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
â??Eight Flower
Songs,â? the texts are
all in English. The
poemsâ?? flowers
metaphorically evoke
fragrance, love and loss,
life and death, rebirth
and regrowth. Perhaps the
texture and beauty of
Gordonâ??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
â??Tulipsâ? 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 Parkerâ??s
â??One Perfect
Rose,â? which is wry,
bitter, cynical, and
funny, in a way only
Dorothy Parker can so
pithily express.I thought
of Jane Kenyonâ??s
exquisite â??Peonies at
Dusk,â? 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 Hallâ??s poem
â??Her Garden,â?
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, â??The
Daffodilsâ? 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
â??Cycle,â? or
â??New Flowers,â?
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 â??Afterlife
With Lilacs,â? 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 yearâ??s
frustration, I wrote my
own text, â??Play,
Orpheus,â? 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 â??Play,
Orpheusâ? 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.
