School of Music
U N C G
Clara OʼBrien
mezzo-soprano
James Douglass, piano
Faculty Recital
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
7:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Op. 15 Arnold Schoenberg
I. Unterm Schutz von dichten Blättergründen (1874-1951)
II. Hain in diesen Paradiesen
III. Als Neuling trat ich ein in dein Gehege
IV. Da meine Lippen reglos sind und brennen
V. Saget mir, auf welchem Pfade
VI. Jeden Werke bin ich fürder tot
VII. Angst und Hoffen wechselnd mich beklemmen
VIII. Wenn ich heut nicht deinen Leib berühre
IX. Streng ist und das Glück und spröde
X. Das schöne Beet betracht ich mir im Harren
XI. Als wir hinter dem beblümten Tore
XII Wenn sich bei heiliger Ruh in tiefen Matten
XIII. Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide
XIV. Sprich nicht immer von dem Laub
XV. Wir bevölkerten die abend-düstern Lauben
Intermission
Poème de LʼAmour et de la Mer, Op. 19 Ernest Chausson
I. La Fleur des eaux (1855-1899)
Interlude
II. La mort de lʼamour
Arnold Schoenberg:
15 poems from
The Book of the Hanging Gardens
Text by Stefan George
I.
Protected by leafy thickets
where stars shed fine flakes,
where gentle voices lament,
where fabulous beasts spit rays of water
from brown gullets into marble basins,
from which, lamenting, little brooks hasten –
candles came to illuminate the bushes,
white forms divided the waters.
II.
In these Gardens of Eden
woods alternate with flowery meadows,
and these with porticos and colored tiles.
The beaks of slender storks ruffle
ponds that glisten with fish.
Rows of softly gleaming birds
trill on the sloping gables,
and the golden reeds sough.
But my dream pursues one single goal.
III.
As a novice I entered your domain;
my face showed no wonder before,
no wish stirred in me before I saw you.
Look with favor on these folded hands,
take me among those who serve you,
and indulge, with patience and pity,
one who yet stumbles on unfamiliar paths.
IV.
Only now that my lips burn without moving
I notice where my foot has strayed:
in the splendid domain of other masters.
Yet I might, perhaps, still have torn myself away –
but I seemed to see, through tall trellises,
that glance before which I knelt unceasingly
seeking me or giving me a sign.
V.
Tell me on which path
She will pass today –
that I may fetch, from the richest shrine,
a delicate silken web,
that I may gather roses and violets,
that I may make of my cheek
a stool for her feet.
VI.
Now I am lost to all other labor.
To call you to me with all my senses,
to think of new things to say to you,
service and reward, license and refusal
only this is needful;
and to weep because images
that flourished in beautiful darkness
should take flight when the cold, clear morning
threatens.
VII.
Fear and hope oppress me in turn;
my words are lengthened into sighs.
Such violent longing besets me
that I care for neither rest nor sleep,
that tears drench my couch,
that I drive all joy from me,
and want no friend to console me.
VIII.
If I do not touch your body today
the thread of my soul will break
like a bow-string drawn too tight,
Let signs of love be veils of sorrow
For me, who suffer since I belong to you.
Judge yourself if I deserve such anguish Cool my
fever,
as I falter outside your door.
IX.
Fortune is severe and coy with us.
What could one short kiss do?
It is like a raindrop, falling
on to a parched, pale desert
that swallows it unrefreshed
and, missing new sustenance,
cracks with renewed heat.
X.
As I wait, I look at the lovely flower-bed.
It is hedged with purple-black thorn.
Within, flower-cups with speckled spur rise up,
inclining ferns, velvety, feathery,
fluffy cluster-heads, watery-green and round;
and in the middle bell-flowers, white and mild –
their dewy mouth breathing fragrance
like sweet fruit from the fields of Heaven.
XI.
When, behind the gate overgrown with flowers,
we were conscious, at last, only of our own
breathing –
did we then feel an imagined bliss?
I remember that, if we but gently touched each
other,
we both began to tremble
silently, like feeble reeds,
and tears welled up in our eyes.
thus for a long time you stayed by my side.
XII.
When we take sacred rest in the high meadows
and our hands nestle against our temples,
when our bodiesʼ ardor is assuaged by adoration
– do not then think of the shapeless shadows
that sway up and down the wall,
nor of the guards that may quickly part us,
nor of the white sand before the town
which is ready to drink our warm blood.
XIII.
You lean against a white willow
at the river bank; with the pointed slats of your fan
you shield your head as with flashes of lightning,
and you toy with your trinkets.
Hidden among leaves, I lie in the boat
into which I vainly invited you –
I see the willows bending lower
and scattered flowers floating on the waters.
XIV.
Do not always speak
of the leaves,
the windʼs prey –
of the breaking of ripe quinces,
of the steps
of destroyers
late in the year;
of dragonflies
trembling
in the storm,
and of lights
that flicker
and change.
XV.
We peopled the dusky
arbors, the bright temples, paths, and flower-beds,
joyfully. She smiled and I whispered.
Now, it is true, she will leave me for ever.
Tall flowers grow pale or break;
glassy ponds grow pale and break,
and I stumble in the decaying grass;
palms prick with pointed fingers.
The hissing, jerking crowd of dry leaves
is chased by invisible hands
around the pale walls of our paradise.
The night is cloudy and oppressive.
---Translation by Howard Lubin
Ernest Chausson:
Poems of Love and the Sea
text by Maurice Bouchor
The flower of the waters
The air is full of an exquisite scent of lilacs,
Which, blooming on the walls from top to bottom,
Perfume the women's hair.
The sea goes forth to be all embraced by the
sun's great glow,
And on the fine-grained sand where they kiss
Stunning billows roll.
O sky that bears your color from her eyes,
Breeze that goes to sing in the flowering lilacs
So as to leave them all perfumed,
Rivulets that dampen her dress,
O green pathways,
You who flinch under her dear, tiny feet,
Make me see my beloved!
And my heart was exalted by this summer
morning,
Because a beautiful child was on the shore,
Letting her luminous eyes roam over me,
And who smiled at me with a tender, savage air.
You who transfigured Youth and Love,
You appeared to me thus like the soul of things;
My heart flew towards you, you took it without
return,
And from the half-opened sky roses rained upon
us.
What pitiful and wild sound
Will toll the hour of goodbye!
The sea rolls on the shore
Mockingly, and caring little
That now is the hour of goodbye
Birds pass by, with open wing,
On the nearly-joyous abyss;
In the great sunshine the sea is green,
And I bleed silently
Watching the sky sparkle.
I bleed, watching my life
Distance itself from me upon the waves;
My very soul is torn away
And the dark clamoring of the waves
Covers the noise of my sobs.
Who knows if this cruel sea
Will lead her toward my heart again
My gazes are fixed upon her;
The sea sings, and the mocking wind
Scoffs at the anguish of my heart.
The death of love
Soon the blue and joyful isle
Will appear to me among the rocks;
The isle upon the silent water
Floats like a water lily.
Across the amethyst sea
The boat gently glides,
And I will be joyful and sad
At how much I remember - Soon!
The wind rustled the dead leaves;
My thoughts
Blew about like dead leaves
In the night.
Never so sweetly did the black sky contain
The thousand golden roses from which dew once
fell!
A frightening dance, and the crumpled leaves,
Which gave forth a metallic sound, waltzed,
Seemed to groan under the stars, and spoke
The inexpressible horror of deceased loves.
The tall silver beeches that the moon kissed
Were specters: all my blood froze
Seeing my beloved strangely smile.
Like the brows of the dead, our foreheads paled,
And, mute, leaning towards her, I could read
That fatal word inscribed in her wide eyes:
oblivion.
The time of lilacs and the time of roses
Will no longer come again to this spring;
The time of lilacs and the time of roses
Has passed, the time of carnations also.
The wind has changed, the skies are morose,
And we will no longer run to pick
The lilacs in bloom and the beautiful roses;
The spring is sad and cannot bloom.
Oh! Joyful and gentle spring of the year,
That came last year to bathe us in sunlight,
Our flower of love is so wilted,
Alas! that your kiss cannot awaken it!
And you, what are you doing? No budding
flowers,
No bright sun at all nor cool shade,
The time of lilacs and the time of roses,
Along with our love, is dead forever.
---Translation by Korin Kormick
Program Notes
Arnold Schoenbergʼs masterpiece, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Opus 15, stands at a transition
point of musical composition. The year is 1908 and the place is Vienna, the capital of modern music and
Expressionism is the dominant artistic movement. Schoenberg is already known as a composer
stretching and testing the limits of musical expression. He begins setting the texts of expressionist poet
Stefan Georgeʼs cycle in a very chromatic yet still tonal fashion. Then something happens. As he put it:
“I am obeying an inner compulsion, which is stronger than any upbringing.”
Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, written between 1908 and 1909 is Schoenbergʼs first full essay into
“atonalʼ, or as he preferred, “pantonal” composition. No longer does the composer choose harmonies,
rhythms and textures according to the established rhetoric of functional harmony. Instead the ebb and
flow of consonance and dissonance, rhythmic clarity and fluidity and textural density are determined by
the subjective need of the moment. Individual lines and sonorities are free to move without the
constraints of having to fall within specific chords and cadences. The confluence of those lines and
sonorities creates a spontaneous and uninhibited musical narrative.
Schoenbergʼs new-found freedom gives the fifteen-song cycle a confident quality unusual in
experimental composition. The listener does not sense anything tentative about the organization of the
pitch, rhythmic or timbral material. Nor is the text setting in any way mannered. Part of reason for what
seems a naturalistic and expressive vocal setting is the text itself. Stefan George, the Viennese poet of
Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, was a symbolist-influenced writer of emotions and impressions.
There is little of the mannerist methods and affect seen in later German poets. But it is also
Schoenbergʼs compositional choice not to abandon, in the excitement of new discoveries, the traditions
of his time and place. In Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, a continuation of the Viennese expressive
tradition, stripped of the stylistic restrictions of functional tonality coexists with an evolving new method
for organizing expressive music.
This coexistence of both modernist and traditional compositional elements effects how the audience
experiences Das Buch der hängenden Gärten. We hear new sonorities, melodic gestures and strange
textures, but at the same time, we sense an underlying structure still attached to late-Romanticism and
Viennese Expressionism. It is as if we simultaneously have the best of both musical paradigms:
freshness of the immediate sound underpinned by structure formed by tradition.
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) was a man of many delightful contradictions. Closely befriended and
respected by virtually every major established French composer of his day, he was essentially an
autodidactic musician who labored painfully to overcome is sense of being an “amateur”. As deeply as
he needed solitude in the country for creative inspiration, his Paris home was the salon of choice of most
the major figures of art, literature and music of the decades before the 20th century.
Chausson stands at the crossroads of late-19th century French composition. As with most French
composers of his day, he was involved in the three-way tussle between the Classicism of his
Conservatoire teachers (Massenet), French adherents of Wagnerʼs Romanticism (Frank, dʼIndy) and
Wagner himself. What perhaps separates French from German composers of this period is the nuanced
balance each individual French composer finds between Classicism and Wagnerianism. German
composers of this period seem to adhere to one or the other aesthetic. Each French composer seeks
his or her own individual solution.
Poème de lʼAmour et de la Mer, perhaps Chaussonʼs best known work, was premiered in Brussels in
1893 with the composer at the piano and the orchestrated version in Paris later that year. The poem
was written by Chaussonʼs close friend, poet and sculpture Maurice Bouchour and the composition may
or may not be a reflection of a love entanglement involving the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, composer
Gabrielle Fauré (friends and habitués of Chaussonʼs salon), the famous mezzo-soprano, Pauline Viardot
and her daughter. Whatever the inspiration, the Wagnerian lyricism of the melodic lines is tempered with
a melancholy and classic restraint and the arpeggiated harmonies reflect the crossroads between
classicism, Romantic chromaticism and the emerging paradigm of harmony as color. It is easy to hear in
this work the starting points of such divergent 20th century composers as Koechlin and Debussy. The
latter, another friend and Chausson salon regular, wrote of this work “The freedom of form never goes
against its harmonious proportion. The sense of dreamy gentleness is at its most touching … the music
becomes that very feeling which inspires its emotion. Such moments in the work of an artist are very
rare.” (Lance Hulme)
Performers
Mezzo Soprano Clara OʼBrien comes to the University of North Carolina Greensboro after more
than twenty years of performing in Europe and the United States. For over seventeen years,
Professor OʼBrien based her career in Germany and has appeared on the operatic and concert
stages of such cities as Berlin, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Dresden, Frankfurt, Chicago, Dallas and
many others. Her professional career began when she was awarded the Sonderpreis des
Badischen Staatstheater, a prize created specially for her at the 1st International Coloratura
Competition, Sylvia Geszty. Her many roles range from Baroque to contemporary and include
Octavian, Komponist, Adalgisa, Mignon, Dorabella, Donna Elvira, Elisabetta (Maria Stuarda),
Rosina, Angelina (Cenerentola), Musetta, Helene (La Belle Hélène), Fenena (Nabucco) and
numerous roles at the International Handel Festpiel. Her performances have been noted in
Opernwelt as Best Performances in both the Emerging and Established Artist categories. Other
awards include 1st Prize, Erika Koth Meisterkurs and Finalist in the International Belvedere
Competition. Clara O'Brien is also a recitalist and won the Grand Prix Paul Derenne, International
Concours de chant de Paris for her interpretation of Impressionist and post-Impressionist French
mélodies. She is also a noted interpreter of late-Romantic and Modernist German Lieder. For
many years, she was vocal soloist for Ensemble Surprise, which presented chamber repertoire
from ca. 1300 to the present. Recordings include releases on the Bella Musica and Albany
Records labels and she has been recorded and broadcast on Southwest German Radio and
Television. Ms. O'Brien studied at the Eastman School of Music (M.M., Performance Certificate),
the Curtis Institute of Music, the Dana School of Music (B.M., Summa cum laude) and the
Hochschule fur Musik, Heidelberg/Manneheim. She was an apprentice with the Chicago Lyric
Opera Center for American Artists, the Aspen Music Festival and the Boris Goldovski Opera
Institute. She received a Fulbright Grant to Germany and was awarded a fellowship to the
Münchener Singschulʼ. Her teachers included Jan DeGaetani, Astrid Varnay, Erika Köth and
Daniel Ferro. Before joining the voice faculty at UNCG, Ms. OʼBrien was Assistant Professor for
Voice at the University of Oklahoma. She has also taught at the American Institute for Musical
Studies in Graz, Austria, and gives master classes throughout the United States.
James Douglass, assistant professor of collaborative piano, has been involved in diverse genres
including chamber music, vocal arts, opera, choral arts, symphonic repertoire, jazz, cabaret, and
musical theater. He received the BM and MM in piano performance from the University of
Alabama and the DMA in collaborative piano from the University of Southern California where he
was a student of Dr. Alan L. Smith; additional studies with collaborative Anne Epperson and
Martin Katz. While at USC he received a Koldofsky Fellowship and the Outstanding Keyboard
Collaborative Arts award. Douglass has served on the faculties of Mississippi College, Occidental
College LA, USC, and Middle Tennessee State University where he was coordinator of the
collaborative piano degree program. In 2003 he began teaching in the summer study program
AIMS (American Institue of Musical Studies) in Graz, Austria as the instructor of collaborative
piano and a coach in the lieder program with Harold Heiberg. Performances as a collaborative
pianist have included recitals and television/radio broadcasts across the United States and in
Europe (France, Germany, Austria, Hungary); in master classes given by artists Dawn Upshaw,
Carol Vaness, Vladimir Chernov, Norman Luboff, Paul Salamunovich, Natalie Hinderas, Leon
Bates. Douglass is also active as a clinician and recently completed a recording with soprano
Hope Koehler of John Jacob Niles songs, which will be released on the Albany label in 2008.
