasonably cheap.

LL: Yes, desk top publishing. If we could attach a reasonable year to desk top publishing, we can talk about the issue, because desk top publishing, first of all allowed you and me to create a volume, but not necessarily beautifully bound, not library quality necessarily, whereas a publisher necessarily produces library quality work. And we are in service as publishers of that goal; a library quality work that will remain on the shelf indefinitely, whatever the shelf is, be it the music bench or the Library of Congress. What’s changed, and so that has evolved a whole system of delivery of score, delivery of parts, a whole cataloguing system, quality of the ink, quality of the paper, distance of, size of the note-head adjusted to the distance of the eye to the performer of the music, and really all of the elements of publishing are about reading a page. What’s happened, of course, is that since we’ve evolved from desk top publishing on, the system of buckram is no longer necessary, and very soon, I hope it’s next week, but I started writing music a while back that is really problematic for page turns and it’s not lineal music, but it’s very hard to find a good place to turn the page, because that’s the way music is evolving in our culture. Of course what we need is a music stand that’s a light

353 board, where you insert the disc or transmit the digital information—score—from the computer and just read it as it goes by. It’s very soon, very soon, as soon as it makes economic sense.

DC: Just as an aside, they done a study and found that when people are scrolling and reading on the computer screen, they read slower than when it stays still.

LL: Of that’s interesting, really interesting. So maybe it won’t evolve that way.

DC: But what could work is you could have a little click with your foot and flash to the next page.

LL: That’s already in development, if not in mass production yet.

DC: That would make more sense, because there’s something about the way we read.

LL: Well, I want one right now so I can take it with me. It would work much better on this kind of a stand. So it’s a question, the whole question of reading and transmission no longer requires that a piece be printed out on a piece of paper, and bound to be saved on a shelf. The piece can be notated, read and saved on a jump drive. But that changes the whole nature of publishing, which is part of your question. It’s a complete sea change in the conventions of publishing, not the nature of it. We want quality, selection, distribution, all these things.

DC: So what happens is they get a memory card in the mail instead of a stack of music.

LL: Yes, which takes trees, and all the things why the culture has developed this system, because cultures develop the systems they need. But the publishers are, like Mort Subotnick saw this coming fifty years ago, I saw it coming about twenty-five years ago, but the art, we’re so far ahead of the reality of being able to make it work, that the music is starting to change just in the way that it is proportioned, the way it is thought of, the way the ear is hearing, all these things.

DC: Probably just by the very nature of more people composing on the computer instead of in their head or at the piano.

LL: And more people composing. But also I just saw, I’ve seen it so clearly in the young composers I work with in colleges, especially the undergrads, who, a lot of them come to composition through composition computer programs.

DC: I remember you told me that they’re writing notes for instruments that the instruments can’t play.

354 LL: Yes, but they don’t care, not only do they not care, they can’t understand it because they have learned the bassoon off the computer, and it’s a sine wave, they can play anything.

DC: Right, it sounds that note, so why can’t they play it?

LL: So, I say, “Well, now, if you have a real bassoon player, it can play this note or that note.” They don’t care because their sound is the computer bassoon. It’s phenomenal. It’s also quite—I can’t find the right word—it is seminal in what’s going on in music, that the bassoon is no longer an acoustic bassoon to them, it’s a computer bassoon to them: preferences begin to shift. Meanwhile, publishers are continuing on to want “Sixteen Studies for Oboe,” which is valid right now, but it’s not necessarily vital or relevant. So publishers at the moment are at the end of their own era. I think they recognize it but they, like so many of us because this particular period of time that you and I are here right now, is completely a sea change in music is going on. It doesn’t mean music will change completely, but sea changes in it are happening now that I suppose happened when the printing press was first invented. Sea changes happened then, and I can’t exactly pinpoint a thousand years before what sea changes because I haven’t studied it.

DC: Well, the most dramatic change would be when they invented notation, when somebody first put the staff down and expanded the staff, because all of a sudden, “Now wait, we can compare notes, compare staffs, we can write more intricate music, counterpoint, vocal-choral music.” All sorts of changes happened once notation developed and we’re developing a new notation.

LL: Right. Digital.

DC: Which means naturally the music will change.

LL: Of course, and it’s a sea change, and I think that’s why it feels so uncomfortable, because it is really a sea change. I’ve been talking about the five signposts, and where it’s been most easily understood is actually the teachers in the DODEA system. I’m finding that middle school and high school teachers absolutely understand that notation has changed and it’s digital. I talk about digital notation, which can produce score notation, I talk about Guidonian notation, but also can produce and accommodate sound-scape notation, which cannot be accommodated by Guidonian notation. And they could, “Yes, of course.” In other areas, elementary, no, pre-school, no, college? Theoretically, but practically, no. That’s curious to me, that the computer composers get it but the others don’t, where both systems tend to be polemicized more. The computer notation guys, of course they understand, but the Guidonian notation part of the music school hasn’t begun to even consider it, so it’s very hard for them to even hear that the notation system has changed before their very eyes and ears. When I talked about it this way with Oxford, they all went, “Yes, yes, you’re right. What do we need?” And I said,

355 “What you need is a very plastic, and interactive web-site and computer system.” And they all just roared with laughter, which you would find in many publishing houses.

DC: Yes, it’s just not going to happen as far as they’re concern.

LL: It’s just not going to happen, like the Library of Congress. If it does happen, it will be fifty years from now.

DC: I still can’t believe that you can’t read any of the books that are on CD-ROM [at the Library of Congress].

LL: Yes, and as a scholar, you are an avant garde scholar, you realize. We’re so much alike. You are an academically, superiorly trained, avant garde stock.

DC: Well that’s because I grew up in one the first households to have personal computers and everything.

LL: Of course you did!

DC: It’s all my mom’s fault.

LL: Yes, and so you look at the system which would contain your work and you look at the system, and you say, “It’s not even close to being able to contain the work the way I want to do it.” And so then what is the choice? What format do you produce your work in? Is it buckram, is it CD-ROM? Is it a combination? What is it? I think publishers simply, they, I don’t know how they’re going to do it, and some new ones will do it by nature, some will adapt, some will be inventive and some will remain the same. There’s good hope for publishers. Do you think that publishers have always evolved out of the work of their contributors?

DC: I’m thinking of early music publishing, I mean if we’re talking about music as opposed to words.

LL: We might as well.

DC: I believe they have because in early music publishing, it was pretty much self publishing, in a way. You contacted the publisher and you paid for the piece or the patron paid for the piece to be published, and it was done on blocks, and they had to evolve the publishing type-set style that composers demanded different things from them, so it’s very much an interaction between the two. It’s sort of like why do instruments evolve. Is it because the composer asks the instrument to do certain things and they have to evolve the instrument to then do that, or is it that the instrument can do new things now because the performers are playing around with

356 it and the composer takes advantage of it. It’s not one or the other, it’s a give and take between the two.

LL: Yes, that’s right. It’s an evolutionary process, a holistic one.

DC: They were just much faster about doing it early on in the publishing world than they are now, I would think.

LL: I doubt they had a core repertoire that could sustain them.

DC: No, they didn’t. Remember, they print it and it’s gone.

LL: Exactly. I think that’s what’s happening. It’s right, some publishers will change, new ones will come on the scene, some will remain the same.

DC: And some will die, their catalogue will be bought by somebody else because they can’t sustain it anymore, and the catalogue will bought by one the more adventuresome publishing firms, which has happened throughout the history of publishing.

LL: Right. That is what happened.

DC: I mean, E.C. Schirmer is still around because they bought out other catalogues early on in the century.

LL: They did. They bought Galaxy. That’s why they’re around. And actually, E.C. Schirmer, which was completely stopped in it’s tracks when I left, is becoming much more, they do prints on demand, now, they have their own recoding company, all of the things that I said I can’t stay around because you’re not thinking about. But my relationship is actually very good with them, so I’ve been thinking.

DC: “Should I switch back?”

LL: Should go to them and say, “Do you want to deal together again,” or what? And then they say, “No, I’m not sure that I want to.” It is all evolutionary. And with Oxford, especially in the printing.

DC: It sounds like they’re going backwards.

LL: Yes, they’re going backwards. It’s because they’re going back into the Oxford University British publishing mentality, and the British publishing mentality is not technological. It’s very old school, and not only old school it’s very stuffy British, too. It’s not a good match. So I’m going to explore, can it be a match that we can live with? And then we’ll just take it from there. All very friendly, which I’ve been

357 very friendly with them, but also very business-like—if this person’s not doing the business you want them to do, get rid of them. So, that may be what they’re doing with. I may not be doing the business they now wish to pursue. And that’s okay. Rather than being upset or hurt or anything, I’m not. I just want to see what business can we do now.

DC: How can we move on?

LL: Exactly.

DC: Well, why don’t we end it here.

LL: Okay.

358 Bibliography

Interviews and Writings by Libby Larsen

Larsen, Libby. “The Art of Composing.” Showcase, Minnesota Orchestra . (March 1983): 13-14.

______. “Composers’ Corner: A Conversation with Libby Larsen.” Interview by Susan Chastain (telephone, 17 April 1995). IAWM Journal , vol. 2, no. 1 (February 1996): 4-7.

______. “Composers’ Corner: An Interview with Libby Larsen.” Interview by Linell Gray Moss (October 1998). IAWM Journal , vol. 5, no. 1 (winter 1999): 8-10.

______. “Double Joy.” The American Organist 18 (March 1984): 50.

______. Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus: A Musical Drama without Intermission in Prologue and 14 Scenes , Libretto. Boston, MA: E. C. Schirmer, 1990.

______. “Growing up creative in America.” Readings in Innovation . Ed. Stanley S. Gryskiewicz and David A. Hills. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 1992.

______. Interview by J. Heywood Alexander (online, November 1998). In To Stretch Our Ears, A Documentary History of America’s Music . Ed. J. Heywood Alexander. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2002: 488-491.

______. Interview by Larry Smith (6 May 1997). Transcript. Appendix A in “The choral music of Libby Larsen and Stephen Paulus: An examination and comparison of styles” (D.M.A. diss.: Arizona State University, 1998).

______. Interview by Victoria Bond. (19 April 1990). Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

______. “An Interview with composer Libby Larsen: Barnum’s Bird : Choir Concert or Cabaret Opera?” Upbeat! (Spring 2001): 4-5.

______. “The Art of Composing.” Showcase: The Magazine of the Minnesota Orchestra and Orchestra Hall 15 no. 7 (9 March to 2 April 1983): 13-15.

______. “Commencement Address.” San Francisco Conservatory of Music. 24 May 1997.

359 ______. “Commissioning a New Choral Work.” The Voice of Chorus America (Summer 2001): 23-26.

______. “The Concert Hall That Fell Asleep and Woke Up as a Car Radio.” Kluge Center Lecture. December 2004.

______. “The Influence of Women in American Classical Music.” WYNC Program Guide (March 1987): 8-9.

______. “Interview with Composer Libby Larsen.” Interview by Cynthia Green (Billings, MT, March 1991). International League of Women Composers Journal (June 1992): 24-27.

______. “Interview with Libby Larsen.” Plain Dealer (Cleveland) (7 November 1987).

______.”MENC Vision 2020 Conference Address.” http://www.libbylarsen.com/ResourcesMENC.html .

______. “Music in the 21st Century: A Composer Looks Ahead in the Rear View Mirror.” Dominique de Menile President’s Lecture Series, Rice University. 12 November 2001

______. “The Orchestra as Music Educator: Life Long Learning Through Music.” Report from Task Force (organization unknown). Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

______. Program Notes. Coming Forth Into Day . 16 April 1986.

______. “Reaching the Audience.” Symphony (September/October 1996): 40-41.

______. “The Role of the Musician in the 21st Century: Rethinking the Core.” Plenary Address to the National Association of Schools of Music National Convention. 1997. http://libbylarsen.com/ResourcesRole.html .

______. “Settings—Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus.” Unpublished Papers, Larsen Archives, Frankenstein file.

______. “The Sound of Music: The Sound Revolution and Its Impact on Church Music.” Unpublished paper, ca.2000. Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

Larsen, Libby and Bridget Carpenter. Barnum’s Bird. Libretto draft. 18 December 1999.

360 ______and Bridget Carpenter. Proposal for Barnum’s Bird: A Work in Progress. No date.

Program. Barnum’s Bird: A Choral Opera By Libby Larsen . Library of Congress (1-2 February 2002).

Correspondence

Bales, Kenton (Omaha, NE) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN). 9 April 1996.

Bernstein, Brian (Sony Special Music Products, NY) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis). 19 June 1992.

Brunelle, Philip, Plymouth Music Series (Minneapolis, MN) to Bridget Carpenter (Pacific Palisades, CA). 26 January 2001.

Brunelle, Philip email to Frank Stubbs, Katryn Conlin, David Methner, and Libby Larsen. 27 October 2000.

Philip Brunelle email to Libby Larsen. 11 May 2001.

Carpenter, Bridget email to Libby Larsen. 16 November 1999.

Carpenter, Bridget email to Libby Larsen. 8 March 2000.

Conline, Katryn email to Philip Brunelle, Libby Larsen, Jon Cranney, and Esther Heideman. 2 April 2001.

Contract between Libby Larsen and Steve Lund, “Personal Service Contract Blank American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada,” for a Documentary non-air educational recording (16 July 1993)

De Palma, Ralph G. (Sony Special Music Products, NY) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis). 11 January 1993.

Erickson, Andrea to Libby Larsen. 26 July 1999.

France, Hal facsimile to Libby Larsen. 30 December 1996.

Larsen, Libby (Minneapolis) to Bill Thorpe (E. C. Schirmer, Boston). 6 October 1988.

Larsen, Libby (Minneapolis) to Bill Thorpe (E. C. Schirmer, Boston). Draft November 1988.

361 Larsen, Libby (Minneapolis) to Bill Thorpe (E. C. Schirmer, Boston). 29 May 1989.

Larsen, Libby (St. Paul, MN) to Philip Brunelle (Minneapolis, MN) 11 September 1985.

Larsen, Libby email to Angie Maves. 22 November 1999.

Larsen, Libby email to Bridget Carpenter. 8 March 2000.

Larsen, Libby email to Bridget Carpenter. 15 March 2000.

Larsen, Libby email to Philip Brunelle. 9 July 2000.

Larsen, Libby email to Russ Bursch. 19 March 2001.

Larsen, Libby (Minneapolis) facsimile to Cynthia Schuneman (Boston). 22 February 1994.

Larsen, Libby facsimile to Hal France. 22 January 1996.

Larsen, Libby facsimile to Susan Brailove. 21 June 1996.

Larsen, Libby memo to Oxford University Press. 10 August 1995.

Larsen, Libby. Typewritten notes on upcoming commissions for Oxford University Press. 10 August 1995.

Lund, Steve memo to Libby Larsen. “Documentary Non-Air Use.” 16 July 1993.

McCleary, Harriet (Minneapolis) facsimile to Cynthia Schuneman (Boston). 18 February 1994.

McCleary, Harriet (Minneapolis) facsimile to Cynthia Schuneman (Boston). 28 March 1994.

“Memorandum of Agreement.” Libby Larsen and Chas Rader-Shieber. August 1997.

Oxford University Press Catalogue Sheet, no date (ca. 1998).

Chas Rader-Shieber to Libby Larsen. 1 June 1997.

Reece, James S. (Minneapolis, MN) to Jane Hill (Omaha, NE) and Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN). 9 March 2001.

362 Schuneman, Cynthia (E.C. Schirmer, Boston) facsimile to Libby Larsen and Harriet McCleary. 8 February 1994.

Schuneman, Cynthia (E.C. Schirmer, Boston) facsimile to Libby Larsen and Harriet McCleary. 5 April 1994.

Shirley, Wayne, Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.) to Libby Larsen (Minneapolis, MN). 17 August 2000.

Newspaper articles

Aguiar, William Jr. “A First-Rate Opera Co. in Omaha.” Hokubei Mainichi North American Daily (San Francisco) . 2 December 1998.

Anthony, Michael. “‘Coming Forth’ is a Reminder That Music Can Speak to Issues.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune. 15 April 1985.

______. “Imagination Powers Plymouth Music Series Into 25th Season.” Minneapolis Star Tribune , n. d.

______. “Jenny Oh!” Minneapolis Star Tribune. 15 April 2001.

______. “Minnesotan, Sadat Join to Compose an Oratorio.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune. 13 April 1986.

______. “Opera, Libby Larsen.” Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune . 6 April 2001.

______. “Prolific Larsen in the Spotlight with Two Operas Slated for April.” Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune . 4 March 2001.

______. “Review.” Minneapolis (MN) Tribune . 22 October 1973. Larsen Archives, 1973 file.

Banno, Joe. “The Songbird and The Huckster.” The Washington Post. 4 February 2002.

Beard, William Randall. “Larsen’s ‘Barnum’s Bird’ Looks Like an Instant Classic.” Saint Paul Pioneer Press. 21 April 2001.

Belt, Byron. “Opera’s Anniversary Celebrates All Things Nebraskan.” Newshouse News Service. 30 November 1998.

Benno, Joe. “The Songbird and the Huckster.” The Washington Post. 4 February 2002.

363 Blomster, Wes. “Opera Omaha moves Cather from the Page to the Stage.” Boulder (CO) Daily Camera . 22 November 1998.

Boulay, Patrick. “Minnesota Composers Forum.” No source. No date. Larsen Archives, 1978 folder.

Bunke, Joan. “Emotionally Tense Opera in Omaha.” Des Moines (IA) Register . 13 November 1998.

Cantrell, Scott. “Opera: ‘Soul’ Celebrates Company’s 40th Anniversary: Suave but Sweet.” Kansas City Star , 22 November 1998.

Close, Roy M. “Musical Plea Triumphant in Choral ‘Day’.” St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press and Dispatch. 15 April 1986.

“Commission.” Schubert Club Notes 5, no. 1. September 1978. Larsen Archives, 1978 file.

“Composer to Host Daylong Program.” Omaha (NE) World Herald. 1 November 1998.

“Concert Conversation,” Upbeat! (Spring 2001), 4.

Croan, Robert. “From Our Readers.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . 6 April 1999.

______.“Spotlight on Women in Santa Fe.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . 4 August 1998.

Fleming, Michael. “Larsen’s ‘Frankenstein’.” No source, Larsen Archives, Frankenstein file.

“Generous Hollands Provide Challenges.” Omaha (Nebraska) World Herald . 27 February 1998.

Grandchamp, Kathy. “Libby Larsen, composer.” No source, Larsen Archives, 1973 file (ca. 1978).

Grossman, Mary Ann. “Rain and Cold Didn’t Dampen Party Spirit.” St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press and Dispatch. 15 April 1986.

Harrison, Eric E. “Review: from around the world.” Opera News 49. 13 April 1985: 41.

Heng, Mary. “Cultural Offerings Draw Tourists by Busload.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 23 August 1998.

Kimball, Joe. “Sadat, Larsen Focus on Peace.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune. 15 April 1986.

364

Kirkeby, Courtland. “Opera Omaha to Produce “Eric Hermannson’s Soul.” Omaha (NE) Old Market and Downtown Encounter . November/December 1998.

______. “Soul Reclaimed: The Birth of an American Opera.” Omaha, Lincoln and Council Bluffs (Nebraska) Reader . 12 November 1998.

Larson, Gary O. “Beyond the Lure of Wall Street.” Minneapolis –Saint Paul. May 1980. Larsen Archives, 1980 file.

Littler, William. “Universal Truths in Cornhusker Opera Omaha Production Speaks to All of Us, But will Anyone Outside Nebraska be Listening?” Toronto Star . 21 November 1998.

McClellan, Joe. “Bringing Lind and Barnum to Life.” Grace Notes. RedLudwig.com. 8 February 2002.

McLellan, Joseph. “Opera: Into the Heart of a Monster; Libby Larsen’s Stunning ‘Frankenstein.’” The Washington Post. 26 May 1990.

______. Sunday Show Page. The Washington Post. 30 January 1994.

MacMillan, Kyle. “A Keynote Season.” Omaha (NE) World Herald. 31 August 1997.

______. “Composer Helps to Shake Up Opera Writing.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 21 October 1995.

______. “Critic’s Choice.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 2 November 1998.

______. “Familiar, Daring, Ambitious: New Season Has It All.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 23 August 1998.

______. “France Sees Much on Opera’s Horizon.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 22 March 1998.

______. “Joslyn Scores One for City.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 4 February 1998.

______. “More to Say About Opera.” Omaha (NE) World Herald. 25 November 1998.

______. “Nebraskans Make Impact on Arts.” Omaha (NE) World Herald. 31 January 1999.

______. “Opera Brings Cather Story to Life.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 26 September 1997.

365 ______. “Opera is Evocative and compelling.” Omaha (NE) World Herald. 12 November 1998.

______. “Opera Puts Willa Cather’s Words to Music.” Omaha (NE) World Herald. 10 April 1996.

______. “Opera’s Birth a Milestone.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 11 November 1998.

______. “Picking 10 from ‘95-96.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 19 June 1996.

______. “Reading at UNO Will Preview New Opera.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 14 September 1997.

______. “Season Was Exciting.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 5 June 1996.

______. “Symphony Under Stars Was Grand.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 31 August 1998.

______. “Tenor’s Promising Career Began Late and on a Lark.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 13 November 1998.

______. “‘Women’ Opera gets PBS Airing Houston Production Eclipses Central City’s.” Denver (CO) Post. 27 August 2001.

______. “Workshop a Welcome Adventure.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 11 April 1996.

______. “Years of Work to Culminate in Opera’s World Premiere.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 8 November 1998.

Miller, Sarah Bryan. “Opera Omaha Premieres Libby Larson’s [sic] New Work.” St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch . 15 November 1998.

Minneapolis Star Tribune. 14 May 2000.

““One World” Benefit Concert by Jehan Sadat and Libby Larsen.” Downtowner-St. Paul (MN) . 26 March 1986.

“One World Benefit: Unusual hunch brought composer, Sadat together.” St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press and Dispatch . 10 April 1986.

“Opera Omaha Gets AT&T Grant.” Omaha (Nebraska) World Herald . 23 June 1998.

“Opera Omaha provides preview of opera based on Cather short story.” Red Cloud (Nebraska) Chief . 25 September 1997.

366

Perry, Kate. “Sadat Says Terrorists Must Be Taught a Lesson They Won’t Forget.” Minneapolis Star and Tribune. 16 April 1986.

Rehbein, Joan. “Founder of Minnesota Composers Forum creates her own opportunities in music.” The Highland Villager 26, no. 20. 10 January 1979.

Rehbein, Sonja. “Band Masters Article: Libby Larsen.” Draft 1990. Larsen Archives, Frankenstein file.

Salisbury, Wilma. “Program Bright as the Hall’s Light.” Plain Dealer (Cleveland) . 17 April 1993.

“School Music Program Favored in Evaluation.” Schubert Club Notes 4, no. 7 (August 1978). Larsen Archives, 1978 file.

Shreve, Susan H. “Minnesota Composers Forum: Composing for Love and Money.” Minnesota Daily. 26 January 1979. Larsen Archives.

Shroyer, Jo Ann. “One World Collaboration.” Minnesota Public Radio (Minneapolis, MN). March 1986.

Shuii, Chris. “Opera Omaha Presents American Composer’s World Premiere.” Wichita (KS) Eagle. 12 November 1998.

Siegel, Margot. “‘Frankenstein’ Jolts Opera’s Lead Tenor.” Skyway News. 29 May 1990.

Somers, Paul. “Pro Musica, Soloists Make Fine Match for ‘Requiem’.” (Philadelphia) Star-Ledger . 4 November 1991.

Steele, Mike. “Series Introduces Fascinating Creators.” Clipping, no source. 22 March 1980. Larsen Archives, 1980 file.

Stearns, David Patrick. “ Phantom Stirs a Hunger for more Gothic Thrillers.” USA Today. 24 May 1990.

Strini, Tom. “Opera Omaha Premiere.” Milwaukee (WI) Journal Sentinel . 1 September 1998.

Tupper, Barbara. “Cather story becomes opera.” Hastings (NE) Tribune . 24 September 1997.

Vaughan, Peter. “Composer invests in classics” Minneapolis (MN) Star. 19 December 1980. Larsen Archives, 1980 file.

367

Wade, Gerald. “Cather’s ‘Soul’ Pivotal to Career.” Omaha (NE) World Herald . 8 November 1998.

Waleson, Heidi. “Cather: A Native’s Story.” Wall Street Journal . 30 November 1998.

______. “Opera: Larsen’s Monster” Wall Street Journal. 6 June 1990.

Ward, Charles. “Opera to be Talk of Town.” Houston Chronicle . 30 April 2000.

“Weekend.” The Washington Post. 1 February 2002.

Wierzbicki, James. “‘Golem’ Ancient Tale with Moden Implications.” St. Louis (MO) Post Dispatch. 23 September 1990.

______. “Is Science-Fiction Opera Finally Coming into Its Own?” St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch. 11 June 1989.

“80 for the Eighties.” Twin Cities. January 1980. Larsen Archives, 1980 file.

Scores

Larsen, Libby. Barnum’s Bird. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

______. Barnum’s Bird. Manuscript Score. 2001. Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

______. Coming Forth Into Day. Piano/Vocal Score. Boston: E.C. Schirmer, 1986.

______. Coming Forth Into Day. Orchestral Score. Boston: E.C. Schirmer, 1986.

______. Coming Forth Into Day. Manuscript Piano/Vocal Score with Corrections. 1985. Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

______. Eleanor Roosevelt . Choral Score. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

______. Eleanor Roosevelt . Manuscript Full Score with Corrections. 28 October 1996. Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

______. Eleanor Roosevelt . Manuscript Piano/Vocal Score. 22 November 1997. Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

______. Eleanor Roosevelt . Manuscript Full Score Corrected Masters. 27 November 1997. Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

368 ______. Eleanor Roosevelt . Manuscript Full Score. No date. Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

______. Eric Hermannson’s Soul. Chamber Version. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

______. Eric Hermannson’s Soul. Chamber Version. Manuscript Orchestral Score, ca. 1996.

______. Eric Hermannson’s Soul. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

______. Eric Hermannson’s Soul. Manuscript Piano/Vocal Score with notes. 6 September 2001.

______. Eric Hermannson’s Soul. Manuscript Piano/Vocal Score. No date.

______. Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus . Orchestral Score. Boston: E. C. Schirmer, 1990.

______. Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus. Piano/vocal Score. Boston: E. C. Schirmer, 1989.

______. I It Am. Piano/Vocal Score. Minneapolis, MN: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2002.

______. I It Am. Full Score. Minneapolis, MN: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2002.

______. I It Am. Manuscript Piano/Vocal Score. August 2002.

______. I It Am. Manuscript Piano/Vocal Score. 21 November 2002.

______. Margaret Songs: Three Songs from Willa Cather for Soprano and Piano. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

______. Praise One . Piano/Vocal Score. 2004.

______. Praise One . Full Score. 2004.

______. Praise One . Manuscript Piano/Vocal Score with Corrections. 2004.

______. The Nothing That Is . Vocal/Piano Score. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

______. The Nothing That Is . Full Score. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

369 ______. What the Monster Saw . Boston: E. C. Schirmer, 1987.

Dictionary Entries/Anthologies

Anderson, E. Ruth. Contemporary American Composers: A Biographical Dictionary . 2nd ed. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.

ASCAP Biographical Dictionary . 4th ed. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1980.

Baker, Theodore. A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians . Rev. by Nicolas Slonimsky. New York: Schirmer Books, 1992.

Benke, Heidi M. Flute Music by Women Composers: An Annotated Catalogue . New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Briscoe, James R., ed. Contemporary Anthology of Music by Women . Bloomington University Press, 1997.

Claghorn, Gene. Women Composers and Hymnists: A Concise Biographical Dictionary . Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.

Cohen, Aaron I. International Encyclopedia of Women Composers . New York: Bowker, 1981.

Cohen, Aaron I. International Encyclopedia of Women Composers . 2nd ed., rev. New York: Books and Music, 1987.

Collins, Pamela and Brian Morton, eds. Contemporary Composers . Chicago: St. James Press, 1992.

Corliss, Richard Arnold. Organ Literature: A Comprehensive Survey . Vol. 2: Biographical Catalogue, 3rd ed. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1995.

Daniels, David. Orchestral Music: A Handbook . 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 1996.

Edwards, J. Michele. “Libby Larsen.” Women and Music . Ed. Karin Pendle. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Press, 2001.

Feldman, Mary Ann: “Larsen [Reece], Libby [Elizabeth] (Brown)”, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy, http://www.grovemusic.com .

Fuller, Sophie. “Libby Larsen.” The Pandora Guide to Women Composers: Britain and the United States 1929-Present . San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1994.

370

Griffel, Margaret Ross. Operas in English: A Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Heinrich, Adel. Organ and Harpsichord Music by Women Composers: An Annotated Catalogue . Music Reference Collection, no. 30. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Hitchcock, H. Wiley and Stanley Sadie, eds. The New Grove Dictionary of American Music . Vol. 3. New York: Grove’s Dictionaries of Music Inc., 1986.

Hixon, Don L. and Don A Hennessee. Women In Music: An Encyclopedic Bibliography , 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1993.

International Who’s Who In Music and Musicians Directory . 11th ed. Cambridge, England: International Who’s Who In Music, 1988.

International Who’s Who In Music and Musicians Directory . 12th ed. Cambridge, England: International Who’s Who In Music, 1990.

International Who’s Who In Music and Musicians Directory . 13th ed. Cambridge, England: International Who’s Who In Music, 1992.

Kimball, Carol. Song: A Guide to Style and Literature . Seattle: Pst, 1996.

Kuhn, Laura, ed. Baker’s Dictionary of Opera . New York: Schirmer Books, 2000.

Latham, Alison, ed. The Oxford Companion to Music . New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Morton, Brian and Pamela Collins, eds. Contemporary Composers . Chicago: St. James Press, 1992.

Opie, Peter and Iona Opie. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Pendle, Karin, ed. Women and Music: A History . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Press, Jacques Cattell, ed. Who’s Who in American Music: Classical . New York: R. R. Bowker, 1983, 1985.

Sadie, Julie Anne and Rhian Samuel, eds. The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers . New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1995.

371 Slonimsky, Nicolas, ed. Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians , Centennial Edition. Schirmer, 2001. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center . Farmington Hills, MI: The Gale Group, 2004. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC.

Books

Adam, Thomas, ed. Philanthropy, Patronage and Civil Society: Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, and North America . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004.

Baumol, William and William Bowen. The Performing Arts- The Economic Dilemma . New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1966.

Blacking, John. Music, Culture, and Experience: Selected Papers of John Blacking . Ed. Reginald Byron. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Bowker, Jane and Judith Tick, eds. Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950 . Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986.

Cather, Willa. April Twilights and Other Poems. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923.

______. 24 Short Stories. NY: Penguin Classics, 1988.

Cisler, Valerie and Anne Foradori. “Words and Music: Cather and Larsen, ‘The Margaret Songs.’” A Prairie Mosaic: An Atlas of Central Nebraska’s Land, Culture and Nature . Edited by Steven J. Rothenberger and Susanne George- Bloomfield. Kearney, NE: University of Nebraska at Kearney, 2000: 144-151.

Combs, James. Polpop 2 Politics and Popular Culture in America Today . Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 1991.

Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life: A History . New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2001.

Eck , Beth A. “Cultural Conflict and Art: Funding of the National Endowment for the Arts.” In The American Culture Wars: Current Contests and Future Prospects , ed. James L. Nolan, Jr., 89-114. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

Ford Foundation. The Finances of the Performing Arts . New York: Ford Foundation, 1974.

372 Fowler, Charles, ed. “Three Musical Creators: Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, Libby Larsen,” in Music! Its Role and Importance in Our Lives . New York: Glencoe/MacMillan McGraw Hill, 1994.

Gans, Herbert J. Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste . New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1974.

Gifford, Denis. Karloff—The Man, the Monster, the Movies. New York: Curtis, 1973.

Gregory, William Mank. It’s Alive! The Classic Cinema Saga of Frankenstein. New York: A.S. Barnes, 1981.

Kirk, Elise K. American Opera . Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Levine, Lawrence. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America . Cambridge, MA: 1988.

Locke, Ralph and Cyrilla Barr, eds. Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists Since 1860 . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.

Mayer, Martin. Bricks, Mortar and the Performing Arts . Report of the Twentieth Century Fund. Background Paper. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1970.

Nolan, James L., Jr., ed. The American Culture Wars: Current Contests and Future Prospects . Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus. University of Chicago Press, 1982.

______. Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus . Designed and Illustrated by Barry Moser, 1818 text. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984.

Shepherd, John, Phil Virden, Graham Vullamy, and Trevor Wishart. Whose Music? A Sociology of Muiscal Languages . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1977.

Small, Christopher. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1998.

Tawa, Nicholas. American Composers and Their Public: A Critical Look . Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1995.

Ware, William Porter and Thaddeus C. Lockhard, Jr. PT Barnum Presents Jenny Lind: The American Tour of the Swedish Nightingale. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1980.

373 Weber, William. Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London, Paris and Vienna . New York: Holmes and Meier, 1975.

Webster, Peter Richard and David Brian Williams. Experiencing Music Technology: Software, Data, and Hardware . New York: Schirmer Books, 1996.

Wetenhall, John. “Camelot’s Legacy to Public Art: Ideology in the New Frontier.” Art Journal 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 303-308.

Dissertations

Aumen, Julie. “An Analysis of Holy Roller for Saxophone and Piano Composed by Libby Larsen.” M.M. thesis, Southwest Missouri State University, 2000.

Ball, James S. “A Conductor’s Guide to Selected Contemporary American Orchestral Compositions.” D.M.A. diss., University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1992.

Bezerra, Jeanenne Gray Barton. “The relationship between text and music in the works of Libby Larsen.” M.M. thesis, Baylor University, 1999.

Boyer, Douglas Ralph. “The choral music of Libby Larsen: An analytical study of style.” D.M.A. diss., The University of Texas, 1984.

Duxbury, Linda M. “Contemporary Choral Treatment of the Poetry of Emily Dickinson by Five Composers.” M.A. thesis, California State University Dominguez Hills, 2004.

McCleary, Harriet. “The Solo Vocal Music of Libby Larsen.” D.M.A. diss., University of Minnesota, 1992.

Milhorn, Tina M. “Music and Memoir: Libby Larsen’s Settings of First-person Texts by Women: ME (Brenda Ueland) ; Songs from Letters: Calamity Jane to her Daughter Janey ; Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives of Henry VIII .” D.M.A. diss., University of Cincinnati, 2004.

Mitternight, Andrea J. “An Original Work: “Brothers and Sisters” and Songs from Letters by Libby Larsen: An Analysis.” D.M.A. diss., Louisiana State University, 2004.

Nelson, Kirsten Marie. “A Performer’s Guide to Published Music for Unaccompanied Solo Bassoon by Women Composers.” D.M.A. diss., University of Georgia, 1997.

374 Robinson, Susan Louise Bailey. “Three Contemporary Orchestra Compositions by American Women: A Guide to Rehearsal and Performance for the University Orchestra Conductor.” Ph.D. diss., Texas Tech University, 1991.

Rowe, Martha Lu. “A Poet Revealed: Elizabeth Barrett Browning as Portrayed in Libby Larsen’s “Sonnets from the Portuguese” and Dominick Argento’s “Casa Guidi.” D.M.A. diss., University of Arizona, 1996.

Secrest, Glenda Denise. “ Songs From Letters and Cowboy Songs by Libby Larsen: Two Different Approaches to Western Mythological Figures.” D.M.A. diss., The University of Memphis, 2000.

Smith, Larry. “The Choral Music of Libby Larsen and Stephen Paulus: An Examination and Comparison of Styles.” D.M.A. diss., Arizona State University, 1998.

Speer, Randall Craig. “The American Composers Forum and Its Impact on Choral Music in the United States.” D.M.A. diss., University of Cincinnati, 2001.

Thomas, Laurel Ann. “A Study of Libby Larsen’s “ME (Brenda Ueland),” A Song Cycle for High Voice and Piano.” D.M.A. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1994.

Wherry, Mark Emery. “An Analysis of Magnificat Settings by Selected American Composers Since 1960.” D.M.A. diss., University of Northern Colorado, 2002.

Articles

Barbieri, Susan. “The Language of Strings.” Strings Magazine 82 (November/December 1999)

Barmore, Heather A. “A Personal Experience with Libby Larsen.” Pan Pipes 91 (Winter 1999): 30.

Biery, Marilyn Perkins. “New Music for Organ at the End of the Twentieth Century: A Series on the Compositions of Six American Composers: Libby Larsen.” The American Organist 34, no. 7 (July 2000): 76-78.

Botstein, Leon. “The Future of the Orchestra.” The Musical Quarterly 80, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 189-193.

Boyer, Douglas R. “Musical Style and Gesture in the Choral Music of Libby Larsen.” Choral Journal 34 (1993): 17-28.

375 Cameron, Catherine M. “Avant-Gardism as a Mode of Cultural Change.” Cultural Anthropology 5, No. 2 (May 1990): 217-230.

______. “Fighting with Words: American Composers’ Commentary on Their Work.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 27, no. 3 (July 1985): 430-460.

Choral Journal 29/6 (January 1989) s.v. “Interest Sessions.”

“The Composers Speak in Louisville.” Choral Journal 29 (December 1988): 36-37.

Curti, Merle. “American Philanthropy and the National Character.” American Quarterly 10, no. 4 (Winter 1958): 420-437.

DeVenney, David P. “American Choral Music since 1985.” In Perspectives on American Music Since 1950 . New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999: 353- 380.

Fukunaga, Diane. “From ‘The Virgin’s Lament’ to ‘Songs of Youth and Pleasure:’ The Choral Music of Libby Larsen. Paper presented at College Music Society Regional Conference. Lexington, KY, 1991.

Garofalo, Reebee. “From Music Publishing to MP3: Music Industry in the Twentieth Century.” American Music 17, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 318-354.

Greenfield, Karl Taro. “The New Philanthropy: A New Way of Giving.” TIME Magazine (24 July 2000), 49.

Hall, A. Oakey. “When Jenny Lind Sang in Castle Garden.” No date. Copy in Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

Hall, Peter Dobkin. “Historical Statistics of the United States Chapter on Voluntary, Nonprofit, and Religious Entities and Activities Underlying Concepts, Concerns, and Dilemmas.” Program on Non-Profit Organizations, Yale University (November 1998). www.nonprofitresearch.org/usr_doc/16160.pdf

Horowitz, Joseph. ““Sermons in Tones”: Sacralization as a Theme in American Classical Music.” American Music 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): 311-340.

Keller, Fred P. “Bringing Music to Life: Teamwork without a Gannt Chart.” Symphony 46 (1995): 9-10, 16-17.

Kennicott, Philip. “Text Message: Are Words More Than Music the Driving Force in Contemporary Opera? Composer Libby Larsen Thinks So.” Opera News . August 2008: 34-35.

376 Kerner, Leighton. “A Day in the Life.” Village Voice 38 (24 August 1993): 86.

Killam, Rosemary N. “Women Working: An Alternative to Gans.” Perspectives of New Music 31 (1993): 230-251.

Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe. “The Politics of Knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation and the Formulation of Public Policy.” History of Education Quarterly 27, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 205-220.

Lambert, Pam. “New Music for Tiny Ears.” Wall Street Journal (11/4/1987): 34.

______. “Orchestrating a Life in Music.” Wall Street Journal (8/9/1988): 25.

Locke, Ralph P. “Paradoxes of the Woman Music Patron in America.” The Musical Quarterly 78, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 798-825.

Lubet, Alex J. “Indeterminate Origins: A Cultural Theory of American Experimental Music.” In Perspectives on American Music Since 1950 . New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999: 95-140.

Mabry, Sharon. “A Woman’s Place.” NATS Journal 87 (Fall 1994): 41-42.

Malchow, H. L. “Frankenstein’s Monster and Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” Past and Present 139 (May 1993): 90-130.

Malitz, Nancy. “Song of the Monster: Libby Larsen takes on Frankenstein.” Opera News 54 (May 1990): 44-46.

Marchetti, Donna. “Video Preview.” The Orff Echo (Winter 1994): 31.

Markow, Robert. Opera . London (February 1999): 194

Martorella, Rosanne. “The Structure of the Market and Musical Style: The Economics of Opera Production and Repertoire: An Exploration.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 6, no. 2 (December 1975): 241-254.

Mauceri, Frank X. “From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment.” Perspectives of New Music 35, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 187-204.

Maude, Mrs. Raymond. “My Mother as I Recall Her.” No date. Copy in “Barnum, Research,” Larsen Archives, Minneapolis, MN.

McCleary, Harriet. “A Song Cycle by Libby Larsen: ME (Brenda Ueland).” Nats Journal 51 (November/December 1994): 3-8.

377 Moore, Paul. “Arleen Auger: Larsen “Sonnets from the Portuguese.” Musical America 110 (1990): 49.

Norton, Kay. “Libby Larsen: 1998 Sonneck Honorary Member.” Sonneck Society for American Music Bulletin 24, no. 2 (Summer 1998). http:American-music.org.

Opera Omaha. “New Work/Development Grant Report” (30 April 1996).

Pendle, Karin. “For the Theatre: Opera, Dance, and Theatre Piece.” Contemporary Music Review 16 (1997): 72

Rose-Ackerman, Susan. “Altruism, Nonprofits, and Economic Theory.” Journal of Economic Literature 34, no. 2 (June 1996): 701-728.

Rosenberg, Donald. “America.” Opera (November 1993): 1331-1332.

______. “Review: From Around the World.” Opera News 58 (November 1993): 45.

Rosenberg, Donald. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Opera News 57 (June 1993): 24.

Shroyer, Jo Ann. “Libby Larsen and Jehan Sadat: One World Collaboration.” Inside MPR (April 1986): 89

Thornton, Jim. “Anatomy of a Fundraiser.” Twin Cities (March 1986): 43-49.

Wetenhall, John. “Camelot’s Legacy to Public Art: Ideology in the New Frontier.” Art Journal 48, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 303-308.

Wheatley, Susan and Sarah Mantel. “Reflections of Change: A Comparative View of Crawford and Larsen.” ILWC Journal (June 1993): 1-5.

Online sources http://www.cee.umn.edu/radiok/beijing/Libby.html . 28 January 1999. “Composer Libby Larsen.” http://comp.music.lsu.edu/festival/fcm52/frames/larsen.html . 12 February 1997. “Guest Composer: Libby Larsen.” http://www.daily.iastate.edu/volumes/Fall95/Nov-14-95/currl-cc.html . 14 November 1995. Christopher Clair. “Libby Larsen to speak with aspiring artists this afternoon.”

378 http://www.grovemusic.com www.hhh.umn.edu/news/carlson/previous.html www.hymnary.org/person/Chadwick_JW . www.LibbyLarsen.com http://mama.indstate.edu/users/swarens/larsen3.htm . 5 September 1996 Matthew Balensuela. “The Composer - Libby Larsen: Composer Emphasizes Rhythm in Her Music.”

Officer, Lawrence H. and Samuel H. Williamson. “MeasuringWorth.” 2011. URL http://www.measuringworth.com . www.npr.org/programs/worldofopera/programlisting/Summer2002.hyml . www.sai-national.org . Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies. http://sai-national.org/phil/composers/llarsen.html. 1 September 1997. Composers Bureau, Libby Larsen. http://www.tc.umn.edu/~larse024 . 22 January 1999. “Libby Larsen, Composer.”

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