Chamber Music High voice,
Piano
SKU:
PR.111402890
Composed
by Ricky Ian Gordon. Full
score. 44 pages. Duration
20 minutes. Theodore
Presser Company
#111-40289. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.111402890).
ISBN
9781491134672. UPC:
680160685264.
What
??s in a name? While the
title is French for
??Eight Flower Songs,?
the texts are all in
English. The poems??
flowers metaphorically
evoke fragrance, love and
loss, life and death,
rebirth and regrowth.
Perhaps the texture and
beauty of Gordon??s
music are themselves
French. The 20-minute
song cycle draws on poems
from Wordsworth to
Dorothy Parker, as well
as from contemporary
poets including the
composer himself.
When
So-Chung Shinn came to me
with the idea of
commissioning a song
cycle with her
spectacular husband Tony
Lee, she had in mind
something having to do
with flowers. Tony had
asked her what she wanted
for her birthday, and she
said she wanted to be
behind the creating of a
new work. Lucky me, I was
the recipient of the
commission. So-Chung sent
me a little description
of all the flowers she
loves, but I had to take
the idea and create a
narrative in my head.It
is always a matter of
pleasing the
commissioner, yet coming
up with something you can
get behind and hear music
for as well. I already
knew I wanted to use my
??Tulips? poem which
is really about the arc
of a relationship as
represented through the
life span of the Tulips,
and, in many ways,
disappointment; and
Dorothy Parker??s ??One
Perfect Rose,? which is
wry, bitter, cynical, and
funny, in a way only
Dorothy Parker can so
pithily express.I thought
of Jane Kenyon??s
exquisite ??Peonies at
Dusk,? because knowing
she died so young (46) of
leukemia, the poem has
such a particular
resonance, almost
humanizing the Peonies,
casting the moon as a
sentient being,
illustrating so
beautifully how connected
everything is, alive
here, and revolving
around these exquisite
blossoms. Then, I
remembered her husband
Donald Hall??s poem
??Her Garden,? which
he wrote after Jane died,
his grief intermingled
with his inability to
care for what she had
created, to keep alive
what so represented her
aliveness, broken as he
was, and I felt I already
had a story.I found the
Wordsworth, because it
felt like pure joy to me,
but also, if each of the
songs has a color in my
head, ??The Daffodils?
is pure yellow and a good
place to start. My
partner Kevin and I live
on a lake, and every
year, the first
Daffodils, the shock of
yellows, the oranges, the
blinding whites, after
the long snowy winters,
sing of the newness that
is about to enfold us in
its green
miraculousness.At first,
the cycle ended with the
Langston Hughes poem
??Cycle,? or ??New
Flowers,? because it
was lovely, and about
rebirth, which is
obviously optimistic, and
apt, but then, my friend
Telmo Dos Santos, a
wonderful Canadian poet
whom I met at Banff, sent
me his poem ??Afterlife
With Lilacs,? having no
idea what I was working
on. I felt I had to add
it because it is so
dazzling, and it
immediately felt like the
missing link. Finally,
there were unfortunately
rights issues, namely, we
could not, no how, get in
touch with the Langston
Hughes Estate, after so
many happy
collaborations.After
almost a year??s
frustration, I wrote my
own text, ??Play,
Orpheus,? which ended
up being fortuitous,
because the first time I
met So-Chung, she entered
the room and the most
exquisite scent of
Lillies of the Valley,
Muguet de Bois, filled
the room. I went right
over to her and rudely
put my nose to her neck,
for the intoxication of
the scent. So ??Play,
Orpheus? is for
So-Chung, to remind us of
the precious treasures of
this world flowers remind
us of. Everything and
everyone lives and dies,
lives and dies. Death and
resurrection.And of
course, this is music,
this is song, so the
inclusion of the God of
music, Orpheus, seems
apt. Huit Chansons de
Fleurs is really about
what flowers represent,
their radiance, their
flickering impermanence,
the way they are used to
celebrate, as well as to
mourn...... and of
course, their fragrance.
Their fragrance.Ricky Ian
GordonJuly 28, 2021.
