 |
Apparition (1979)
Composer William Bland on George Crumb's Apparition:
"Written in 1979 for Jan DeGaetani and Gilbert Kalish, Apparition is George Crumb's first work for solo voice and piano, and his first setting in English (apart from a number of songs composed in his early years). The text of Apparition is extracted from Walt Whitman's 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd', part of a set of poems grouped under the title Memories of President Lincoln. Whitman wrote 'When Lilacs ...' during the weeks following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, April 14, 1865. Although Whitman's poem is specifically an elegy to Lincoln, Crumb has chosen most of his text from a section subtitled 'Death Carol'. This is a pause in the direct reference to Lincoln, and contains some of Whitman's most imaginative writing on the experience of death.
"In Apparition, each song and vocalise form a piece of a larger vision, eventually coalescing as a tableau. The literary and musical materials focus on concise, highly contrasting metaphors for existence and death. Yet Crumb's cycle offers the listener reassurance. For just as in Whitman's verse, death is never depicted as an ending of life; instead, it is circular, always a beginning or an enriched return to a universal life-force."
Text for Apparition:
Excerpts from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (1865) by Walt Whitman
The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
Approach strong deliveress,
When it is so, when you have taken them I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O death.
Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.
The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
George Crumb (b. 1929) has established himself as a unique and original voice in music from the United States. His music is intense and dramatic, often evocative of haunting images and otherworldly settings. His many notable works include Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1967, and more well-known pieces written in the 1970's such as Black Angels (Images I) and Ancient Voices of Children.
Crumb was born in West Virginia to musician parents: his father was a clarinetist, his mother a cellist. He studied music at Mason College in West Virginia and the Universities of Illinois and Michigan, where his principal teacher (and greatest influence) was composer Ross Lee Finney. Crumb's own career as a teacher began at Hollins College in Virginia and the University of Colorado in Boulder. In 1965 he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he taught until his retirement in 1997. Crumb's many awards and honors include the Pulitzer Prize, the Edward MacDowell Medal, grants from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Fromm, and Ford Foundations, and the Prince Pierre de Monaco Gold Medal in 1989. Crumb's music has been recorded on major labels as well as Bridge, Centaur, Col Legno, CRI, Jecklin, and Phoenix.
related websites
http://www.georgecrumb.com
Mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani was known as an intelligent and expressive interpreter of avant-garde music, which she performed from the 1960's to her death in 1989. She made notable recordings of works by Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Charles Ives, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire (1912); these and others can be found on the Albany, Arabesque, Bridge, CRI, New World, Nonesuch, and Sony labels. Although a specialist in new music, DeGaetani was also at home performing medieval music, baroque cantatas, and lieder from from the 19th century. She appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Berlin, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, as well as the BBC Symphony and Scottish National Orchestra. DeGaetani initially studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, and from 1973 taught at both the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and the Aspen Festival in Colorado. Her most celebrated students include Dawn Upshaw and Renée Fleming.
Gilbert Kalish studied piano at Columbia University in New York City with Julius Hereford, Leonard Shure, and Isabella Vengerova. He made his professional debut in New York and London in 1962, the same year in which he co-founded the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a New York-based new music group active until the late 1970's. He also performed with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players from 1969 to 2000. Kalish has had memorable partnerships with other artists, including singers Jan DeGaetani (a 30-year collaboration) and Dawn Upshaw, and cellists Timothy Eddy and Joel Krosnick. As an educator he served as artist-in-residence at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and was a member of faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Since 1970 he has taught at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Kalish's discography of some 100 recordings includes major labels as well as Arabesque, Bridge, CRI, New World, Nonesuch, Serenus, and Smithsonian Folkways.
related websites
http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/CAS/music.nsf/pages/kalish
| |
