ASHBERYANA 1920’S I Had Recently Recorded

No program on this Da Camera season evokes as many personal memories as tonight’s musical tribute to the great American poet John Ashbery (1927–2017). Touching on many years of friendship and going back to my earliest days at Da Camera, the phrase that inspired our season theme, “time future contained in time past,” seems particularly true as I look back on the interweaving connections and memories that lie behind the music and poetry we hear tonight. I first met John Ashbery in upstate New York in the 1990’s when I was teaching at JOHN ASHBERY Bard College. John and his partner David lived nearby in Hudson, and we quickly The New York Times called John Ashbery “a poet whose discovered that we were also neighbors in teasing, delicate, soulful lines made him one of the most influential figures of late-20th and early-21st-century Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. John American literature.” was a remarkable character, absolutely Ashbery (1927–2017) was a poet, art critic, playwright, original in his modest yet deep erudition, and translator. He published more than twenty volumes shyness coupled with bursts of outrageous of poetry and won nearly every major American award humor, and his embrace of the American for poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book vernacular in all its forms. Countless dry Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the Bollingen Prize, martinis, obscure camp movie reruns the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Griffin International Award, with titles I no longer remember, art and a MacArthur “Genius” Grant., and National Book Critics exhibits and poetry readings, summer Circle Award in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a birthday parties in July, dinners cooked Convex Mirror, and at least as many major international together in the large kitchen of his awards. In 2012, Ashbery was awarded a National Victorian house on Court Street—these Humanities Medal by President Obama. images of shared moments and past John Ashbery’s books included Some Trees (1956), laughter come floating up decades later. The Tennis Court Oath (1962), The Double Dream of Spring (1970), Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975), An astute art critic and voracious music Houseboat Days (1977) Girls on the Run (1999), Chinese listener with a taste for the forgotten and Whispers (2002), Where Shall I Wander? (2005), A lesser known, John Ashbery’s musical Worldly Country (2007), Quick Question (2012), listening habits embraced many periods and Breezeway (2015), and Commotion of the Birds (2016). styles. Our friendship began with talk of John Ashbery attended Harvard University and the Russian avant-garde composers of the received an M.A. from Columbia in English. He was ASHBERYANA 1920’s I had recently recorded. He preferred originally associated with the New York school of poetry recordings to concerts, finding the audience of the 1950s and ’60s, which also included Kenneth a distraction, and often he turned on the Koch, James Schuyler, Frank O’Hara and others. Ashbery “hi-fi” for musical inspiration before putting was an art critic and collagist, and his work was often compared to Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism. pen to paper. I recently came across on my In addition to his numerous awards, John Ashbery was bookshelves a photocopy of an encyclopedic the poet laureate of New York State from 2001 to 2003. entry on the German composer Walter He also served as chancellor of the Academy of American Braunfels, with John’s scribbled inquiry in Poets and was the Charles P. Stevenson, Jr., Professor the margins as to whether we could find a of Languages and Literature at Bard College. His Norton place for a Braunfels work at a future Bard lectures at Harvard were published as Other Traditions. Music Festival, the festival I launched with Leon Botstein in 1990 that specialized in musicological “rediscoveries.” Digging up the unknown gem, stumping me with a composer I had not heard of—merited or not—were among his pleasures. 32 PROGRAM • 2019

John Ashbery and Sarah Rothenberg in Ashbery’s downtown Manhattan apartment in 1992. Photo by Charles Harbutt, courtesy of Bard College.

In my first season at Da Camera, and, at John’s insistence, visit the poem, and spontaneously announced I programmed a concert entitled, Moody Mansion. to the audience following the Ancient Greeks and Modern Americans Years later, the Works and Process performance, “That’s what I was trying to celebrate the opening of the Menil’s series at the Guggenheim Museum to say.” The composer was thrilled. Cy Twombly Gallery, and invited John in New York presented a program of Back in 1994, as I was packing up my Ashbery to Houston to read his poem, new works inspired by John Ashbery’s house in Germantown, New York in Syringa, which had been set to music by poetry, and John suggested that I preparation for my move to Houston, I Elliott Carter. He was eager to come. moderate the conversations with him received word that I had been granted (Carter was supposed to participate and the guest composers. The concert a National Endowment for the Arts in the performance, too, but a serious opened with the world premiere of the solo recitalist grant. For that occasion, bout of pneumonia kept him away. ingenious work by John Zorn which I commissioned the composer Joan We feared it was the end for the 87 opens our program tonight, based Tower, a close colleague on several year-old composer, but Carter recovered on Ashbery’s Girls on the Run. This fronts, as she had been the founding and continued to live and compose dizzyingly virtuosic work for coloratura pianist of the contemporary music another 17 years.) The day before the soprano and percussion captures the group, Da Capo Chamber Players, prior concert John, David and I made our untranslatable virtuosity of the poet’s to my taking her place as the group’s way through the Menil Collection’s relation to the English language pianist, as well as being on the faculty art treasures and then set off on an by, paradoxically, being a wordless at Bard. (It was as a performer in Da excursion down to Galveston to meet vocalise. John was delighted with this Capo that eight months earlier I had up with painter Rackstraw Downes unexpected non-verbal setting of his first come to Houston, playing here at 33

the Menil Collection on the make me sad. I didn’t play Satie happened, I gave birth to twins right Da Camera series.) Joan Tower had in those days when our friendship before the scheduled premiere of already composed a piano piece was most active, preferring the Ashberyana at the Menil Collection, with a title from a John Ashbery complexities of Messiaen and others, so that concert was delayed by a poem, Like a…an Engine, for the and the subject of Satie feels like a year; but I did perform in the world wonderful pianist Ursula Oppens, conversation we never had. Friends premiere at the Guggenheim in New and I asked her to compose a are friends even in absence—we York six weeks after my children companion piece for me. Like carry on conversations in our heads were born. a Daisy was the second of what with friends who are distant; even Ashberyana has had a deservedly ultimately became a set of four forgotten friends can suddenly be rich life since the premiere pieces, and I performed the premiere spoken to in our minds when an conducted by the composer. With at New York’s Miller Theatre at outside stimulus brings them back. the Brentano Quartet we have Columbia University in 1996. But absence and death are not the performed the work with Maestro John and I also shared a love of same thing; and so the imaginary James Levine conducting and also things French and the city of conversation about Satie brings an recorded it for the Naxos label. Paris. One summer we met up in ache of loss. John Ashbery often The Da Camera all-Wuorinen CD the quartier Saint Germain and described himself as a surrealist, entitled Ashberyana also includes wandered the streets together. and Satie may have been the first the composer’s transcriptions of He and David were staying in Surrealist. The musical scores of the French Renaissance composer one of those minuscule left bank the miniature Three Distinguished Josquin des Prez (c.1450–1521) hotels off the boulevard where the Waltzes of a Jaded Dandy are composed for the Brentano Quartet, rooms require a certain amount of filled with idiosyncratic narrative Josquiniana. Utterly beyond time, the choreography to maneuver between instructions to the performer that rhythmic inventiveness of this early I long to read to John; I cite here a bed, doors and drawers. John was a composer is a natural inspiration for remarkable translator of French to few: above forte octaves the pianist the modernist Charles Wuorinen, English (in addition to Rimbaud, is admonished, “Do not cough” and, who transposed six 3–5 voice works Max Jacob and others, he translated at the very end, we must “Continue, for string quartet, noting that the works of his former companion without losing consciousness…” “some of the pieces are of doubtful French poet Pierre Martory, who The Guggenheim Museum concert authenticity, but are worth including was with us on one of those Paris that I mentioned earlier, where on purely musical grounds, whether afternoons.) I remember sitting with the Zorn work was premiered, Josquin wrote them or not. In him at a reading by contemporary included a work by the Pulitzer particular the last (El Grillo) is French poets in a New York art Prize-winning composer Charles probably not by Josquin, but was too gallery where a French line of poetry Wuorinen. I believe this occasion much fun to leave out.” had been translated into English brought about the first encounter Ashberyana begins with a memory. as something like “let’s get out between Wuorinen and Ashbery, Back in 1996, I stopped by John’s of here.” John leaned over to me followed by others (and more dry New York apartment one afternoon, ASHBERYANA and whispered, “shouldn’t that be martinis.) After the concert, we all and he brought me into the room ‘skedaddle?’” capturing, in a second, gathered at an Italian restaurant off the kitchen where his typewriter not just the meaning and the spirit, around the corner on Madison sat facing due west, towards the but an aural crunchiness that brings Avenue, and Wuorinen found a Hudson River. Pointing out the language to life. moment to tell me that he had an window towards the horizon, at a And so, when I was asked to play idea for a larger work based on mysterious mass of menacing dark at the 92nd Street Y memorial Ashbery’s texts. (Wuorinen had nets, John complained that he used for John last December, I chose already been down to Da Camera to catch a glimpse of the river as he the music of French composer in my first season to conduct his worked at his desk, but now the view Erik Satie. The irony, wit and work, A Winter’s Tale.) Wuorinen’s was completely obscured. The black, unsentimental melancholy of new idea developed into a major billowing structure that blocked Satie, the surface playfulness but work for Da Camera, which was the river was a multi-story Japanese underlying seriousness, the surreal commissioned with support from driving range, part of the expanding titles and private verbal jokes written Louisa Sarofim in honor of my Chelsea Piers sports center, perched in the scores, the innate privacy of tenth anniversary as artistic director: on the edge of Manhattan for city- Satie—remind me of John, but also Ashberyana, for baritone, trombone, dwelling golfers in need of practice. string quartet and piano. As it 34 PROGRAM • 2019

John later transformed the unfortunate sumptuousness of Ashbery’s vocabulary, is surprising for a setting of so many obstruction into the poem, Outside My which bounces effortlessly from the of them. But “set” is exactly what Window the Japanese… (See p. 35). banalities of everyday life—including Wuorinen does, as a jeweler with a I was delighted when I received the commonplace clichés and quotations gem. The poetry seems to be sculpted, score to Ashberyana in 2004 and found from vintage television shows—to the raised in relief, etched in sound, but arcane and the sublime. (For those too never weighted down by interpretation. that Charles had serendipitously opened the set with this particular young to remember, “Maybe this will The rhythmic tension of the silences, poem which commemorated, for me, a refresh your memory” was an oft- the subtle underscoring of shifts in moment of surreal change in the daily repeated line in the iconic courtroom syntax and mood, the occasional playful life of our Manhattan neighborhood drama, The Perry Mason Show.) Ashbery mirroring of the poetic line (“jumping that John and I had shared. makes us notice words as though they up and down on tiptoe”), the musical were unknown artifacts from another With Ashberyana, repetition of the Proustian phrase, “… Wuorinen brings his so far back in the mothering compositional wit and past.” With ingenious precision, sharp intelligence to Wuorinen creates a dramatic the audacious poetry musical structure to support of John Ashbery. Ashbery’s poems, building with Verbally and musically assurance and inevitability to virtuosic, Ashberyana the powerful climax of The richly portrays the Laughter of Dead Men. The singular inventiveness final two lines, “so fearful of that characterizes each the first-person singular/and man’s creative output. all the singular adventures it Wuorinen pairs the implies,” are a telling statement baritone and trombone expressed with the casual as unexpected partners humility typical of this poet. in duet. The songful A less attentive reader might opening trombone miss the depth of meaning, solo, which forms a but here Wuorinen pulls out brief introduction, all the stops. Allowing himself wordlessly forecasts the the liberty of setting “so fearful” baritone’s first entrance. three times, each with increasing Once the singer is Charles Wuorinen intensity, he then creates a present, the trombone stunning melisma on the word continues to perform his “all,” until the instruments, with planet, rather than tools that we use trombone in the lead, emerge with vocalise, sometimes functioning as the to simply get through the day. We baritone’s double, joining the voice resounding force. The thrilling close recognize the bizarre disconnects and of Ashberyana reveals Wuorinen’s in punctuated unisons, or offering surprising juxtapositions as vaguely commentary. The solitary trombone mastery of musical architecture; but familiar occurrences from our own the success of the work is equally due acts as mediator between poetry and post-modern lives, when our inner music, his haunting shadow forming to the composer’s talent as a reader of thoughts collide uncomprehendingly rare acuity. Music and poetry co-exist the necessary bond between loquacious with the world around us. texts and a world without words. happily in this tour-de-force, and Da In Ashberyana, music and poetry each Camera is proud to have brought It is clear from the start that Wuorinen retain their identity, and there is a this wonderful work into existence. enjoys language and revels in the sense of space around the words that —Sarah Rothenberg 35

ASHBERYANA A Setting of Four Poems of John Ashbery For Baritone with the Accompaniment of Trombone, String Quartet, and Piano

I. Recitative: Outside My Window the Japanese. . . II. Scherzo: (a) Laughing Gravy (b) Dear Sir or Madam III.Finale: The Laughter of Dead Men

OUTSIDE MY WINDOW THE JAPANESE… often, there, stepping in and out of the boat Outside my window the Japanese driving range as though nobody knew what time it was, or cared shivers in its mesh veils, skinny bride which lid the horizon was. We’d get to know of soon-to-be-spring, ravenous, rapturous. Why is it here? each other in time, and till then it was all a camp meeting, hail- A puzzle. And what was it doing before, then? An earlier fellow-well-met, and the barstools puzzle. I like how it wraps itself reflected the ceiling’s gummy polish, to the starboard in not-quite wind— where purple kings sit, and it was too late for today, sure enough, the newspapers had already been printed, telling their tale the time is up. What else do you have in your hand? along avenues, husks of driftwood Open your hand, please. My elder seraph washed ashore again and again, speechless, spun out of control. What just woke up, is banging the coffee-pot lid a gorgeous sunset, cigarette case, how tellingly into place. See! the coffee flows the coiled rope is modelled, what perfume crazily to its nest, the doldrums are awake, in that sound of thunder, invisible! And you wonder jumping up and down on tiptoe, night-blindness ended. why I came back? Perhaps this will refresh your memory, skateboard, roller skates, the binomial theorem picked out in brutish, swabbed And from where you stand, gasps. All the way to the escape clause how many possible equations does it spell out? he kept insisting he'd done nothing wrong, and then—pouf!—it was curtains for him and us, excepting these splinters My hair’s just snoring back. of our perpetual remainder, reminder The coprophagic earth yields another of its of all those days to come, and those others, so far back minute reasons, turns to a quivering mush, in the mothering past. recovers, staggers to its feet, touches the sky with its yardstick, walks back to the place of received, LAUGHING GRAVY

enthusiastic entities. Another year… And if we had known last spring The crisis has just passed. ASHBERYANA what the buildings knew then, what defeat, it would have turned Uh oh, here it comes again, to mud looking for someone to blame itself on, you, I… all the same in us, waved us down the escalator, past the counter with free samples of fudge, to where the hostess All these people coming in… stands. The last time we necked This was never my idea, shards, she says. This I noticed this lobe on your ear. is where the anonymous donors carved their initials in my book, Please, tell me we may begin. to be a puzzle for jaycees to come, as a nesting-ground is to an island. Oh, we’d waddle All the wolves in the wolf factory paused at noon, for a moment of silence. 36 PROGRAM • 2019

DEAR SIR OR MADAM THE LAUGHTER OF DEAD MEN After only a week of taking your pills Candid jeremiads drizzle from his lips, I confess I am seized with a boundless energy: the store looks as if it isn't locked today. My plate fills up even as I scarf vegetable fragments A gauzy syllabus happens, smoke is stencilled from the lucent blue around us. My firmament, on the moss-green highway.

as I see it, was never this impartial. This is what we invented the suburbs for, The body’s discomfiture, bodies of moonlit beggars, so we could look back at the lovable dishonest city, sex in all its strangeness: Everything conspires tears clogging our arteries. to hide the mess of inner living, raze the skyscraper of inching desire. The nausea and pain we released to float in the sky. The dead men are summoning our smiles and indifference. Kill the grandchildren, leave a trail We climb the brilliant ladder toward their appetites, of paper over the long interesting paths in the wood. homophobes, hermaphrodites, clinging together like socks Transgress. In a word, be other than yourself hanging out to dry on a glaring day in winter. in turning into your love-soaked opposite. Plant You could have told me all about that his parterre with antlers, burping but of course preferred not to, statue of when-was-the-last-time-you-saw Eros; so fearful of the first-person singular and all the singular adventures it implies. go get a job in the monument industry.