It’s hard to imagine a program of contemporary songs more diverse than the one that rang out in Jordan Hall at this Wednesday’s Arthur Berger Memorial Concert. Yet, despite its mood running the gamut from love to horror, the evening cohered. Part of New England Conservatory’s Composers’ Series, the concert continued an annual tradition honoring famed composer and critic Arthur Berger. Curated around Berger’s Five Settings of European Poets, the concert featured vocal works by NEC faculty members Sid Richardson, Kati Agócs, John Mallia, and Rodney Lister. Indeed, Berger’s song cycle made a solid centerpiece and the other pieces complemented it effectively.
The world premiere of series director Sid Richardson’s deeply personal setting of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” made for a compelling opener. Affectingly, despite Wednesday’s concert being the work’s public premiere, Richardson explained at the beginning of the concert that it had received a private performance at his own wedding. Unsurprisingly, then, his treatment of Browning’s classic love sonnet was heartfelt and effective. Pianist Noriko Yasuda provided a rich bed of extended chords to support soprano Aurora Martin’s warm yet passionate rendition of the text. Interjections of opaque dissonances in the high register of the piano, recalling Ives, build tension as the piece balances tenderness with ardor.
In the next work by Richardson, the same ensemble took a more melancholy turn. A setting of local poet Dan Chiassoon’s “Inscribed on a Lintel,” it honors the memory of Wellesley College Music Department Coordinator Magdalen Christian. The work’s sweeping gestures built in intensity and rhythmic energy. The last line, “I disappeared,” repeated, became truncated, eventually losing its prefix, and becoming simply “appeared.” This striking move gave a palpable thematic import. As it echoed throughout the hall, the word seemed to lend a bit of hope to an otherwise mournful ending.
Berger’s Five Settings of European Poets (1979) continued in the vein of love and loss, treating the audience to poems in Latin, German, French, Italian, and English. As the notes explained, “each of the first four songs is an evaluation/criticism/imitation of a style of vocal writing indigenous to the language in question.” This stylistic variety emerged clearly in performance as tenor Charles Blandy subtly, yet unmistakably, assumed different personas throughout the movements.
In “Felices Ter et Amplius,” Blandy’s voice soared defiantly over the energetic and punchy piano stylings of Rodney Lister, who also wrote the concert’s closing work. In “Wandelt sich rasch auch die Welt” Blandy seemed to adopt the affect of a philosopher. “Le Bois Amical” was rather sensitive, with both performers demonstrating a more tender side, while in “Piazza Navona,” Blandy took on a distinctly Italian machismo in both his voice and his hand gestures. The last movement, a setting of a poem by Christina Rossetti simply titled “Song,” touched us remarkably. The text, beginning “[w]hen I am dead, my dearest, [s]ing no sad songs for me,” received an appropriately heartwrenching setting and a completely committed performance on all accounts. The piano writing in the second stanza especially left Blandy’s voice rather exposed, leading to an intimate and raw, yet beautifully executed conclusion.
The distinctive contrapuntal style of Kati Agócs’s Hyacinth Curl for two sopranos and handbells, will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with works like “By the Streams of Babylon.” Agócs explains in her program note that the text is her own English rendition of a work by Iranian poet Bibi Hayati. The text is sublime; the unusual instrumentation complemented its air of mystery perfectly. Sopranos Sydney Pexton and Rose Hegele carried this unique soundworld, trading glissandi, ornaments, and melismas, constantly striking a balance between imitation and individuation in their renditions. Matching the subtleties of interpretation in these areas must have been quite a challenge, but Pexton and Hebele managed it admirably, all while periodically finding time to strike up an atmospheric chorus of handbells.
In another sharp thematic turn, Rose Hegele reemerged for the world premiere of John Mallia’s unsettling setting of Poe’s “Alone.” A fixed media track full of particulate textures that defied recognition underscored Hegele’s singing. Like an amorphous shadow in a dark bedroom, the sounds seemed to shift from unthreatening metallic ringing to screams and wolf howls–though none could ever be concretely identified. Meanwhile, Hegele gave a performance so committed and chilling that her change in affect when she smiled and bowed was actually jarring–like the villain’s curtain call at the end of a really good Broadway play.
Blandy and Lister returned for the latter’s song cycle Ordinary Heartbreaks and Other Poems of Michael Blumenthal. With its broad expressive and thematic range, the work united the concert’s diverse offerings. The first movement, “Ordinary Heartbreaks” continued in Mallia’s rather terrifying vein, while “Prayer to Be Recited after a Jacques Derrida Lecture” was snappy and clever. “Cherries” reached an emotional highlight, both because of its text itself and its unexpected musical pairing. The poem delivers an emotional gut-punch. The first line reads “[a]fter Auschwitz, it’s been said, it’s no longer possible to write about cherries.” After reading it, the listener might expect something tragic with a sense of wisdom. Instead, Lister’s setting was frantic and raw, a desperate attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. There was something deeply human in that unexpected character that I found profoundly affecting.
“A Man Lost by a River,” exquisitely sensitive, full of soft, high piano clusters, reminded me of Ran Blake’s film noir. It also gave Blandy an opportunity to flex the high end of his range. The energetic and clever “Trip to Bountiful” and “Leap Child” packed quick syllables and plucky gestures. “The Disappointments of Childhood,” might have gotten the same lively treatment, but Lister’s musical choices instead reflected the text’s earnest second half, with foggy, resonant chords pervading the movement. The line “How much does Daddy love you?,” sung in the delicate heights of Blandy’s range, is accompanied by nothing more than a single line on the piano doubling it in unison. This was the only time in the work where the texture reduced so dramatically, and it was possibly the single most striking moment in the concert. At the end of this final movement, the audience’s contemplative silence lasted just a hair longer than usual before breaking into applause.
After the performance, as the audience, performers, and composers mixed, giving congratulations in the tight aisles of Jordan Hall, I was struck, as I always am, by the creative prowess in our tight-knit musical community. Finally, I felt grateful to have heard the music of the great Arthur Berger; I am thrilled that his legacy lives on at NEC. Bravo!