Bridget Johnston Soprano
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Being in a new country provided Weill with many opportunities and new collaborators, including Ira Gershwin, Alan Jay Lerner, Paul DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC & THEATRE Green, and Maxwell Anderson. Street Scene, a musical adaptation of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning play of the same name by Elmer Rice, was a collaboration between Weill and Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. Hughes took Weill to Harlem nightclubs to experience black American jazz and blues, in order to inspire the composer in his score-writing. Street Scene was lauded upon its premiere as a “true American opera” that highlighted the epidemic of poverty and greed in America, as well as the plight of immigrants, and remains one of the most often-performed American operas in the repertoire. Bridget Johnston soprano This recital is given in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance. Bridget is a student of Mary Creswell. Jodi Goble, piano March 31, 2019 7:30 pm Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall Program Ben Moore is a Syracuse-born American composer, beloved for his Bid the Virtues, bid the Graces Henry Purcell expressive, contemporary style within a multitude of vocal works. from Come Ye Sons of Art (1659-1695) Moore grew up in Clinton, NY and holds a bachelor’s degree from Hamilton College (he also earned an MFA at the Parsons School of Design, and pursues a parallel career as a painter). His works are, Ave Maria Franz Schubert and have been, performed frequently by many of the 20th and 21st Blondel zu Marien (1797-1828) century’s top classical singers, including Audra McDonald, Deborah Gretchen am Spinnrade Voigt, Frederica Von Stade, Susan Graham, Robert White, and Jerry Hadley, to name a few. Opera News has lauded Moore for the “romantic sweep” and “easy tunefulness” of his compositions, which includes Ma se colpo io non ho! … Batti, batti Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart operas and musical theatre pieces in addition to concert songs. from Don Giovanni (1756-1791) Classical Singer had this to say of Moore’s work: “This composer is not afraid of the past, but rather embraces many of the most beautiful aspects of his artistic heritage while imbuing his work with its own personal colors and tones…his music is a breath of fresh air.” “The ***INTERMISSION*** Lake Isle of Innisfree”, “I Am In Need of Music”, and “Content to Be Behind Me” were all written for soprano Deborah Voigt. Je suis encor tout étourdie Jules Massenet from Manon (1842-1912) Kurt Weill was a German composer and anti-Nazi musical activist who found a new home in the American musical theatre and crossover styles. His compositions include The Threepenny Opera, Lady In The Fêtes Galantes I Claude Debussy Dark, Love Life, and perhaps most famously, Street Scene. En sourdine (1862-1918) Fantôches Born in Dessau, Weill showed promise as a young composer, organizing Clair de lune concerts in the building his family lived in at only twelve years of age. He attended the Berlin Hochschule für Musik and studied with Engelbert Humperdinck. However, he found the conservatory The lake isle of Innisfree Ben Moore atmosphere “stifling” and left. Weill worked musical odd jobs in his I am in need of music (b. 1960) teens: organist at a German synagogue, German nightclub pianist, and Content to be behind me music theory tutor. A turning point came in Weill’s collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, a What good would the moon be? Kurt Weill political theatre-maker and playwright whose work outraged the from Street Scene (1900-1950) Nazi party. Together, they wrote The Threepenny Opera, an anti-establishment, unapologetically socialist “play with music.” While Weill was intrigued by the world of political theatrics, he and Brecht could not agree on how much music to include in their productions. Targeted by the Nazis and plagued by riots at their shows, they ended their collaboration. Brecht was exiled to Scandinavia and Weill emigrated to the United States. Program Notes and Translations And when, solemn, the evening falls from the black oaks, Henry Purcell was an English composer revered for his dignified, voice of our despair, lively, and uniquely English Baroque style. He is best known for his the nightingale will sing. opera Dido and Aeneas, a work that earned him consistent future commissions from its premiere until his death. He is also known for his theatrical music, which was paired with intermittent dialogue. Purcell is credited with writing over 100 solo songs and 40 duets. Fantoches (String Puppets) Scaramouche and Pulcinella, Bid the Virtues, bid the Graces is from a larger musical composition whom some evil design brought together, titled Come Ye Sons of Art, a work completed in tandem with Irish poet gesticulate, black under the moon. Nahum Tate. It was written to be played at Queen Mary II’s birthday celebration in 1694 (ironically, also the year she died). “Maria’s royal Meanwhile the excellent doctor zeal” in this piece has a dual reference: both Christianity’s Mother Mary from Bologna sluggishly gathers and the queen herself. medicinal herbs amid the brown grass. Then his daughter, pretty minx, clandestinely slips, half-naked, Franz Peter Schubert, a quintessential and prolific Austrian under the hedge, in quest composer of the 19th century, is revered today for his ability to combine both Classical and Romantic conventions within his primarily Of her handsome Spanish pirate, miniature works. for whom an amorous nightingale is calling the distress at the top of its voice. Schubert’s father instructed and encouraged the young Franz to play the piano, violin, and organ, as well as sing. He earned a place in the Vienna Imperial Court chapel choir at age 11. Though his compositional talent was already being noticed at this early age, Clair de Lune (Moonlight) Schubert’s vocal achievements signaled a possible career as a Your soul is a chosen landscape professional singer. These plans were altered in 1812, when Schubert’s where charming masks and bergamasks pass by, voice broke due to puberty, and he left the choir to pursue teaching. playing the lute and singing and quasi At 16, Schubert composed Gretchen Am Spinnrade, one of his first sad beneath their fantastical disguises. undeniable masterpieces and a pioneering contribution to the German Lied. Gretchen, inspired by Goethe’s novel Faust, sets an early Even as they sing in the minor mode monologue by Marguerite in which she professes her love for Faust. of victorious love and timely life, The unrelenting ostinato of the piano’s eight-note arpeggiations They do not seem to believe their good fortune personify her spinning wheel, which goes faster or slower in relation and their song mingles with the moonlight, to her thoughts, as if powered by her devotion. with the calm moonlight, sad and beautiful, This elevation of the piano line is seen not only in relation to objects, which makes the birds in the trees dream but abstract ideas as well. Schubert was unmatched in his ability to and makes the water fountains sob with ecstasy, melodically capture the complexities and contradictions of human the tall slender water fountains amidst the marble statues. emotions- bittersweet love, relief in mourning, futile longing, and above all, undying optimism through darkness and pain. He achieved (translations by Christopher Goldsack) this in part by his mastery of parallel and relative modal shifts between keys within a piece, mostly through his writing of the accompaniment. Schubert spent the later years of his short life in constant agony from women lying languidly among trees and courtyards, drinking severe depression, and from what some scholars theorize to be the champagne and mingling with noble and wealthy bachelors. It was art tertiary stage of syphilis (the original reports officially declared his such as Watteau’s that directly inspired esteemed French poet Paul death a result of typhoid fever). Regardless of circumstances prior to Verlaine (1844-1896) to write a collection of poetry describing the his death, and his vehement wish to die in his letters to friends and scenes that were so abundant in French art galleries. In 1869, the poet family, Schubert remained one of the most prolific composers in published a book of these writings under the obviously inspired title, Europe, composing an astounding 600 songs alone, with an almost Fêtes Galantes. These poems were imbued with Verlaine’s own equal number of piano pieces. Sadly, Schubert never saw the vast interpretations, influenced bythe inf de siècle (“end of an era”) culture majority of these works published. of the time. This culture cultivated feelings of political pessimism, subjectivism, and ennui in the face of growing resentment towards the French bourgeoisie. Such sentiments are articulated through Verlaine’s bittersweet descriptions and vaguely depressed Ave Maria” or Ellens Dritter Gesang (“Hail Mary” or Ellen’s Third Song) narration of Watteau’s seemingly beautiful and wealthy subjects. Hail Mary, maiden mild, Listen to a maiden’s prayer, Throughout his composing years, Debussy continued this lineage of Heard through the rigid rocks and the wild, inspiration, setting a large number of Verlaine’s Fêtes Galantes to music. My prayer drifts to you. Debussy’s musical interpretation of the poetry perfectly marries We sleep soundly until morning, Watteau’s lavishness and Verlaine’s aching despondence through waves Though mankind is so horrid. of color chords, liberated rhythms, and vague tonality. O maiden, hear a maiden’s plea, O Mother, hear a begging child. Hail Mary. En Sourdine (Muted) Hail Mary, undefiled. Peaceful in the half-light When we sink down into the rock to sleep, that the high branches cast, While in your protection, let us imbue our love its hardness softens in our minds.