Philip Wharton, music

William Shakespeare, texts

Program note:

A product of 19th-century Romanticism, a song cycle is a group of songs written by one composer on texts by one poet. The poems either tell a story or treat a central motif. Favorite themes are those based on memory: love found; love lost through death, war, or abandonment; changes in place or nature; and searching for self.

Since the genre had not been conceived during Shakespeare’s time, it’s safe to break the mold. Instead of a central theme, I chose a central character: The Fool—whether it’s King Lear’s fool, sought as the only person allowed to speak truth to power; Arragon (The Merchant of Venice) whose love or lust doubles his stupidity thereby making him a fool; the motley philosopher fool (As You Like It) who reassesses the importance of time; Bottom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) stealing Titania’s line to state the obvious; or Gratiano (The Merchant of Venice) holding forth, imagining himself the fool, and thereby identifying fools who choose not recognize what they are.

After sitting in silence to imagine these texts sung, I chose to set them in an overtly operatic, dramatic style, but with one as a quiet interlude. A Gloaming at Midsummer misremembers the 1877 popular song In the Gloaming by Annie Harrison and Meta Orred. Gloaming is twilight (the perfect time for enchantments). The song is about a long lost love that could never be. I use ethereal harmonies to accompany the melody, which is twice interrupted by Bottom’s braying. Then sung at the end of the piano solo is my favorite line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “(she’s) enamoured of an ass.”

The texts of “Birdsongs” are linked in that they all explore the experience of humans and the birds they encounter. Sometimes the birds are a metaphor for human relationships, as in “Birds.” In “Chickadee, Chicory,” the melancholic speaker ponders the rhyming of the names of a transient summer flower and a bird that she associates with the brevity of life, which the little girl, now a teenager, will soon learn. The third song is a playful meta-exploration of the act of composition, as the speaker narrates a one-sided dialogue with a woodpecker that taps at the outside wall of her house while she pecks at her computer keyboard composing the poem. “Hummingbird” attempts at once to capture, in word sounds, the hummingbird’s flitting movement itself and our wonder at its mystery. “Craning” points to the ecstatic, almost spiritual nature of the encounter with a flock of great cranes mounting the sky.

Writing music for poems and thereby turning them into songs is like being given an abstract coloring book. The composer’s crayon box is filled with rhythm, harmony, textures and all things we associate with music. Carol first gave me “Birds” and “Chickadee, Chicory” when I was looking for texts and they were such wonderfully musical poems that I had grab my crayons and set them. After finishing the two, the pair called for others to be in their flock. Carol graciously wrote three more poems for me. Carol made collaboration a joy: She understands music—and not just the overall tone of her language, but also when I would ask for changes (giving the reasons why), she would always come up with imaginative musical solutions. The first three songs gather speed, there’s a brief dreamy respite in the fourth, and the final song glories in the beginnings of flight, but ends with a quiet remembrance of the first song.

The prairie is sometimes described as an endless ocean of grass. To depict this, I chose to use ostinati. An ostinato is a short repeated accompaniment pattern. Sometimes an ostinato contains melodic elements, which can be manipulated and transformed and caused to undulate like windblown grass. You will hear ostinati in all but one of the songs (…of Late summer)

In …of Waters by night, I have written quiet, legato patterns to depict the sounds of soft rains and murmuring creeks. In …of Laughing corn, short staccato notes tell the listener that the corn is chuckling/giggling and energetic triplet patterns tell that the corn is bursting out in laughter. Have you ever ridden on a train and become aware of the distinctive rhythmic patterns? You will hear them in …of Passing night. These patterns become the basis for the return of water in …of Beauty; the patterns begin in the highest registers of the piano before falling gently at the ends of phrases.

In France in the early part of the twentieth century, it was not unusual to see a piano in an artist’s studio. Artists, musicians, poets, fashion and costume designers were all exploring new modes of expression; they delighted in artistic exchange and responded to each other’s work in their own media. I wrote The Prairie Sings in response to Kristi Carlson’s vision of the prairie. I was fortunate to find the wonderful poetry of Carl Sandburg to give me further inspiration. This song cycle was written to celebrate the opening of Kristi Carlson’s thesis exhibit and is dedicated to her.

Janet Burroway’s story, The Perfect Pig, follows Piggy as he copes with his perceived imperfections. Aided by his animal friends offering the best aspects of themselves, his journey is in three sections, each with four improvements. Piggy tries on a mask, a mane, a shell, and a fish tail—then gives them back. He tries on legs, a horn, a snout, and a horse tail—which fall off of him when he falls down. Lastly he tries ears, a trunk, a peacock tail and a neck—before finally flinging those back laughing at the absurdity of it all.