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PROGRAM:
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904): Gypsy Songs, op. 55 (excerpts)
Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979):
The Salley Gardens
The Cloths of Heaven
Cecilia Livingston: Penelope
*intermission
Fernando Obradors (1897-1945): Canciones Clásicas Españolas
Percy Grainger (1882-1961): Ramble on the final love duet from Der Rosenkavalier
Richard Strauss (1864-1949), arr. Carson Becke: Four Last Songs
Frühling (Spring)
September
Beim schlafengehen (Going to Sleep)
Im Abendrot (At Sunset)
PROGRAM NOTE:
Meghan and I have been working together for a few years now, and this program takes a long and winding road through some of our favourite creato rs of art song. Dvorak’s Gypsy Songs are whimsical, folkloristic pieces that evoke the Slovak countryside. Rebecca Clarke is one of my favourite twentieth-century composers, and I think the considerable number of songs she wrote through her long career are her crowning achievement. The two presented here are extremely tender: The Salley Gardens is a melancholy arrangement of an old British folksong that tells a poignant story of heartbreak. The Cloths of Heaven is a setting of William Butler Yates’ most famous poem - the poem is a declaration of love, but the way Clarke sets it presents the text in an eerie, ominous light. Cecilia Livingston is one of Canada’s preeminent young vocal composers: her works have been performed in some of the world’s most prestigious settings, including opera premieres at the Glyndebourne Festival in the UK, and recordings on Deutsche Grammophon. Penelope - as in the character from Homer’s Odyssey - is a haunting portrait of a woman who is waiting for the return of her love, long after hope has vanished. On a lighter note, Obradors’ Cancionas Clásicas are lighthearted, sometimes nonsensical folk-inspired Spanish art songs. The final part of the program is dedicated to the music of Richard Strauss. First, Percy Grainger’s shimmering re-imagination of the end of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. To end the evening, the four transcendent songs that Strauss penned in the last year of his life. The cycle ends with a musical sunset in Im Abendrot: starting with a blaze of light and slowly but surely moving towards darkness, these songs are the ultimate summation of the human experience.