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B- at minor are followed by one in G- at major,
with a brief reprise of the rst at the end.
FREDERIC RZEWSKI
War Songs No.
Resistance to the norms, in Rzewski’s work, is not
just a creative stance but an ethical one. In this
piece, the rst of
War Songs
he wrote in
,
conventional continuity is crumpled. An initi-
ating gesture—a le -hand mumble—does not
quite get the music moving in the way it seems
to want, and so it tries again, and again. Other
motifs recur, but dodge normal sense.
ere is
something o and about the music, puzzling.
Shortly before the close a cadenza is called for, “a
sudden, unrelated interruption: a ash,” Rzewski
notes, and adds: “Do NOT prepare!”
e year of composition was also the year in
which US military involvement in Iraq began
winding down. Rzewski heads his work with a
quotation from
omas Paine: “Wearied with
war, and tired with human butchery, they sat
down to rest, and called it peace.”
GORDON LIGHTFOOT
“Black Day in July”
(arr. Michèle Brourman)
is protest song by Gordon Lightfoot, from
years before the Rzewski, takes us back to
a time of greater immediacy and con dence in
challenging the status quo. It was prompted by
the civil unrest that broke out between black
people and police in inner Detroit in July
and brought National Guardsmen and US Army
soldiers onto the streets in tanks. Lightfoot, the
single Canadian on tonight’s program, uses a
persistent rock pulsation to drive agitation,
anxiety, and frustration into the song, which
came out on his
album
Did She Mention
My Name?
e arrangement we hear is again
by Michèle Brourman, as in the case of the song
that follows.
LUCY SCHAUFER,
mezzo-soprano
e founder and artistic director of Wild Plum
Arts, mezzo-soprano Lucy Schaufer recently
made her Wigmore Hall debut premiering to-
night’s program and also made her debut at the
Buxton Festival in recital this summer. Over the
past year she appeared as Emma Jones in Weill’s
Street Scene
at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Marcellina
in Mozart’s
e Marriage of Figaro
with Dallas
Opera, the Woman Over
in Peter Eötvös’s
e Golden Dragon
, and the Doctor in Philip
Venables’s
. Psychosis
with the Royal Opera
at Covent Garden, a role she created in
with the same company. A frequent perform-
er of contemporary works, in December
Schaufer appeared in Dallas Opera’s premiere
of Mark Adamo’s
Becoming Santa Claus
as Ib,
and earlier that year she portrayed Susanna in
John Corigliano’s
e Ghosts of Versailles
with
Los Angeles Opera, also participating in its
Grammy-winning recording. Around the same
time, she appeared in LA Opera’s back-to-back
productions of Rossini’s
e Barber of Seville
and Mozart’s
e Marriage of Figaro
, as Berta
and Marcellina. Schaufer’s recent credits also
include Ruth in
e Pirates of Penzance
with
English National Opera, Marcellina with Opera
Philadelphia, Aldonza in
Man of La Mancha
with Central City Opera, Maddy in Jake Heg-
gie’s
ree Decembers
with Florentine Opera,
Jenny in Oliver Knussen’s
Higglety Pigglety Pop
at the Aldeburgh Festival and the Barbican Cen-
tre, Suzuki in Puccini’s
Madama Butter y
with
New Zealand Opera, and both the Drummer in
Ullman’s
Der Kaiser von Atlantis
and Ma Moss
in Copland’s
e Tender Land
with Lyon Op-
era. In concert, she recently appeared on the
BBC Proms in a Bernstein program with the
John Wilson Orchestra, having previously been
a soloist in the world premiere of Simon Bain-
bridge’s
e Garden of Earthly Delights
at the
Proms. Schaufer has also appeared with such
companies as Houston Grand Opera, Opera
eatre of Saint Louis, Oper Faber, Metropol-
itan Opera, New Israeli Opera, Hamburg State
Opera, Washington National Opera, and Co-
logne Opera, among many others. Her debut
solo recording, released in
, is titled a er her
hometown of Carpentersville, IL. Lucy Schaufer
is making her Ravinia debut.
PETER YARROW
“Sweet Survivor”
(arr. Michèle Brourman)
From years later, “Sweet Survivor” regrets the
loss of the energy of
with wistful melancholy
but also with gentle insistence that hope not be
allowed to die.
e song’s author, the Peter of
the immensely popular trio Peter, Paul & Mary,
wrote it for the group’s reunion tour of
.
JOHN CORIGLIANO
Metamusic
Corigliano wrote the rst of these cabaret songs
about music in
for reasons he has disclosed:
“I had always wanted to write a cabaret song en-
titled ‘ ey Call Me Twelve-Tone Rose,’ only
because the delicious absurdity of the title ap-
pealed to me. I made the mistake of mentioning
this to Mark Adamo, and before long the lyric
appeared on my desk. I procrastinated, in my
usual way, but then blundered again, this time
mentioning to Joan Morris over dinner that the
lyric existed. Joan, of course, is not only a be-
witching cabaret singer in her own right, but she
performs evenings of theater and cabaret song
all over the world with her husband, the inter-
nationally recognized composer William Bol-
com, at the piano. Finally, a er Joan’s postcard
reading, ‘Are you going to make a diva beg?’ I
composed (in strict dodecaphonic manner) this
brief lm-noir aria.” In
came a second sat-
ire from the Corigliano–Adamo team, aimed at
the recently introduced iPod and incorporating
nudges at a host of composers (including a brisk
Corigliano self-portrait). en in
, a er an-
other sea change in musical dissemination, “End
of the Line” completed the set.
WILLIAM BOLCOM
Finale: Mystery of the Song?
from
Minicabs
e nale appropriately sums it all up.
–Program notes © Paul Gri ths
Frederic Rzewski
Peter Yarrow
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