SONGS OF CASSIS, After Rick Lyon
Harold Blumenfeld
About this work:
SONGS OF CASSIS - musical images of great, looming Cap Canaille, phare de Cassis (lighthouse), and people promenading the port. Baritone, Piano. In English.
SOUND BITE, sample SCORE PAGES on site. Bite is from Jan. 2004 Jonesboro Ark. premiere: Matthew Carey, baritone, Joy Fiala, piano.
Text-focused transparent settings for baritone and piano of two Rick Lyon poems about charming harbor town near Marseille. First song changes tone starkly in its unexpected final moments. Second song, a sentimental waltz, has abrupt surprise ending.
First song "Notre Dame de Bon Voyage" opens with vast pianistic seascape; then focus shifts to singer, words. Towards end, painterly tone shifts towards unexpectedly introspective, emotional ending.........
"Lucienne", second song, a crippled waltz-like image of little old lady with rumpled stockings who plies port, singing chansons for a few sous. Another surprising ending here....... Waves, sometimes gentle, sometimes thundering against lighthouse, are painted into both songs by piano.
CD of 2004 performance available direct from composer, blumenf@wustl.edu
>Former Pub. MMB Music, now closed. Published by COMPOSER: blumenf@wustl.edu
Score: $20.
TEXT EXCERPT: the unexpected ending of "Notre Dame de Bon Voyage" [following upon song's opening descriptive seascape]:
"WHATEVER LIES HEAVY ON MY HEART NOW,
OLD LOSSES AND NEW ONES, BIG AND SMALL, REAL AND IMAGINED, I COMMEND THEM TO YOU, LADY, HAVING HOPED NOT TO LEARN
THE HARD LESSON AGAIN TOO SOON:
HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN GOOD FAITH
TO FRIENDS, LOVE, DREAMS, AND ALL THE TREASURED THINGS WE CAN'T HOLD LONG,
AND I STILL CAN'T FIND THE STRENGTH
TO DO IT ALONE, WITHOUT BITTERNESS AND REGRET, WITHOUT A SHOULDER SOMEWHERE
TO LEAN ON...." Composed 1975, Camargo Foundation, Cassis.
Year composed: 1995
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with Keyboard
Instrumentation: ,1 Piano soloist(s), ,1 Baritone soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: Broad specially notated arpeggio-like sweeps occur in piano part, evocative of sea.
SECOND SONG is to be sung differently from FIRST - a bit faster, with false pathos. Its ending must be abrupt, surprising.