Baltimore Concert Opera and OperaDelaware present SUNDAY ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Grant Youngblood, baritone Aurelien Eulert, piano

See the raging flames arise George Frideric Handel From Joshua (1685-1759)

L’invitation au voyage Henri Duparc Extase (1848-1933) La vie antérieure Galop

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée Maurice Ravel 1. Chanson romanesque (1875-1937) 2. Chanson épique 3. Chanson à boire

All the Way Through Evening Chirs DeBlasio 1. The Disappearance of Light (1959-1993) 2. Train Station 3. An Elegy to Paul Jacobs 4. Poussin 5. Walt Whitman in 1989

Before my window, op. 26 Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Sunday Spotlight Recital Notes February 21, 2021

Georg Frideric Handel Georg Frideric Handel’s oratorio Joshua premiered in March of 1748 and was the fourth oratorio he had composed in a span of less than two years. It is one of his shortest oratorios, telling the Biblical story of the Israelites siege of Jericho and the city’s final destruction. Handel wrote it in part to celebrate England’s military success in putting down the Jacobite rebellion.

As was his standard, Handel composed the work very quickly, and he reused several previously written numbers and melodies in the score. Nevertheless, Joshua contains some thrilling and original chorus music, including the famous “See, the Conq’ring Hero Comes,” probably his second most famous chorus after “Hallelujah” from Messiah. The oratorio also includes the sparkling aria “Oh, had I Jubal’s Lyre”, a popular concert showpiece for coloratura sopranos, and this recitative and aria for bass that vividly depicts the final destruction of the city.

Henri Duparc Henri Duparc's published legacy consists of sixteen famous mélodies, a duet, a motet, a symphonic poem, and two short orchestral excerpts — barely an hour and a half of music. But that brief span encompasses the apex of the French song repertoire. Duparc’s songs were all completed by the time he was 30 years old, and he constantly returned to them, revising, polishing and (unfortunately) discarding many of his scores. Over-inclined to self-criticism, he destroyed composition after composition, some of them after they had been performed in public and received favorably. For singers they are amongst the most challenging and the most fulfilling French songs to perform (in my humble opinion, at least!) Duparc’s only teacher of piano and composition was Cesar Franck, who considered him to be his greatest pupil. Franck introduced the young Duparc to the music of Richard Wagner, and this influence carried through his compositions. Nearly every song Duparc wrote is a repudiation of the world. Where the poem expresses a desire for happiness, it is not merely for personal happiness – as in the poems set by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms – but for a world of happiness, a mystical world of bliss as unlike the actual world as possible. Thus, Duparc is – in his own way – a child of the restless-minded France of the revolutionary 19th century.

Maurice Ravel In 1932, the musical world was buzzing with excitement about an expected new composition by a man internationally regarded as France's greatest composer, Maurice Ravel. Ravel had been commissioned to write four songs and some background or incidental music for a new cinema version of the literary classic Don Quixote, starring the legendary Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin.

Unfortunately, as early as 1927 his close friends had begun to notice his growing absent- mindedness. He had begun work on the score, but in October 1932 he suffered a blow to the

head in a traffic accident, which seems to have aggravated a pre-existing cerebral condition. He started to experience symptoms of aphasia, losing the ability to speak or write. Eventually the composer became unable to even sign his own name. He could hear music in his head but couldn't communicate it or write it down. I can only imagine how terrible it would be for a great musician to become incapacitated that way.

The film's producers finally hired Ravel's friend Jacques Ibert to write the songs for the movie. Friends and colleagues were able to help Ravel finish his score, and a belated premiere of his song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée took place in December 1934, sung by the great French baritone Martial Singher. You can hear the Spanish dance rhythms from Ravel's boyhood home in the Basque country in this music. Ravel lived for another 3 years, but he was never able to compose again.

Chris DeBlasio DeBlasio was born in West Long Branch, New Jersey in 1959, but it was the metropolitan New York City arts scene that formed his creative life. He studied piano and composition as a teenager and was exposed to a variety of musical experiences, from musical theater and pop music through classical orchestral music and grand opera. He composed pop songs and musical theater works of his own through his high school years, and he initially enrolled at New York University to study Acting. Despite that strong theatrical bent, after only a year at NYU DeBlasio transferred to the Manhattan School of Music majoring in composition, though still working as an accompanist and arranger for musical theater productions in the City.

There, he studied composition with Giampaolo Bracali and John Corigliano and eventually became a professional choral singer at Calvary Episcopal Church in Gramercy Park, where he befriended its music director, organist and composer Calvin Hampton. Later, DeBlasio would sing in the choir of Trinity-Wall Street Episcopal Church, working with its music director Larry King, where he entered a wide circle of artists and musicians, including Harry Huff and composer Lee Hoiby.

Throughout his adult life, DeBlasio consistently demonstrated an interest in projects with some connection to the gay community. Living in a major metropolitan area such as New York City afforded him many opportunities to pursue work that openly addressed the gay male experience. As the AIDS crisis began to engulf the City’s gay community, DeBlasio realized that many of the men in his own close circle of friends and colleagues likely would not survive it. His friend Calvin Hampton succumbed to the disease in 1984, and DeBlasio’s own HIV+ diagnosis in 1987 led to him becoming one of the founding members of ACT-UP in New York City.

Despite the still ongoing tug of war at the time between atonal/experimental methods of composition versus traditional tonality – and a brief period after his diagnosis of questioning

the value of being a composer/artist at all as the pandemic spread through the community – DeBlasio refocused his composing on art and concert music, embracing tonality in his compositional voice.

His song cycle All the Way Through Evening is DeBlasio’s musical response to the AIDS crisis and to the disease that he knew would take his own life. DeBlasio met the poet Perry Brass in 1982, and he set several of Brass’ poems in his three completed song cycles. Brass had been cajoling DeBlasio to write “something about AIDS,” and in the summer of 1990 the composer completed a cycle of five songs.

Of the cycle, Brass said: “Chris made these poems that were once so personal to me universal; he made them sing from his own heart things that are difficult for us to express: the struggle to give up consciousness (‘The Disappearance of Light’); to be open emotionally to another person in a world that controls and dismisses our attachments (‘Train Station’); to identify with another artist who has died of AIDS (‘An Elegy to Paul Jacobs’); to become part of a community of men (‘Poussin’); and finally to merge oneself with a hidden story of grief and its transcendence (‘Walt Whitman in 1989’).”

All the Way Through Evening received its world premiere in December 1990 with the composer accompanying baritone Michael Dash. A major factor in the dissemination of the cycle was the inclusion of “Walt Whitman in 1989” in the original 1992 version of the AIDS Quilt Songbook. After hundreds of performances, the song has become one of the most popular in the entire Songbook. Chris DeBlasio died of AIDS in March 1993.

Sergei Rachmaninov Sergei Rachmaninov was born in Russia in 1873 into a musically talented family, who immediately acknowledged his musical gifts even as a child. Although he would go on to international acclaim as one of the greatest composers for piano and symphony orchestra in history (and as one of the great virtuoso pianists of his generation), his boundless gift for melody was equally well expressed in his song compositions. His generally gloomy disposition and attraction to sentimental texts allowed him to pair his expressive piano writing with equally expressive vocal lines. Though originally set in Russian, these songs were performed and recorded in English translation by the great Irish tenor John McCormack, and they were a tremendous success for his many American recital tours.

- Grant Youngblood

TEXT AND TRANSLATIONS

“The walls are levell’d … See the raging flames arise” (George Frideric Handel)

The walls are levell’d… Pour the chosen bands, with hostile gore imbrue your thirsty hands! Set palaces and temples in a blaze. Sap the foundations and the bulwarks raze! But, oh, remember in the bloody strife to spare the hospitable Rahab’s life!

See the raging flames arise! Hear the dismal groans and cries! The fatal day of wrath is come: proud Jericho hath met her doom!

L’invitation au voyage (Henri Duparc) Invitation to journey Poetry by Charles Baudelaire

Mon enfant, ma soeur, Songe à la douceur My child, my sister, consider the sweetness D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble, Of going there to live together,

Aimer à loisir, Aimer et mourir to love at our leisure, to love and to die Au pays qui te ressemble! in the land that resembles you! Les soleils mouillés de ces ciels brouillés The dampened suns of the cloudy skies Pour mon esprit ont les charmes Si mystérieux to my mind have the charms, so mysterious, De tris traîtres yeux, of your treacherous eyes, Brillant à travers leurs larmes. shining through their tears.

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, There, everything is order and beauty, Luxe, calme et volupté. luxury, calm, and sensual pleasure.

Vois sur ces canaux dormir ces vaisseaux Look, on these canals these vessels sleep Don’t l’humeur est vagabonda; their mood wandering; C’est pour assouvir ton moindre désir it is to satisfy your slightest desire Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde. that they have come from the ends of the world.

Les soleils couchants revêtent les champs, The setting suns clothe the fields again, Les canaux, la ville entière D’hyacinthe et d’or; the canals, the entire village in hyacinth and gold; Le monde s’endort dans une chaude lumière! the world falls asleep in a warm light!

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, There, everything is order and beauty, Luxe, calme et volupté. luxury, calm and pleasure.

Extase (Henri Duparc) Ecstasy Poetry by Jean Lahor

Sur un lys pâle mon coeur dort On a pale lily my heart sleeps d’un sommeil doux comme la mort… in a slumber sweet like death…

Mort exquise, mort parfumée Exquisite death, death perfumed with the breath du souffle de la bien-aimée… with the breath of my beloved…

Sur ton sein pâle mon coeur dort On your pale breast my heart sleeps d’un sommeil doux comme la mort… in slumber like death…

La vie antérieure (Henri Duparc) The previous life Poetry by Charles Baudelaire

J’ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques For a long time I’ve lived beneath vast colonnades Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux, tinged by ocean suns with a thousand fires, Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux, and whose great pillars, straight and majestic, Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques. made them look, in the evening, like basalt caves.

Les houles en roulant les images des cieux, The sea-swells, mingling the mirrored skies, Mêlaient d’une façon solennelle et mystique solemnly and majestically interwove Les tout-puissants accords de leur riche musique the all-powerful chords of their rich music Aux couleurs du couchant reflété par mes yeux. with the colors of sunset reflected in my eyes.

C’est là que j’ai vécu dans les voluptés calmes It is there that I have lived in sensuous repose, Au milieu de l’azur, des vagues, des splendeurs, in the midst of blue skies, of waves, of splendors, Et des esclaves nus, tout imprégnés d’odeurs, and of nude slaves all drenched in perfume,

Qui me rafraîchissaient le front avec des palmes, Who fanned my brow with palm fronds, Et dont l’unique soin était d’approfondir and whose sole care was to fathom Le secret douloureux qui me faisait languir. the secret grief which made me languish.

Le galop (Henri Duparc) The Gallop Poetry by René-François Sully-Prudhomme

Agite, bon cheval, ta crinière futante; Brandish, good horse, your flying mane; Que l’air autour de nous se remplisse de voix! That the air about us be filled with voices! Que j’entende craquer sous ta come bruyante That beneath your clattering hooves I hear Le gravier des ruisseaux et les débris des bois! the gravel of streams and the woods’ broken boughs! Aux vapeurs de tes flancs mêle ta chaude haleine, Mingle your hot breath with the steam of your flanks, Aux éclairs de tes pieds ton écume et ton sang! your foam and your blood with the sparks from your Cours, comme on voit un aigle en effleurant la plaine hooves! Run, like an eagle we see skimming the plain, Fouetter l’herbe d’un vol sonore et frémissant. Lashing the grass with its quivering loud wings!

‘Allons, les jeunes gens, à la nage!’ ‘Come, young men, swim your horses’ Crie à ses cavaliers le vieux chef de tribu, cries the old tribal chief to his horsemen; Et les fils du désert respirent le pillage, And the sons of the desert are eager for plunder, Et les chevaux sont fous du grand air qu’ils ont bu! And the horses are crazed with the air they have drunk! Nage ainsi dans l’espace, ô mon cheval rapide. Swim thus in space, O my swift mount. Abreuve-moi d’air pur, baigne-moi dans le vent. Quench my thirst with pure air, bathe me in wind; L’étrier bat ton ventre, et j’ai lâché la bride, The stirrup strikes your belly, I’ve loosened the bridle, Mon corps te touche à peine, il vole en te suivant. My body scarcely touches you, it flies in your wake. Brise tout, le buisson, la barrière ou la branche; Break down everything, bush, gate, or branch; Torrents, fossés, talus, franchis tout d’un seul bond; Cross torrent, ditch, embankment with a single Cours, je rêve et sur toi, les yeux clos, je me penche… bound; Emporte, emporte-moi dans l’inconnu profond! Race on, I dream, bending over you with closed eyes… Transport me, transport me into the deep unknown!

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (Maurice Ravel) Don Quixote to Dulcinea Poetry by Paul Morand

I. Chanson romanesque I. Romanesque Song Si vous me disiez que la terre If you were to tell me that the earth à tant tourner vous offensa, in its endless turnings offends you, Je lui dépêcherais Pança: I would quickly send Sancho Panza: Vous la verriez fixe et se taire. You would see it fixed and silent.

Si vous me disiez que l’ennui If you were to tell me that you’re bored Vous vient du ciel trop fleuri d’astres, by too many flowery stars in the sky, Déchirant les divins cadastres, I would tear the heavens apart, Je faucherais d’un coup la nuit. erasing the night with one blow.

Si vous me disiez que l’espace If you were to tell me that space, Ainsi vidé ne vous plaît point, now empty, doesn’t please you, Chevalier dieu, la lance au poing. God-like knight, spear in hand, J’étoilerais le vent qui passe. I would light stars in the passing breeze.

Mais si vous disiez que mon sang But if you were to say that my blood Est plus à moi qu’à vous, ma Dame, is more mine than yours, my lady, Je blêmirais dessous le blâme I would grow pale under the reproach Et je mourrais, vous bénissant. and I would die, blessing you. O Dulcinée. O Dulcinea.

II. Chanson épique II. Epic Song Bon Saint Michel que me donnez loisir Good Saint Michael who gives me leisure De voir ma Dame et de l’entendre, to see my lady and to hear her, Bon Saint Michel qui me daignez choisir Good Saint Michael who deigns to choose me Pour lui complaire et la défendre, to comply to her and to protect her, Bon Saint Michel veuillez descendre Good Saint Michael, may you be pleased to descend Avec Saint Georges sur l’autel with Saint George before the altar De la Madone au bleu mantel. of the Madonna in the blue mantle.

D’un rayon du ciel bénissez ma lame May a ray from heaven bless my sword Et son égale en pureté and his equal in purity, Et son égale en piété his equal in piety Comme en pudeur et chasteté: as in modesty and chastity: Ma Dame. My lady,

(Ô grands Saint Georges et Saint Michel) (oh great Saint George and Saint Michael) L’ange qui veille sur ma veille, the angel who watches over my watch, Ma douce Dame si pareille my sweet lady so like you À Vous, Madone au bleu mantel! Madonna in the blue mantle! Amen. Amen.

III. Chanson à boire III. Drinking Song Foin du bâtard, illustre Dame, Bastard’s hay, illustrious lady, Qui pour me perdre à vos doux yeux who, for losing me in your sweet eyes, Dit que l’amour et le vin vieux says that love and old wine Mettent en deuil mon coeur, mon âme! leave my heart and soul in great mourning!

Je bois, I drink, À la joie! to joy! La joie est le seul but Joy is the only goal Où je vais droit… lorsque j’ai bu! which I pursue… when I’ve drunk!

Foin du jaloux, brune maîtresse, Hay of the jealous, dark-haired mistress, Qui geint, qui pleure et fait serment who complains, who weeps and makes promises D’être toujours ce pâle amant to always be the pale lover, Qui met de l’eau dans son ivresse! who weeps tears into his drunkenness!

Je bois I drink À la joie! to joy! La joie est le seul but Joy is the only goal Où je vais droit… which I pursue… Lorsque j’ai bu! when I’ve drunk!

All the Way Through Evening (Chris DeBlasio) Poetry by Perry Brass

I. The Disappearance of Light Witness sometimes the way the evening dies: the glow charred black to ruddy dust. Pushing against the drag of sleep, all the way to morning. I try to keep its lowering darkness somewhere just above the head; Still comes the slack of things without dreams, and thought’s dead-end in tired night; falling deeper without drowning, nor lifted by hope, nor old delicious pictures of the world enjeweled in light.

But through the tarnish of fatigue, slips some thin, familiar dream cutting the dark waters with his silver oars. Here, just a half-breath long, warmth before the cold: one last ray calls, before the disappearance of light.

II. Train Station (For H.W.) I wanted to kiss your wrist that night I said goodbye to you in public. I was afraid you’d be upset and wrench your hand away, or perhaps be embarrassed by my feelings rushing past those walls of decorum that define what we can do, and so held back until the end: not to see you again for months, or (who knows) ever. Then just as you turned away I ran before the crowd detached, when the cars began to move, and losing nothing worse than losing you, I kissed your small lips: hungrily — With everyone behind me like glass, until the noise resumed — and I dashed the exit gate and watched your train push out, and stood gripping the gate post, jerking like a heat storm.

III. An Elegy to Paul Jacobs (Pianist and Harpsichordist of the New York Philharmonic, b. June 22, 1930 - d. Sept. 25, 1983) Paul Jacobs is playing Busoni on the radio and walking through the park on the way to the Rambles. The day is very flat and endless in the morning as the mind on occasion is empty of anxiety. In the heart of the evening the wind sometimes dies and the heart whispers, instead of beating: these times we remember as the leaves float now, while the day is still endless and the night is perceived as friendly. Soon we’ll have to button all the way up our overcoats, but for now I have a sweater and that is all. There are three stone stairs before you cross the footbridge, and then we all know you’re out of the park.

The wind has resumed and is slapping the leaves hard; I cannot hold on to your hands or your neck. You tell me I’ll be cold, you’ve prepared for the ev’ning. The wind has resumed and the day ended: Night has fallen; night, at last.

IV. Poussin Forever the beautiful men ride into the night — some are primitive and beat the saddest songs of one or two gaunt and shifting notes, while others throw shadows traced with purple, and leave word for one another in the mouths of seashells; Now come the winds up above the Orient, and the setting sun dissolves like crimson clips from poppies in the surf.

Still a certain pinkness spreads up above the troubles of our age: there the clouds are meteoric, and the horses still chase on, unfurling steamy whips from their nostrils, under the innocent whispers of heroes.

V. Walt Whitman in 1989 Walt Whitman has come down today to the hospital room; he rocks back and forth in the crisis; he says it’s good we haven’t lost our closeness, and cries as each one is taken. He has written many lines about these years: the disfigurement of young men and the wars of hard tongues and closed minds. The body in pain will bear such nobility, but words have the edge of poison when spoken bitterly.

Now he takes a dying man in his arms and tells him how deeply flows the River that takes the old man and his friends this evening. It is the river of dusk and lamentation. “Flow,” Walt says, “dear River. I will carry this young man to your bank. I’ll put him myself on one of your strong flat boats, and we’ll sail together all the way through evening…. all the way through evening… all the way through evening… through evening.”

Before My Window, op. 26 (Sergei Rachmaninoff)

Before my window stands a flow'ring cherry tree And blossoms dreamily in robes of bridal whiteness. Its silvery branches bend their brightness and rustling call to me.

The soft and trembling blooms I draw down from above, And lost in rapture breathe their perfume fresh and healing

Until their heady sweetness sets my senses reeling. The cherry blossoms sing a wordless song of love...