OAK, FEATHER, AND STONE: to Friends Passed and Present
Harold Blumenfeld
About this work:
"OAK, FEATHER, AND STONE - TO FRIENDS PASSED AND PRESENT" [2004] - cycle of four songs set for Baritone or Mezzo and Piano to poems of Isabella Tate Gardner, Jan Castro, Paul Thiel, and William Matheson...
SETTINGS respectively entitled:
I "ISTHMUS", II "WAX-WINGED",
III "METAMOPHOSIS", and IV "FINALE".
>Former Pub. MMB Music now closed. Published by COMPOSER: blumenf@wustl.edu
Score: $40...
Incorporated into CASTRO's poem: ICARUS, BRUEGEL, AUDEN together with Janice Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix.
THIEL's poem paints barren landscape, loneliness, a towering oak, a redeeming joyous flights of birds.
Recurrence of elemental images in these central poems reflected in piano as underlying elements.
Cycle composed May 2004 at Djerassi artists retreat, Woodside, CA. Written in memory of Bella Gardner and Bill Matheson...
TEXTS EXCERPTS:
Bella's "Isthmus" ends in what might pass for an assault on equal temperament. Maybe even on the dodecaphony which assumes it:
"...DESCRIBE TO ME THE ISTHMUS BETWEEN
C SHARP AND D FLAT. I NEARED IT ONCE
BUT WAS TO AWED TO STARE."
Composer notes that listeners often assume he employs 12-tone system. He does not. He finds it entirely extraneous to his text-driven purposes. He admires what dodecaphony has achieved in liberating sound, texture - especially in works of Berg, Webern, and more recently, Carter, Boulez, Henze, Takemitsu - all affected by the technique, once it is freed and extended from its initial shackles. But he sees as somewhat preposterous the dodecaph assumption that a transitory high 8th-note D is given same value as a low, sustained C#, and laments the system's enthroning of equal temperament. Let us admit: Db is not C#; etc ad infinitum. This composer's attention is riveted on serving great texts without negotiating in and out of arbitrary constraints.
TEXTS.
From Jan Castro's "Waxed Winged":
"..DOWN FROM THE SKY ON WINGS OF WAX,
TILTING INTO THE OCEAN SWIFTER THAN FLIGHT, MORE FLEET THAT THE EYES
OF SAILORS IN A BOAT, THAN SOWER IN THE FIELD. ICARUS! LONG AFTER GRAVITY
TUMBLED HIS LIMBS INTO THE SEA,
BRUEGEL AND AUDEN RESURRECTED HIM.
NOW EACH FREE-FALLING JOPLIN AND HENDRIX, EVERY HANG-GLIDE PILOT
AND BUNGEE JUMPER TAKES OUR EARS, EYES
TO STRATOSPHERIC, IMPOSSIBLE HEIGHTS..."
And lines from middle of Thiel's "Metamorphosis"--
I BLINKED. THE SUN WAS BLINDING.
THEN A RUSTLE OF WINGS.
A DOVE DRIFTED ABOVE THE GIANT OAK
AS THOUGH LOSING THE ANCHOR OF EARTH,
SOARING, EVER A METAPHOR,
INTO THE INFINITE..."
Matheson's "Finale" defies excerpting, but gets under way with:
"CONJECTURE GAVE IT BIRTH;
WORDS HAVE THEIR PLAY, THEIR GIVE;
VOWELS, SHIFTINGS;
ICONS LIVE CAPRICIOUSLY,
THEIR WORTH IS ALL IN SPAWN, IN SPREAD;
PRESENCE, INSISTENCE FLEE"...
...and ending both poem and cycle, his
"..DEARTH, OPULENT OF SENSE,
MUSE ON THIS INNOCENCE."
Year composed: 2004
Duration: 00:16:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Solo Voice with Keyboard
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: 'OAK, FEATHER, AND STONE - TO FRIENDS PASSED AND PRESENT'.
Baritone or Mezzo, Piano