The First Rehearsal

I mentioned earlier that today was the first rehearsal for the recital with piano.  Well, it happened, and it was good!  It went much better than I had expected.  Those expectations aren't knock against the fantastic Carol Zinavage, I mean it to say that with repertoire like this, one never knows what putting the pieces together is going to be like.

Fortunately, we were both prepared and got through the Rorem, Richard Pearson Thomas AND the Urqhart sets in about an hour and a half.  If you're familiar with the Rorem pieces, you know they are very difficult individually for both the pianist and the singer.  Putting the two parts together is even more difficult due to the way they are sometimes set against each other and the close harmonies that result.  The Thomas pieces are even more problematic with the thick textures and complex rhythms and harmonies.

With "new" music, it's always interesting to go into a first rehearsal like this.  Usually there are few recordings available, if any, or those that are available are not good resources because (speaking generally) one performer is not prepared, the recording used an older edition of the score, or the quality of the recording is so that you can't really get anything from it.  So, you're going in a little blind, which isn't always a bad thing.

With that, I'm happy to provide a positive update and say that I'm very happy with today.  Being much further ahead of where you thought you were is always a pleasant surprise!!

Musings on Preparation

I've spent the past month making the initial preparations of the music for this recital and have reached the point where I'm ready to start putting things together with a pianist. In fact, I'll have my first rehearsal with the wonderful Carol Zinavage on August 5.  We'll have about seven weeks (probably 7-14 hours) to put everything together before I have to travel out of town for another engagement.  When I return, we'll have four days (probably 2 hours) before the performance to brush up the work of August and September.  That might not sound like a lot of time, but in this business where operas can be rehearsed and performed in the span of two weeks, it's plenty.  (To highlight the luxury of time, I will have even less time with my other pianist, Tyson Deaton.  We will probably have 4-6 hours of rehearsal together before we give our first performance in February.  Because of that, we've been in constant communication on the music, discussing what we've learned from our solo practicing.  I'll have the advantage of having already performed the music when we have our first rehearsal, which will lighten the burden of our rehearsals.)

With that, I thought I would take a moment and share some thoughts on preparation and the music so far.

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Text Discussion #5: The Real War Will Never Get in the Books - Specimen Days

This will be a lengthy entry because the entry in Specimen Days is long and Rorem set the first and the last words, then cut heavily in the middle.  So, as I've done in the previous posts, and because the context is important, I'll publish the whole entry and italicize the words Rorem set.

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Making the Cut

Putting this program together has sometimes been a little difficult (as I outlined an earlier post, my original idea for a layout failed).  My next task was to put the poems and songs I had chosen into an order where they told a story or where there was some semblance of one poem leading to the next.  The sets where the composer had already made that choice for me was easy, although I'm still wondering if the Rorem is a good place to start.  My decision there is more musical than textual, but I haven't quite decided for sure.  What has happened in the first half is that I've tried to take a journey though the different scenes of the war beginning Whitman's prose and mostly first hand accounts, followed by his poetry that is mostly a re-telling of experiences had by the soldiers.  After that, I move to the assassination of Lincoln with a song that incorporates two poems Whitman wrote for that historical moment and one of the "Drum Taps" poems that the composer uses for a different purpose, a poetic funeral march for the dead President.  I'll talk more about that when it comes up in the series on musical discussions.

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Text Discussion #4: Inauguration Ball - Specimen Days

Ned Rorem sets most of this entry.  After hearing some feedback saying that the strikethrough was difficult to read, I'm going to italicize the words Rorem set while publishing the whole entry here.

Inauguration Ball

March 6.--I have been up to look at the dance and supper-rooms, for the inauguration ball at the Patent office; and I could not help thinking, what a different scene they presented to my view a while since, fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war, brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredricksbugh.  To-night, beautiful women, perfumes, the violins' sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds and blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for the crowd of the badly hurt was great, and much for nurse to do, and much for surgeon.)

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Text Discussion #3: An Incident - Specimen Days

"An Incident" is part of a larger entry in Specimen Days titled "Hospital Scenes.--Incidents." This larger entry contains two accounts or observations from the hospital (Carver hospital) and two tellings of happenings on the battlefield after the fighting that day had finished.  The writing in all of these accounts is very straightforward and blunt, as we will find in a moment.  These other smaller entries don't have any bearing on the text Rorem chose to set, so I will simply point you to where you can read them, if you are interested.

An Incident

In one of the fights before Atlanta, a rebel soldier, of large size, evidently a young man, was mortally wounded top of the head, so that the brains partially exuded.  He lived three days, lying on his back on the spot where he first dropt.  He dug with his heel in the ground during that time a hole big enough to put in a couple of ordinary knapsacks.  He just lay there in the open air, and with little intermission kept his heel going night and day.  Some of our soldiers then moved him to a house, but he died in a few minutes.

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Text Discussion #2: Specimen Case - Specimen Days

"Specimen Case" is from an excerpt of "Some Specimen Cases" where Whitman writes about several wounded soldiers he is visiting.  During 1863 Whitman served as a visitor to the wounded, both Confederate and Union, in the hospitals around Washington.  I'll talk more about this later in a series of posts on Whitman's biography.  For the purposes of this discussion, I think it is enough to say that Whitman was devoted to what he saw as his duty and his contribution to the war effort.  Even though he was a strong pro-Union man and abolitionist, this devotion went beyond that.  His caring for soldiers from the South and the North prove this.

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Text Discussion #1: A Night Battle - Specimen Days

For these text discussions, I plan to go in program order, at least as it stands at the time of writing.  The first set on the program is Ned Rorem's War Scenes, which is a set of five songs drawn from Whitman's Specimen Days.  This work of prose was put together from snippets of Whitman's diaries.  He compiled these writings at the request of "an insisting friend" who wished to know more about the poet's life and his encounters.

You ask for items, details of my early life...You say you want to get at these details mainly as the go-befores and embryons of "Leaves of Grass."  Very good; you shall have at least some specimens of them all.

Rorem's songs come from Whitman's extensive writings about the Civil War, particularly the years 1863/'64.

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Themes and Variations

I hate themed recitals.  To me, the singer is saying that he doesn't feel like the music can stand on its own.  Now, a lot of people don't agree with me, and honestly, that's okay.  Differences like that keep our business vibrant.  After reading that, you might look at the title of this blog and think, "Well, gee, this is a blog about a themed recital."  True, to a point.  It was a challenge I thought a lot about, however, the poetry won out in the end.

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