Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Farley, Liebermann preview London concert of American songs

Soprano Carole Farley and composer Lowell Liebermann, joined by pianist William Hobbs, gave a preview concert Saturday night in West Palm Beach of a concert of American songs that will be presented June 1 at Wigmore Hall in London.

Composer Ned Rorem was supposed to appear to perform eight of his songs with Farley (the two collaborated on a good disc of Rorem songs for Naxos, recorded in 2000), but canceled Friday, citing illness. This was a disappointment, of course, but Rorem's songs came off well, and the small but attentive audience at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse gave them a warm response.

In addition to the Rorem songs, there were two longer songs by Liebermann, nine songs by William Bolcom (who will join Rorem, Liebermann and Farley in London), and six songs by Cuban pianist-composer Ernesto Lecuona; the title of the recital was Songs From the Americas.

Liebermann, a fine pianist, opened the concert with his two Whitman settings: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, Op. 41, and On the Beach at Night, Op. 78. Liebermann's tonal idiom is somewhere in the first two decades of the 20th century; it was reminiscent for me of the music of Nordic songwriters such as Alfven.

The Whitman songs are well-crafted, with some distinctive word-painting: the hushed, slow chords in Out of the Cradle that precede the words "Till all of a sudden/May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate"; the slowly rocking pattern that opens On the Beach, and the more expansive texture that appears at the words "Weep not, child/Weep not, my darling."

Effective music, but much of it had the feel of very skillful stage setting for a strong melody that didn't arrive. Farley was not in particularly good voice Saturday night, but she gave these pieces a strong sale, as she did for all the songs on the recital.

The Rorem set that followed showcased a composer who knows how to frame a poem. Each song had a clear profile and character, and his accompaniments are melodically rich and transparent at the same time; in this way the music narrates the poem rather than the other way around. My Papa's Waltz (Roethke), Youth, Day, Old Age and Night (Whitman) and Early in the Morning (Robert Hillyer) made the best impression, while What If Some Little Pain (Spenser), while lovely, lacked the power called for in the final lines beginning "Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas."

Of the nine Bolcom songs that opened the second half, the most original music could be found in two pieces from his 11-song cycle for Marilyn Horne, I Will Breathe a Mountain � a setting of Emily Dickinson's The Bustle in a House, with its flavor of 19th-century hymnody, and May Swenson's Night Practice, with a quasi-pizzicato bass in the piano that suggested a Bach aria translated to the late 20th century. Farley also was good in Bolcom's Costa del Nowhere, set to a Richard Tillinghast poem about a reunion of old friends, and Mary, William Blake's tragic poem about a beautiful woman destroyed by an envious town.

In addition to vocal difficulties, Farley also had trouble remembering the correct lyrics in several of the songs, which is not all that surprising given the lingual treachery of many of the texts. A music stand might be a good idea for the London show, because this is a distinguished collection of American music (the Lecuona songs are much less so, but they're crowd-pleasers), and Farley is to be commended for putting it together.

Two other notes: Rorem, who's 81, told me last week he's about a third of the way through the orchestrations for his new opera, Our Town, set to the seemingly imperishable 1938 play by Thornton Wilder. He wouldn't say how he'd approached this nearly iconic work � "The music should speak for itself,� he said � but that he's quite aware of all the associations audiences will bring to the opera. "I'm feeling very exposed," he told me. The opera premieres Feb, 24, 2006, at the Indiana University Opera Theater.

And Liebermann, 44, is at work on an opera, his second, set to a J.D. McClatchy libretto of Nathanael West's grim 1933 novel, Miss Lonelyhearts. It's scheduled to premiere at Liebermann's alma mater, the Juilliard School, in April 2006. He's also writing a third piano concerto (the first two are available on a disc by the fine British pianist Stephen Hough) for Jeffrey Biegel, on commission from a consortium of 17 orchestras. One of them is the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, which will give the premiere of the new work in June 2006.

posted by Greg Stepanich 5/15/2005