presents May 1, 2021 Doug Oldham Recital Hall MUSIC 170 1:30 PM O del Mio dolce Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) Voi, che sapete Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Le nozze di Figaro (1756-1791) ~~~~ Der Blumenstrauss Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Die Bekehrte Max Stange (1856-1932) Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) ~~~~ Romance Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Chanson d’amour Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Mon Coeur s’ouvre a ta voix Camille Saint-Saëns from Samson et Dalila (1835-1921) ~~~~ Charlie is my Darling Roger Quilter (1877-1953) Ye Banks and Braes Roger Quilter (1877-1953) ~~~~ Simple Gifts arr. Mark Hayes (b. 1953) Deep River arr. Mark Hayes (b. 1953) ~~~~ Till There Was You Meredith Wilson from The Music Man (1902-1984) Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man Jerome Kern from Showboat (1855-1945) ~~~~ L’amour est une oiseau rebelle Georges Bizet from Carmen (1838-1875) O del Mio dolce Christoph Gluck was a composer of the Early Classical period and a main contributor to the opera reform during the Enlightenment. His musical style was simple yet beautiful. Gluck used music to enhance the plot of opera rather than overpower it with flashy ornamentation. O del Mio Dolce is from the opera Paride ed Yelena. This opera tells the story of the first meeting between the characters Paris and Helen on their flight from Sparta. It centers on three characters: Paris, Helen, and Cupid who is instrumental in persuading Helen to choose love over duty. But when the Gods intervene in the lives of mortals, can there be a happy ending? After the resounding success of Ezio in 2016, Odyssey Opera resurrects another of Gluck’s lost gems. Featuring a unique cast of all sopranos in this, the third of Gluck’s “reform” operas. Oh object of my burning sweet desire, at last we breathe the same air. Wherever I turn to look love paints your image in my mind. My thoughts are filled with happy hopes and in the longing which fills my breast I look for you, I call for you – I hope and sigh. Voi, che sapete This aria is from Mozart’s opera Le nozze di Figaro. “Voi che sapete” is one of the best known arias and is heard in many recital venues. It is presented in the second act by a young boy, Cherubino, who is at that age where he is discovering his feelings for women. For Cherubino love is all-important but a mystery to him. In this aria he sings a plea to the Countess and Susanna describing how much love he has to give and asks them to tell him what love is. He explains to them how the mere sight of a woman is enough to set his heart beating wildly. He is so confused about how one moment he can be filled with passion and the next he is tormented by it. The role of Cherubino is a pants role meaning it’s the character of a young boy but played by a female, typically being a mezzo-soprano. Although this might sound peculiar, the appearance of a beautiful woman dressed in trousers to sing a boy's role was quite sensational and popular among eighteenth-century Viennese audiences. You ladies, who know what love is, see if I have it in my heart! I'll tell you what I'm going through, it's new to me; I can't understand it. I feel a liking full of desire that now is pleasure, now is agony. I freeze, and then feel my soul burning, and in another moment go back to freezing. I look for a good outside myself, I don't know who has it, and I don't know what it is. I sigh and groan without wanting to, I quiver and tremble without knowing it, I find no peace night or day, and yet I like suffering this way! Der Blumenstrauß Mendelssohn was a German composer, pianist, organist, and conductor of the early Romantic period. Throughout his life, he wrote some 120 songs, that reflect the elegance, polish, craftsmanship, and emotional reserve that characterized both his personality and his other compositions. His music played such an important role in 19th-century musical life. Mendelssohn’s music displays harmonic subtlety and graceful lyricism. One of Mendelssohn’s earlier compositions was Der Blumenstrauss. At the age of just 21, he wrote this elegant song. “Der Blumenstrauss” is set to a text by Karl Klingeman about a woman who, while strolling through a flower garden, decides to arrange a bouquet for her love. The piece contains lyrical phrases that seem to paint the text with “blooming” climaxes. The piece begins with an ascending pitch from solfege pitch sol, which naturally drives into the tonic and is doubled in the accompaniment. Rising scalar passages begin the verses, and are followed by varying phrase shapes until the final line of the stanza is repeated, both times ending on the tonic to give the listener the sense of arrival. She strays in the flower garden surveying the gaudy scene, while all the flowers are waiting, and gazing on her, their queen. "And are ye the heralds of Springtide, foretelling the ever new, then bear me a messenger of Springtide to him who loves me true.” Lightly the flowers entwining, how deftly her fingers toil: She hands them to one who nears her, avoiding his gaze the while. What flowers and hues betoken, Divine it, oh, ask it not, when spring so sweetly hath spoken in looks that with love are fraught. Die Bekehrte This song is about a shepherdess in love with a shepherd boy who plays his flute for her. His flute-playing has tamed her unruliness, and she cherishes his sweet kisses. Max Strange uses the melodic line to mimic the sound of the tune the boy plays on his flute. However, the final stanza of the poem betrays a sense of melancholy. The tonality shifts to a minor sound when the shepherd dies and the shepherdess is lost and brokenhearted without him. Now all she hears is faded tones of the song he once played to her. In the red glow of sunset I walked silently through the wood. Damon sat and blew his flute so that the rocks resounded: So la la! . And he drew me down to him and kissed me so gently, so sweetly, and I said "play again" and the good-hearted lad played: So la la! . My peace of mind is now lost, my joy has flown away, and I hear in my ears only the old tones of: So la la, le ralla! . Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen Johannes Brahms is known to have written only one true song cycle, Die schöne Magelone, but one of his often neglected collection of pieces, The nine songs of his Opus 32, composed in 1864 closely resemble the elements of a song cycle. It is unique in how there are two contributing composers, Georg Friedrich Daumer and August von Platen- Hallermünde. The song being performed, Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen was the first of Brahms’s many settings of the poetry from Georg Friedrich Daumer. The plot of this song cycle starts with the narrator wanders out of his town, by some pressing, personal matter, which is revealed in the second song depicting a troubled companionship he has sworn to cease, yet cannot stay away from. The next piece, Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen continues in the storyline where the man demands that his companion would reveal their “true feelings”. The music aids in the expression of the inner turmoil the mad is going through. His despair leads him to the point where his will to live hinges on whether his love is requited or not. I go no more to you I decided and I swore; Yet I go every evening, for all strength and all control I lost. I want to live no more, I want to perish at this moment, and yet I want to live for you, with you, and never die. Oh speak, say but one word, one clear word only, give life or death to me, only reveal to me what you feel, your true feelings. Romance Claude Debussy was a man of shifting loyalties, not only among his musical friends but especially among his many women. He was certainly a womanizer, had more than one lover at a time, and most of them were married. Toward the end of his life, he did marry for the second time and had a daughter who proved to be perhaps the only person, besides himself, that he ever truly loved. What has this gossip to do with Debussy as a composer? It parallels his musical life which is reflected in his song set Deux Romances. “Romance” is the first piece in the 1891 song set Deux Romances. Due to the similar names of the single song and the cycle from which it originated, “Romance” is often referred to by its secondary title, “L’âme évaporée” (“The vanishing soul”). It is based on a poem written by French poet Paul Bourget, titled Les aveux (Confessions). Like many other of Debussy’s well-known works, “Romance” features a lilting melody with an elegant accompaniment, typical of his musical aesthetic. This piece follows a heartbroken woman as she questions why her lover left. The harmonic style of this song produces a sound much like that of a conversation – the phrases rise and fall alongside the text.