Program/Peformance notes:
Songs of the Poet is a song cycle, not in the sense
of telling a narrative, but rather in depicting some of the major themes
set forth by Walt Whitman—albeit set with a dramatic arc. The
composer chose a rather traditional tonal framework for the songs because
he felt that this best conveyed the intense passions portrayed in the
poetry. The cycle begins on an ambiguous D-major-minor tonal center
but ends triumphantly in D major. In all of Mathews’s songs the
piano plays an equal role with the singer. His grouping of Whitman poems
deals with the essentiality of love to the human spirit and its redeeming
qualities, even when unrequited; the enormous importance of music and
nature to Whitman’s writing; how the artist’s work mirrors
the essence of his being; and the transcendence of the soul. The title
for the cycle was chosen because of the inordinate number of instances
in which Whitman refers to his poems as songs.
In Sometimes With One I Love, Whitman expresses his belief
that love, even when “unreturn’d,” is of imminent
value. Mathews expresses the rejection with great passion, which then
serves as the catalyst of artistic creation. In Ned Rorem’s fascinating
but divergent approach to this same poem, he seemingly treated the rejection
with resignation.
That Music Always Round Me is Whitman’s paean to music—not
only performed music, but the music in nature and in everyday events.
Mathews treats the various performers referred to in the poem as a full
orchestra with vocal soloists, whose musical lines are suspended above
the impressionistic arpeggio figures of the accompaniment.
Here The Frailest Leaves of Me is the simplest and most melodically
accessible song in the cycle. Harmonically and melodically, here Mathews
summons the hues and contours of the great French melodist, Francis
Poulenc.
Tears is the most tragic, and, consequently, the most dissonant
song in the cycle. Mathews uses polychordal harmonies (e.g., a B-minor
chord superimposed over a C-minor chord) to convey the overwhelming
force of tragic loss. The powerful agitato section requires the performer
to impart a dark descent almost into madness, before coming to a more
reflective calm.
As the Time Draws Nigh is one Whitman’s many poems contemplating
the soul and the preparations for an impending death. Mathews uses the
second mode of the A melodic minor scale (i.e., B, C, D, E, F-Sharp,
G-Sharp, A, B), juxtaposed with the second mode of the C melodic minor
scale (i.e., D, E-Flat, F, G, A, B, C, D) to create an unworldly sound.
The scales commingle and eventually evolve into a B-major scale as death
is accepted as a natural part of life. Though not specifically religious
in nature, the song is suitable for certain religious services.
Grand is The Seen is the most overtly joyous piece in the cycle,
celebrating the individual and his or her place in the universe. The
song is set to an almost virtuosic accompaniment.
The Last Invocation evokes through sumptuous melody the transcendence
of the soul as it frees itself from its bodily prison. This song won
Mathews the Recognition of Excellence award at the Fifth Diana Barnhart
American Art Song Competition in 2003 (adjudicators were John Harbison,
composer of the opera The Great Gatsby, and tenor Paul Sperry).
The song is suitable in both secular contexts and as part of a sacred
service.
Songs of the Poet - Texts
poems by Walt Whitman
Sometimes with One I Love
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse
unreturn’d love,
But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain
one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)
That Music Always Round Me
That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long untaught
I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes of
daybreak I hear,
A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves,
A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes
and violins, all these I fill myself with,
I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the exquisite
meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think
I begin to know them.
Here the Frailest Leaves of Me
Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,
Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
Tears
Tears! tears! tears!
In the night, in solitude, tears,
On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand,
Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,
Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;
O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?
What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch’d there on the sand?
Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the beach!
O wild and dismal night storm with wind—O belching and desperate!
O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and regulated
pace,
But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the unloosen’d
ocean,
Of tears! tears! tears!
As the Time Draws Nigh
As the time draws nigh glooming a cloud,
A dread beyond of I know not what darkens me.
I shall go forth,
I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how
long,
Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will suddenly
cease.
O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?— and yet it is
enough, O soul;
O soul, we have positively appear’d—that is enough.
Grand Is the Seen
Grand is the seen, the light, to me— grand are the sky and stars,
Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space,
And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolutionary;
But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all
those,
Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing the
sea,
(What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul? of what amount
without thee?)
More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul!
More mutliform far—more lasting thou than they.
The Last Invocation
At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed
doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks— with a whisper,
Set ope the doors O soul.
Tenderly— be not impatient,
(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,
Strong is your hold O love.) |
