Last week, thanks to the Center for Contemporary Opera's competition in 2006, Mauricio Virgens and I made our debut as baritone and accompanist in the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, New York .

 

Our centrepiece, “Tondo di Michelangelo” by Peter Maxwell Davies, was written for us in 2006 and premiered in Great Britain in October of 2007. About 15 minutes long, Max sets eight of Michelangelo’s sonnets, many addressing his tortured feelings on love. Beginning and ending with unaccompanied voice, it is cyclic in nature, as with a tondo, the circular arrangement of paintings in Italian art. In between, there are settings of poems alternating lyricism and virtuosity for both singer and pianist.  The last song laments the state of government in Tuscany from Michelangelo’s exile in Rome . Readers of this blog will recognise artists in exile as a familiar theme.

 

The twist for me came when Lars Fosser, the Danish baritone in the recital, phoned just before the concert to say that his pianist had pulled out and the composition he was to premiere hadn’t yet been completed.  The day before flying to New York, I received the 50 pages of notes by fax and booked myself into the Y, a community centre in upper East Manhattan with an excellent music department, where we could rehearse.

 

So, on March 18th, Lars, Mauricio and I performed Adams, Bernstein, Britten, Berzonsky, Matthus and Maxwell Davies in Carnegie Hall to great acclaim.

 

Mauricio changed from the Denzel Washington to the Jamie Foxx hairstyle, for Carnegie Hall.

 

Five years ago, when I was visiting a friend for breakfast, Mauricio, who happened to be there also, asked me if I knew any German accompanists who could play opera and samba.  It didn’t take long to think of the answer, so I offered to work with him instead.

 

Since then, without the support of our dear friend, Heidrun Brocker, who has offered us her Cologne flat on many occasions to perform in front of friends and colleagues, we wouldn’t have made it to Carnegie Hall.  Therein lies a powerful lesson.  You really can go a very long way on positive attitude and support from your friends, even (or perhaps, especially) when they haven’t the slightest contact with your business.

 

18 months ago, the evening after the competition semi-finals in New York, we had been instructed to phone a number after 7.30 pm where we would hear an answering machine with the names of the finalists for the next day.  Neither Mauricio nor I had mobile phones that worked in the US, so we spent the evening roaming the streets trying to find a phone box in Manhattan . Mauricio took a half hour of redialling as he and the other singers fought their way through to the answering machine. As his face lit up, I knew we were into the finals. Busily talking on the street corner about our plans, a well dressed, middle-aged woman, arm in arm with a man, walked by and said; ”Congratulations guys. I don’t know what you’ve done but I can feel the success from here!” In a flash, I asked myself where in Scotland that would ever happen. Again, it didn’t take long to think of the answer.

 

What I wish for the young people of Scotland is along the same lines as Andrew Carnegie, the courage to venture out and allow the whole world to embrace their talent so that, if they choose to return, the next generation won't be crushed by those who cling onto their jobs for dear life, terrified of change and believing that they're not good enough to make it elsewhere. 

 

The full program can be downloaded here:

Carnegie Hall Program.jpg

 

 

Our promoter, the Contemporary Opera Studio of New York:

http://www.conopera.org/

Tondo di Michelangelo: 

http://www.schott-music.com/shop/1/show,231583.html

 

Lars Fosser:

http://www.fosser.eu/

 

Martin Hennessy:

http://www.martinhennessy.net/

 

Emily Langford Johnson:

www.ada-artists.com/artist.asp?ID=65

 

The Y on Lexington and 92nd:

www.92y.org

Mauricio Virgens and Paul MacAlindin were dressed by CINQUE:

www.cinque.de

 

 

Carnegie Hall, New York:

http://www.carnegiehall.org/article/box_office/events/evt...

 

 

 

 

Two recent commissions for baritone and piano from myself and Mauricio Virgens are Gordon MacPherson's three love songs, Lagrimas, and Peter Maxwell Davies eight settings of Michelangelo's sonnets, Tondo di Michelangelo. Both were premiered on the 18th of October, 2007 in Manchester University.

 

 

 

Gordon McPherson(1965 - ) - Lagrimas (2007)

 

Lagrimas is dedicated to Raymond Armstrong.

 

 

 

1.

 

Dices que tienes corazon, y solo
lo dices porque sientes sus latidos.
Eso no es corazon...; es una maquina
que, al compos que se mueve, hace ruido.

 

You say you have a heart
You say this because you feel its beat
It is not a heart … it is a machine
Which makes noise when it moves

 

 

2.

 

Mi vida es un ereal,
flor que toco se deshoja;
que en mi camino fatal
alguien va sembrando el mal
para que yo lo recoja

 

My life is a wasteland
When I touch a flower it withers
It is my sad destiny
someone has planted this badness for me

 

3.

 

Como vive esa rosa que has prendido
junto a tu corazon?
Nunca hasta ahora contemplo en el mundo
junto al volcan la flor. 

 

How lives that rose that you have caught
next to your heart?
Until now I never contemplated in the world
next to the volcano the flower.

 

From Rimas, by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

 

Gordon MacPherson:

http://www.slowbabymusic.com/

 

Lagrimas:

http://www.amazon.com/Sendas-perdidas-Amor-lagrimas-Colec...

 

Becquer:

http://www.poetry-portal.com/poets35.html

 

 

 

 

Peter Maxwell Davies (1934 - ) – Tondo di Michelangelo (2006)

 

Tondo di Michelangelo was written in 2006 for Mauricio Virgens and Paul MacAlindin. 

 

There are 8 settings of Michelangelo’s tortured and knotty Tuscan poetry – from which we may learn much about his innermost thoughts on sculpture and painting, and about his all-too-human loves, and the sorrow and guilt these caused him.

 

The first setting, “Qui chiuso è’l sol”, is for the voice alone, with its “inward” climax on the word “Morte”.

 

The second, “Amor ritorna”  introduces the piano, which has bell-like figurations, almost celebratory of love, although Michelangelo only regrets the return of this.

 

“Come puó esser” has a turbulent, virtuoso piano part, expressing the tumult and pain occasioned by love.

 

Michelangelo wrote several epitaphs for the youth Cecchino Bracci, of which “La carne terra” is one of the most poignant  - the soul of Bracci speaks from the grave.

 

“Colui che’l tutto fé” gives us an insight into what Michelangelo thinks of as an ideal creative process.

 

The intensity of “Ben sarien dolce le preghiere mie” is, again, reflected in the virtuosity of the piano writing, and in the hushed chordal sequences for solo piano, which punctuate and reflect upon Michelangelo’s fervent discourse  - here, addressed directly to his maker.

 

The seventh, “Se’l duol fa pur”, discussing fortune and poverty, is the most profoundly personal of these poems, almost alchemically transforming misfortune into something constructive and positive.

 

The final setting is political. Michelangelo, exiled to Rome, far from his native Florence, does not wish to awake from his “stony” sleep, to realise the shame of the present state of government in his home country, Tuscany .

 

Text and translations from „The Poetry of Michelangelo – An Annotated Translation – James M. Saslow, Yale University Press

 

 

 

1.

 

Qui chiuso è’l sol di c’ancor piangi e ardi;

L’alma suo luce fu corte ventura .

Men grazia e men ricchezza assai più dura;

C’a’ miseri la morte è pigra e tardi

 

 

Shut here is the sun for which you still weep and burn:

Its blessed light favoured us only briefly.

Less bounty and less grace endure much longer,

For death is sluggish and late for the wretched.

 

 

2.

 

Mentre c’alla beltà ch’i’ vidi in prima

Appresso l’alma, che per gli occhi vede,

L’immagin dentro cresce, e quella cede

Quasi vilmente e senza alcuna stima.

Amor, c’adopra ogni suo ingegno e lima,

perch’io non tronch’il fil ritorna e riede.

 

While I draw my soul, which sees through the eyes,

Closer to the beauty that I saw at first,

The image within it grows, and it gives way,

Almost cowardly and with no self esteem.

Love, who sharpens his wits and uses all of them

So I won’t cut the thread, keeps coming back.

 

 

3.

 

Come può esser ch’io non sia più mio?

Chi m’ha tolto a me stesso,

C’a me fusse più presso

O più di me potessi che poss’io?

Come mi passa el core

Chi non par che mi tocchi?

O Dio, o Dio, o Dio.

Che cosa è questo, Amore,

C’al core entra per gli occhi,

Per poco spagio dentro par che cresca?

E s’avvien che trabocchi?

 

How can it be that ‘Im no longer mine?

Who’s snatched me from myself

So that he might be closer to me

Or have more power over me than I have?

How can someone pierce my heart

Who doesn’t seem to touch me?

Oh God, oh God. Oh, God!

What is this thing, O Love,

That enters the heart through the eyes,

And in the small space inside it, seems to expand?

And what if it should overflow?

 

 

4.

 

La carne terra, e qui l’ossa mie, prive

De’lor begli occhi e del leggiadro aspetto, Fan fede a quell ch’i’ fu’ grazia e diletto

In che carcer quaggiù l’anima vive.

 

My flesh, now earth, and my bones here, deprived

Of their beautiful eyes and lovely countenance,

Bear witness, for him whose grace & delight I was,

To what a prison the soul lives in down there.

 

 

5.

 

Colui che’l tutto fe’, fece ogni parte

E poi del tutto la più bella scelse,

per mostrar quivi le suo cose eccelse,

com’ha fatto or colla sua divin’arte.

 

He who made everything, first made each part

And then from all those chose the most beautiful

To demonstrate here his sublime creations,

As he has now done with his divine art.

 

 

6.

i. Ben sarien dolce le preghiere mie,

se virtù mi prestassi da pregarte:  

mio fragil terren non è gia parte Da frutto buon,

che da s’e nato sie.

In sol se’ seme d’opre caste e pie,

Che là germuglian, dove ne fa’ parte:

Nessun proprio valor può seguitarte,

Se non gli mostri le tuo sante vie.

 

i.The prayers I’d make would certainly be sweet

If you granted me the strength to pray to you:

For in my feeble soil there’s not one part

Good for fruit, that was born by itself.

You alone are the seed of pure and pious deeds,

Which sprout up wherever you strew yourself;

No one can follow you by his own power

Unless you show him the path of your holiness.

 

ii. L’alma inquieta e confuse in sé non truova

Altra cagion c’alcun grave peccato

Mal conosciuto, onde non è celato

All’immensa pietà c’a’ miser giova.

I’ parlo a te, Signor, c’ogni mie pruova

Fuor del tuo sangue non fa l’uom beato:

Miserere di me, da ch’io son nato

A la tuo legge; e non fie cosa nuova.

 

ii. My soul, troubled and perplexed, finds within itself

No other reason for this than some grave sin

Scarcely known to me, although it’s not concealed

From the boundless pity that relieves the wretched.

I’m speaking to you, Lord, since all my efforts

Can’t make a man blessed without your blood:

Have mercy on me, seeing I was born.

Subject to your law; that won’t be anything new.

 

 

7.

 

 

Se’l duol fa pur, com’alcun dice, bello ,

Privo piangendo d’un bel volto umano,

L’essere inferno è sano.

La vita e grazia la disgrazia mia:

Ché’l dolce umaro è quello

Che, contr’a l’alma, il van pensier desia.

Né può fortuna ria

contr’a chi basso vola,

Girando, trionfar d’alta ruina;

Ché mie benigna e pia

Povertá nuda e sola,

M’è nuova ferza e dolce disciplina;

C’a l’alma pelligrina

È più salute, o per guerra o per gioco,

Saper perdere assai che vincer poco.

 

If grief can make one beautiful as they say,

Then for me, deprived of a lovely face, and weeping,

Being sick is healthy,

And my misfortune brings new life and fortune.

For that sweetness which our vain thoughts

Desire, against the soul’s best interests, is bitter;

And evil fortune, turning,

Can’t triumph by throwing down

From the heights to his ruin one who is flying low.

My naked and lonely poverty,

Benign and merciful,

Is a new spur and sweet discipline to me:

Since to the pilgrim soul

It’s a greater salvation, either in war or love,

To know how to love a lot than to gain a little.

 

8.

 

 

 Caro m’e’l sonno, e più l’esser di sasso

Mentre che’l danno e la vergogna dura;

Non veder, non sentir m’è gran ventura ;

Però non mi destar, deh, parla basso.

 

 

Sleep is dear to me, and being of stone is dearer,

As long as injury and shame endure;

Not to see or hear is a great boon to me;

Therefore, do not wake me – pray, speak softly.

 

Tondo di Michelangelo

http://www.schott-music.com/shop/1/show,231583.html

 

Michelangelo Sonnets

http://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Michelangelo-Annotated-Trans...

 

 

 

 

Brundibár – October 28-29, 2007, Tonhalle Düsseldorf

 

 

CBS's 60 minutes special on Brundibár:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/23/60minutes/main2...

 

 

 

 

As a child, I grew up on the stage of the Carnegie Hall – the Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline , that is.  The 650 seat theatre in Carnegie’s town of birth was like a womb of dark and magical images, hot, candy coloured stage lighting, kitsch scenery and greasepaint applied and policed by adults who were determined to prevent the cost of make-up from spiralling out of control. As my only outlet for public artistic expression, the Carnegie Youth Theatre was a lifeline in a cultural desert. Overshadowed by Edinburgh across the other side of the Forth Rail Bridge , Dunfermline seemed proud to be philistine.  However, it was through that youth theatre that the adults passed complete production control over to the kids once a year, and allowed us to “put on a show”.  Unwittingly, they allowed me my first hungry experience of musical direction.  My role model was the mezzo-soprano, Frances McCafferty. 

 

Frances was a proud Edinburgh lady who taught singing at the Carnegie Institute and built up the Youth Theatre from it’s beginnings with total professionalism and cool. But beneath the reserved dignity of this East Coast Scot was a Wagnerian passion for music. We all felt it and we all loved her for it.

 

As with Frances , I’m a great admirer of anyone who can create musical magic with children. Frau Justine Wannat is one such lady. I saw the same tremendous talent in her when she directed the Düsseldorf Girls’ Choir last October. We were working together on Hans Krasa’s Brundibár, a 35 minute gem of a children’s opera, most infamously performed in Terezin Concentration Camp in 1943.  As conductor for the Düsseldorf Symphoniker in this Tonhalle production, I saw the same focus, respect and admiration in the eyes of the girls for Frau Wannat that I had felt for Frances back in Dunfermline . 

 

Like all theatre for children, Brúndibar was an escape from reality, but in a World War Two prison camp, the fantasy was equally tortured. The Nazis’ propaganda machine had decided to film this opera in Terezin, but not before building a film-set village to show the visiting Red Cross and the world how pleasant life was for Jews.  Fresh fruit and vegetables were brought in to show how well the children were fed, and the children were allowed to hold these in their hands in front of the camera, only to be taken away again, uneaten.  Hans Krasa, a prisoner there, formed his choir from the camp’s girls and rescored the opera from its 1938 version, premiered in Prague , for the available musicians in Terezin.  The Nazis got their film. Many of the girls and Hans Krasa died in Auschwitz .

 

Brundibár is a story of two penniless children who need to feed milk to their ailing mother. As buskers, they try to compete with Brúndibar, the travelling organ grinder, but are chased away by him and the townsfolk.  With the help of a sparrow, a dog and a cat, they defeat Brúndibar and earn enough money for milk by bringing the whole village together in a lullaby. The metaphor for defeating Hitler could not have escaped them.   The music is some of the best writing for children I have ever seen, and all the more charming for the 10 piece band’s 1920’s Berlin cabaret accompaniment.

 

Some conductors I know are scared to death of children. Others wisely stay clear of this work to avoid being categorised as a “children’s concert conductor” by managements.  But when a really great piece of work comes up that combines the joy of theatre, childrens’ creativity and deeply caring adult support, then I can only remember the joyful talent of the Düsseldorf Girls’ Choir and the deafening screams of approval from the 2000 children we performed to.

 

Available in English, German and the original Czech:

http://www.boosey.com/pages/opera/moreDetails.asp?musicID...

 

 

Tonhalle Düsseldorf: http://www.tonhalle-duesseldorf.de/

 

 

The German site: http://www.brundibar.de/

 

 

The Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline: http://www.attfife.org.uk/attFife/index.cfm?fuseaction=or...

 

 

 

Frances McCafferty: http://www.helensykesartists.co.uk/artist_display.aspx?AI...