Rachel Bowman
soprano
Betsi Hodges, piano & organ
assisted by:
Thomas Pappas, oboe
Thomas Turanchik, oboe
Gina Pezzoli, cello
Anne Albert, soprano
Graduate Recital
Friday, April 27, 2007
7:30 pm
Organ Hall, School of Music
Program
Ich esse mit Freuden mein weniges Brot Johann Sebastian Bach
from Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke, BWV 84 (1685-1750)
Hört, ihr Augen, auf zu weinen
from Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, BWV 98
with Thomas Pappas, oboe
Thomas Turanchik, oboe
Gina Pezzoli, cello
Domine from Missa solemis in C minor, K. 139 (1768) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)
with Anne Albert, soprano
Cinq mélodies ‘de Venise,’ Op. 58 (1891) Gabriel Fauré
Mandoline (1845-1924)
En sourdine
Green
A Clymène
C’est l’extase
Intermission
from Sonnets from the Portuguese (1989-91) Libby Larsen
I thought once how Theocritus had sung (b. 1950)
If I leave all for thee
Oh, Yes!
How do I love thee?
La diva de l’Empire (c. 1900) Erik Satie
(1866-1925)
Les chemins de l’amour (1940) Francis Poulenc
(1899-1963)
from Cabaret Songs (1937-39) Benjamin Britten
Johnny (1913-1976)
Calypso
In partial fulfillment of the degree requirements for the
Master of Music in Performance
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Johann Sebastian Bach:
Ich esse mit Freude mein weniges Brot
Text based on a poem by Picander
(1700-1764)
Ich esse mit Freude mein weniges Brot
und gönne dem Nächsten von Herzen das
Seine.
Ein ruhig Gewissen, ein fröhlicher Geist,
ein dankbares Herze, das lobet und preist,
vermehret den Segen, verzukkert die Not.
Hört, ihr Augen, auf zu weinen
Text author unknown
Hört, ihr Augen, auf zu weinen!
Trag ich doch
mit Geduld mein schweres Joch.
Gott, der Vater, lebet noch,
von den Seinen
lässt er keinen.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Domine
Text from the traditional Latin mass
Domine Deus, rex celestis,
Deus pater omnipotens.
Jesu Christe Domine Deus.
Agnus Dei filius patris,
Domine fili unigenite Jesu Christe.
Gabriel Fauré:
Cinq mélodies ‘de Venise’
Text by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Mandoline
Les donneurs de sérénades
Et les belles écouteuses
Échangent des propos fades
Sous les ramures chanteuses.
C’est Tircis et c’est Aminte
Et c’est l’éternel Clitandre,
E c’est Damis qui pour mainte
Cruelle fait maint vers tendre.
Leurs courtes vestes de soies,
Leurs longues robes à queue,
Leur elegance, leur joie
Et leurs molles ombres bleues
I eat with joy my little bit of bread
I eat with gladness my little bit of bread
And grant my neighbor his share with my
whole heart.
A quiet conscience, a joyful spirit,
A thankful heart that exalts with praise,
Increases my blessings and sweetens my
need.
Stop, you eyes, stop your weeping
Stop, you eyes, stop your weeping!
I will bear
With patience my heavy yoke.
God the father lives still;
Of his own
He loses none.
Domine
Lord God, king of heaven,
God the father omnipotent.
Jesus Christ, Lord God.
Lamb of God, son of the father,
Lord, only begotten son, Jesus Christ.
Five melodies ‘from Venice’
Mandolin
The men who give serenades
And the lovely ladies who listen
Exchange insipid remarks
Under the singing branches.
It is Tircis and it is Aminte
And it is the eternal Clitandre,
And it is Damis who for many a
Cruel woman writes many a tender poem.
Their short silken jackets,
Their long dresses with trains,
Their elegance, their joy
And their soft blue shadows
Tourbillonnent dans l’extase
D’une lune rose et grise,
Et la mandoline jase
Parmi les frissons de brise.
En sourdine
Calmes dans le demi-jour
Que les branches hautes font,
Pénétrons bien notre amour
De ce silence profond.
Fondons nos âmes, nos coeurs
Et nos sens extasiés,
Parmi les vagues langueurs
Des pins et des arbousiers.
Ferme tes yeux à demi,
Croise tes bras sur ton sein,
Et de ton coeur endormi
Chasse à jamais tout dessein.
Laissons-nous persuader
Au souffle berceur et doux
Qui vient à tes pieds rider
Les ondes de gazon roux.
Et quand, solennel, le soir
Des chênes noirs tombera,
Voix de notre désespoir,
Le rossignol chantera.
Green
Voici des fruits, des fleurs, des feuilles et des
branches
Et puis voici mon coeur qui ne bat que pour
vous.
Ne le déchirez pas avec vos deux mains
blanches
Et qu’à vos yeux si beaux l’humble présent soit
doux.
J’arrive tout couvert encore de rosée
Que le vent du matin vient glacer à mon front.
Souffrez que ma fatigue un instant reposée
Rêve des chers instants qui la délasseront.
Sur votre jeune sein laissez roulez ma tête
Toute sonore encor de vos derniers baisers;
Laissez-la s’apaiser de la bonne tempête,
Et que je dorme un peu puisque vous reposez.
A Clymène
Mystique barcarolles,
Romances sans paroles,
Swirl in the rapture
Of a pink and gray moon,
And the mandolin chatters
Amidst the shiverings of the breeze.
Muted
Calm in the half-light
That the high branches make,
Let us fully imbue our love
With this profound silence.
Let us blend our souls, our hearts,
And our enraptured senses
Amidst the vague languor
Of the pines and the arbutus.
Close your eyes halfway,
Cross your arms over your breast,
And from your sleeping heart
Chase all purpose away forever.
Let us be persuaded
By the sweet, rocking breath
That comes to your feet to wrinkle
The waves of russet grass.
And when, solemnly, the evening
Falls from dark oak trees,
Voice of our despair,
The nightingale will sing.
Green
Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches
And then here is my heart that beats only for
you.
Do not destroy it with your two white hands,
And may the humble present be sweet to your
eyes that are so lovely.
I arrive still covered over with dew
Which the morning wind comes to chill on my
brow.
Allow my fatigue, once rested a moment,
To dream of the dear moments that will soon
refresh it.
On your young bosom let my head roll,
Still resounding with your last kisses;
Let it calm down from the good storm,
And may I sleep a little, since you are resting.
To Clymene
Mystical barcarolles,
Songs without words,
Chère, puisque tes yeux,
Couleur des cieux,
Puisque ta voix, étrange
Vision qui derange
Et trouble l’horizon
De ma raison
Puisque l’arome insigne
De ta pâleur de cygne,
Et puisque la candeur
De ton odeur,
Ah! puisque tout ton être,
Musique qui pénètre,
Nimbes d’anges défunts,
Tons et parfums,
A, sur d’almes cadences,
En ses correspondences
Induit mon coeur subtil,
Ainsi soit-il!
C’est l’extase
C’est l’extase langoureuse,
C’est la fatigue amoureuse,
C’est tous les frissons des bois
Parmi l’étreinte des brises,
C’est, vers les ramures grises,
Le choeur des petites voix.
O le frêle et frais murmure!
Cela gazouille et susurre,
Cela ressemble au bruit doux
Que l’herbe agitée expire...
Tu dirais, sous l’eau que vire,
Le roulis sourd des cailloux.
Cette âme qui se lamente
En cette plainte dormante
C’est la nôtre n’est-ce pas?
La mienne, dis, et la tienne,
Don’t s’exhale l’humble antienne
Par ce tiède soir, tout bas?
Libby Larsen:
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Text by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1806-1861)
I
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for
years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old and young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
Dear one, since your eyes,
The color of the skies,
Since your voice, a strange
Vision that disturbs
And troubles the horizon
Of my reason,
Since the remarkable aroma
Of your swanlike paleness,
And since the guilelessness
Of your smell,
Ah! since your whole being,
A penetrating music,
Haloes of defunct angels,
Sounds and perfumes,
Has, on nourishing cadences
In its correspondences
Tempted my discerning heart,
So be it!
It is ecstasy
It is languorous ecstasy,
It is amorous fatigue,
It is all the shivers of the woods
Amidst the embrace of the breezes,
It is, toward the gray branches,
The chorus of little voices.
O the frail and cool murmur!
It warbles and whispers;
It resembles the gentle cry
That the stirring grass exhales...
It sounds like, under water sweeping round,
The muffled rolling of the pebbles.
This soul that laments
In this sleeping complaint,
It is ours, is it not?
Mine, say, and yours,
From which the humble antiphon is emitted
Through this mild evening, very softly?
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ’ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,—
“Guess now who holds thee?”
“Death,” I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang, “Not Death, but Love.”
XXXV
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it
strange
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know
change?
That’s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things
prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me—wilt though? Op’n thine heart
wide,
And fold within the wet wings of thy dove.
XL
Oh, Yes! they love through all this world of
ours!
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth.
I have heard love talked in my early youth
And since, not so long back but that the
flowers
Then gathered, smell still. Musselmans and
Giaours
Throw handkerchiefs at a smile, and have no
ruth
For any weeping. Polypheme’s white tooth
Slips on the nut, if after frequent showers
The shell is over-smooth; and not so much
Will turn the thing called love, to hate
Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such
A lover, my Beloved! thou canst wait
Through sorrow and sickness, to bring souls to
touch
And think it soon when others cry “Too late.”
XLIII
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the
breadth,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God
choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Erik Satie:
La diva de l’Empire
Text by Dominique Bonnaud & Numa Blès
Sous le grand chapeau Greenaway,
Mettant l’éclat d’un sourire.
D’un rire charmant et frais
De baby étonné qui soupire,
Little girl aux yeux velouté,
C’est la Diva de “l’Empire”.
C’est la rein’ dont s’éprenn’nt les gentlemen
Et tous les dandys
De Piccadilly.
Dans un seul yes elle mettant de douceur
Que tous les snobs en gilet à coeur
L’accueillant de hourras frénétiques,
Sur la scène lancent des gerbes de fleurs,
Sans remarquer le rire narquois
De son joli minois.
Sous le grand chapeau Greenaway...
Elle danse presque automatiquement,
Et soulève, aoh! très piordiquement,
Ses jolis dessous de fanfreluches;
De ses jambes montrant le frétilement.
C’est à la fois très très innocent
Et très très excitant.
Sous le grand chapeau Greenaway...
Francis Poulenc:
Les chemins de l’amour
Text by Jean Anouilh (1910-1987)
Les chemins qui vont à la mer
Ont gardé de notre passage
Des fleurs effeuillés et l’écho sous leurs arbres
de nos deux rires clairs
Hélas des jours de bonheur
Radieuses joies envolées
Je vais sans retrouver traces dans mon coeur.
Chemins de mon amour
Je vous cherche toujours
Chemins perdus vous n’êtes plus
The Diva of the Empire
Under the big Greenaway hat
Flashes the sparkle of a smile.
Of the fresh and charming laugh
Of a baby who sighs—
Little girl with velvet eyes—
That’s the diva of the “Empire.”
She’s the queen who has smitten the men
And all the dandies
Of Piccadilly.
In a single “yes,” she suggests a sweetness
That all the snobs wearing fancy vests
Welcome with frenetic hurrahs.
On the stage they throw bouquets of flowers
Without noticing the mocking laugh
On her pretty little face.
Under the big Greenaway hat...
She dances almost automatically,
And lifts—oh, so aristocratically!—
Her pretty ruffled underthings
And shows her legs wiggling.
It is at the same time very very innocent
And very very exciting.
Under the big Greenaway hat...
The paths of love
The paths that lead to the sea
Have remembered our passage
Of petal-less flowers and the echo, under their
trees, of our two clear laughs.
Alas, the days of happiness
Radiant joys flown away,
I go without finding again traces in my heart.
Paths of my love:
I search for you always.
Lost paths, you exist no longer,
Program Notes:
For Bach, the purpose of music was to illuminate the word of God. Bach was
vocationally bound to such a purpose to be sure, having spent virtually his whole life as a church
musician. But there is ample evidence that he was personally and spiritually bound as well: Bach
was a devout Christian. He was an avid student of theology and owned a library of theological
books on whose margins he penned comments to himself and others. He also famously wrote
that “the aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the
refreshment of the soul.”
Post-Enlightenment musicians and critics have tended to brush aside Bach’s religion
as ancillary to his musical gift—the texts of his cantatas, for example, have been called “so
insignificant that we need all the beauty of the music to make us forget them” (Albert Schweitzer,
1905). Many scholars now, however, are quicker to recognize the centrality of text in Bach’s vocal
works. After all, the church cantata’s foremost purpose was to bring the week’s liturgical text to
life in the minds and hearts of parishioners.
Bach’s music illuminates his texts in several ways. There are many instances of
typically Baroque word painting in the two pieces performed tonight: the long-held note of ruhig
(quiet) in the minor mode, for example, or the falling melisma on weinen (weeping). But there is
also a larger analogy. The texts of both Ich esse mit Freuden and Hört, ihr Augen celebrate
freedom in boundaries. We are content with the little bit of bread we have because a spirit in
communion with God is a blessing beyond the material, sweetening our poverty; and we stop
ourselves from weeping indulgently because we know that God lives on. The same joy is seen in
the comparatively strict counterpoint of Bach’s musical writing. This is not joy in spite of
constraint, but joy because of constraint. Though these ideas are products of a different time,
Bach’s music manages to carry with it a sense of rightness, of limpidness and profound joy.
Mozart was a rather less committed church musician than Bach—he seems to have
preferred to spend his time writing operas or other music. But when Mozart did write church
music, his work was transcendently beautiful, and the C minor mass is one of his most loved
pieces. This duet is memorable for its playful trading of the high points in the soprano line,
through which it achieves a continuity not possible with only one voice.
Fauré once wrote in a letter that through music he aspired to express mystery in the
clearest terms. Thus balance and subtlety occupy a central place in his aesthetic. Often his
melodies hold a great deal of charm, but they are not merely charming: mystery and complexity
lie beneath the surface. Fauré reaches an equilibrium of allure and distance, of clarity and
mystery.
Fauré set down sketches for these five songs while he was vacationing in Venice as a
guest of the Princesse de Polignac, and he dedicated the completed cycle to her. The Cinq
mélodies ‘de Venise’ are settings of the verses of Paul Verlaine, a symbolist poet whose work
Fauré was to turn to often in the next fifteen or so years. He generally chose texts with few
specific images in them—he preferred texts that expressed a mood, or one moment in time. His
Et vos échos sont sourds
Chemins du désespoir
Chemins du souvenir
Chemins du premier jour
Divins chemins d’amour.
Si je dois l’oublier un jour
La vie effaçant toute choses
Je veux dans mon coeur qu’un souvenir
repose plus fort que l’autre amour
Le souvenir du chemin
Où tremblante et toute éperdue
Un jour j’ai senti sur moi brûler tes mains.
Chemins de mon amour...
And your echos are mute.
Paths of despair
Paths of remembering
Paths of the first day
Divine paths of love.
If I must forget one day,
Life erasing all else,
I want in my heart only one remembrance to
stay stronger than the other loves.
The memory of that path,
Where trembling and all a-flutter,
One day I felt on me the burning of your hands.
Paths of my love...
songs, then, are an extension of that moment into a non-temporal plane. Though these five
Verlaine poems are filled with vivid images, Fauré choses to capture his overall impression of the
poem rather than the linear motion of a story, or a succession of individual moments. Still, he
arranged the poems of Cinq mélodies, originally from two different collections of Verlaine’s poetry,
into a story of sorts. In Mandoline there is the serenade in which lovers meet, and the other four
songs represent a progression from the beauty of new love to the climax of absolute intimacy.
Elizabeth Barrett wrote a collection of sonnets to Robert Browning during their
clandestine courtship, but she only showed them to him after the two had eloped to Italy. Robert
referred to Elizabeth as “my little Portuguese” in reference to her dark complexion, and when the
sonnets were published, they were referred to as Sonnets from the Portuguese. With an
uncommon acuteness, these poems depict a mature, multi-faceted love.
Arleen Augér, in commissioning a set of songs from Libby Larsen, wanted a cycle
about the love of a woman, rather than that of a girl; she decided on the Sonnets from the
Portuguese. Larsen wrote of Augér:
She admired the fact that within the stylized and romantic language lived a creative
woman grappling with issues that continue to confront modern women. What part of a
woman’s voice must be sacrificed to the lover and the world? Will the sacrifice be
reciprocated? Can her essence survive? Browning at times soars to the heights of
daring, demanding the world take her as she is; at other moments her self confidence
waivers. Ultimately she realizes, as we must, that love and death demand constant
faith in the leaps life requires. (1993)
Larsen and Augér chose six of the forty-four sonnets to set to music and collaborated over a
number of years on the cycle. The result of their collaboration is a work filled with extraordinary
sensitivity to the rhythms and nuances of meaning in Barrett Browning’s poetry. The musical
rhythms on the page match almost exactly the natural rhythms a speaker might use to interpret
these poems. The dramatic elements line up as well: each song is a series of climactic moments
that, taken together, represent the dynamic nature of a real and lasting love.
The last songs of this evening’s performance speak for themselves. They were
originally meant not for the recital stage but for the theater or cabaret, and all were written for
some charismatic woman performer. Satie wrote La diva de l’Empire, a cake-walk about the star
performer of the British nightclub the Empire, for the “Queen of the Slow Waltz,” Paulette Darty.
Les chemins de l’amour was written for Yvonne Printemps to perform as incidental music in Jean
Anouilh’s Leocadia. The play, which Anouilh referred to as “pink,” (Anouilh also wrote “black”
plays, or “brilliant” or “jarring” or baroque” plays) was a fairy tale about a man who tried to relive
the magic of his love with a woman who looked like his wife Leocadia, after she herself was
strangled by her scarf during an esoteric discussion about art.
Britten’s cabaret songs, inspired by singer Hedli Anderson, are the result of close
collaboration between Britten and poet W.H. Auden (1907-1973). Britten and Auden had met as
young men while they were both working on a British government documentary film, and they
remained close friends throughout their lives; in fact, the two artists, along with Britten’s long-time
companion Peter Pears, lived together in a communal house in Brooklyn for a time. This set of
cabaret songs demonstrates their success—their wit, their empathy, and their high good spirits.
The UNCG School of Music has been recognized for years as one of the elite
music institutions in the United States. Fully accredited by the National
Association of Schools of Music since 1938, the School offers the only
comprehensive music program from undergraduate through doctoral study in
both performance and music education in North Carolina. From a total
population of approximately 16,000 university students, the UNCG School of
Music serves over 600 music majors with a full-time faculty and staff of more than
sixty. As such, the UNCG School of Music ranks among the largest Schools of
Music in the South.
The UNCG School of Music now occupies a new 26-million-dollar music building,
which is among the finest music facilities in the nation. In fact, the new music
building is the second-largest academic building on the UNCG Campus. A large
music library with state-of-the-art playback, study and research facilities houses
all music reference materials. Greatly expanded classroom, studio, practice
room, and rehearsal hall spaces are key components of the new structure. Two
new recital halls, a large computer lab, a psychoacoustics lab, electronic music
labs, and recording studio space are additional features of the new facility. In
addition, an enclosed multi-level parking deck is adjacent to the new music
building to serve students, faculty and concert patrons.
Living in the artistically thriving Greensboro—Winston-Salem—High Point “Triad”
area, students enjoy regular opportunities to attend and perform in concerts
sponsored by such organizations as the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, the
Greensboro Opera Company, and the Eastern Music Festival. In addition,
UNCG students interact first-hand with some of the world’s major artists who
frequently schedule informal discussions, open rehearsals, and master classes at
UNCG.
Costs of attending public universities in North Carolina, both for in-state and out-of-
state students, represent a truly exceptional value in higher education.
For information regarding music as a major or minor field of study, please write:
Dr. John J. Deal, Dean
UNCG School of Music
P.O. Box 26170
Greensboro, North Carolina 27402-6170
(336) 334-5789
On the Web: www.uncg.edu/mus/
