SUMMER SONGS
for SOPRANO and instrumental sextet
Written: 2016
Duration: 21'
Instrumentation: soprano and sextet (flute, B-flat cl., vln., cello, perc. [vibraphone (motor needed), orchestra bells, crotales (high and low sets), med. sus. cym., med. or low tam tam, med. and small triangles, Mark Tree], piano).
Commissioned by The ASCAP Foundation via the Charles Kingsford Fund, for Marnie Breckenridge and the American Modern Ensemble
World Premiere: American Modern Ensemble, Marnie Breckenridge, soprano, Merkin Hall, New York, NY, May 26, 2016.
Publisher: Bill Holab Music
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Note: a version for soprano and piano is also available.
PROGRAM NOTe
There is a seemingly endless supply of poems about summer. After writing Winter Songs for bass-baritone, I realized that I had inadvertently only set poems by male poets, so I decided to restrict myself to female poets for this cycle as a way to create a balance between these two works.
Summer Songs begins with a setting of Summer Music by May Sarton, a light, happy, playfully musical poem filled with allusions to nature. The second movement is a setting of The Kite by Anne Sexton, a poem about honoring and enjoying the moment and the simple things in life, such as flying kites with children. Childhood, the third movement, is a setting of a poem by Sharan Strange about children capturing fireflies. The fourth movement, Moths, is a setting of a poem by Jennifer O’Grady about moths, but relating to late night conversation on a front porch. The cycle ends with a setting of Summer Night, Riverside, by Sara Teasdale, a passionate, warm, optimistic poem that muses on the timelessness of summer.
Summer Songs was commissioned by The ASCAP Foundation Charles Kingsford Fund, for Marnie Breckenridge and the American Modern Ensemble. Special thanks to Marnie Breckenridge for her assistance in selecting the poems for this cycle.
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SUMMER SONGS
For soprano and instrumental sextet
I. Summer Music
May SartonSummer is all a green air—
From the brilliant lawn, sopranos
Through murmuring hedges
Accompanied by some poplars;
In fields of wheat, surprises;
Through faraway pastures, flows
To the horizon’s blues
In slow decrescendos.Summer is all a green sound—
Rippling in the foreground
To that soft applause,
The foam of Queen Anne’s lace.
Green, green in the ear
Is all we care to hear—
Until a field suddenly flashes
The singing with so sharp
A yellow that it crashes
Loud cymbals in the ear,
Minor has turned to major
As summer, lulling and so mild,
Goes golden-buttercup-wild.
Summer Music by May Sarton, from Collected poems: 1930-1993. © W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.
Reprinted with permission from Lippincott Massie McQuilkin.
II. The Kite
by Anne Sexton
Here, in front of the summer hotel
the beach waits like an altar.
We are lying on a cloth of sand
while the Atlantic noon stains
the world in light.
It was much the same
five years ago. I remember
how Ezio Pinza was flying a kite
for the children. None of us noticed
it then. The pleated lady
was still a nest of her knitting.
Four pouchy fellows kept their policy
of gin and tonic while trading some money.
The parasol girls slept, sun-sitting
their lovely years. No one thought
how precious it was, or even how funny
the festival seemed, square rigged in the air.
The air was a season they had bought,
like the cloth of sand.
I’ve been waiting
on this private stretch of summer land,
counting these five years and wondering why.
I mean, it was different that time
with Ezio Pinza flying a kite.
Maybe, after all, he knew something more
and was right.
The Kite by Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems, © Mariner Books, 1999.
Reprinted with permission from Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.
III. Childhood
by Sharan Strange
Summer brought fireflies in swarms. They lit our evenings like dreams
we thought we couldn’t have.
We caught them in jars, punched
holes, carried them around for days.
Luminous abdomens that when
charged with air turn bright. Imagine!
mere insects carrying such cargo,
magical caravans flickering beneath
low July skies. We chased them, amazed.
The idea! Those tiny bodies
pulsing phosphorescence.
They made reckless traffic,
signaling, neon flashes forever
into the deepening dusk.
They gave us new faith
in the nasty tonics of childhood--
pungent, murky liquids promising
shining eyes, strong teeth, glowing skin--
and we silently vowed to swallow ever after.
What was the secret of light?
We wanted their brilliance--
small fires hovering,
each tiny explosion
the birth of a new world.
Childhood by Sharan Strange, from Ash, Copyright © Beacon Press, 2001.
Reprinted with permission from Sharan Strange.
IV. Moths
Jennifer O’Grady
Adrift in the liberating, late light
of August, delicate, frivolous,
they make their way to my front porch
and flutter near the glassed-in bulb,
translucent as a thought suddenly
wondered aloud, illumining the air
that’s thick with honeysuckle and dusk.
You and I are doing our best
at conversation, keeping it light, steering clear
of what we’d like to say.
You leave, and the night becomes
cluttered with moths, some tattered,
their dumbly curious filaments
startling against my cheek. How quickly,
instinctively, I brush them away.
Dazed, they cling to the outer darkness
like pale reminders of ourselves.
Others seem to want so desperately
to get inside. Months later, I’ll find
the woolens, snug in their resting places,
full of missing pieces.
Moths by Jennifer O’Grady, from White. © Midlist Press, 1999.
Reprinted with permission from Jennifer O’Grady.
V. Summer Night, Riverside
Sara Teasdale
In the wild soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled in my hair....
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous again with bloom
For June comes back.
Tonight what girl
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This year’s blossoms, clinging to its coils?
Poem in the public domain.
Press Quotes
“The music for Paterson’s The Four Seasons [including Summer Songs] is distinguished by lyricism and a vivid sense of colour. Each cycle’s mood is generally attuned to its season, such that a fresh, pastoral character informs spring whereas an at-times solemn quality infuses winter... There’s much to recommend in the release, from the work itself to the performances by the vocalists and instrumentalists, but one thing especially deserving of mention is how seamlessly Paterson matches the character of the music to the texts... It’s eminently possible that a listener lacking fluency in English would still derive a clear impression of the poets’ words from the composer’s musical material.”