French Airs: L'aimable Iris est de retour

This post combines two projects - my public domain project and my French airs project. I've realized the figured bass for "L'aimable Iris est de retour" by Joseph Chabanceau de la Barre. It would have originally been accompanied by theorbo, lute or harpsichord, but I've arranged it for piano which is much more common in a modern voice studio. I'm singing just the first verse; the second verse (called a double) is highly ornamented. Performance of just the first verse was standard practice for voice students in mid-seventeenth-century French airs and makes the piece very useful for lessons today. This way students can work on the French language while singing simpler vocal lines and they can also master the small ornaments that are expected on repetitions. As they master the language and technical skills required they can begin to work on the double.

Here's an idiomatic translation:

The lovely Iris has returned, but she has not changed. She is as indifferent as always, Just as I am enamored as always.

An Adventure in Teaching

Last week a 9-year-old piano student asked me how long a piece of music can be. It's an interesting question. She asked it because most of her pieces have lasted 30 seconds to about a minute, but we've been working on a piece that lasts more than twice as long as those she has played in the past. Most musical works fall in a range from 30 seconds to several hours. That may seem like a very wide range but if you think of the difference between the length of a pop song on a top forty station and that of an opera from Wagner's Ring Cycle and you begin to get an idea of what might be possible. Really though, a piece of music can be any length of time, as long as there is a way to perform it.

When this student asked the question, It made me think of John Cage's piece Organ2/ASLSP (As Slow As Possible). Cage wrote it in 1987, but it is based on an earlier piece from 1985. Most performances of ASLSP have lasted between 20 minutes and 24 hours, but this performance is going to last (is lasting?) 639 years. It is taking place at a church in Halberstadt, Germany. It began in 2001 with a rest that lasted for 7 months, and it will end in 2640. When a sound is changed, it is a major event in the world of new music scholars, who flock to the church to hear it. You can hear the piece as it plays at the projects's website (German). The next change will happen about a year from now on October 5, 2013.

I mentioned to this student the Halberstadt performance of Organ2/ASLSP. She had one or two general questions. I answered her questions and we went on with the lesson. I figured she would understand that pieces can be very long and forget about this specific piece since it's very much outside her experience. This week, I was pleased but surprised when she brought up the piece again. She had thought about it and had many more questions. What instrument is it for? How long is each note? Does someone sit and play all the time? Do people sit and listen? Why was it written? Can it be done faster and if so how fast? As we talked about it I realized that, for her, music was no longer narrowly defined - in at least one respect, it became limitless and exciting.

French Airs Project

I've been working on and off for years on a project of french airs. It started as one of my DMA projects but needs refining and polishing. I'm hoping these pieces will be useful as pedagogical tools.

So often, singers avoid standard French art song repertoire until they reach the sophomore or junior year of college because much of it is difficult. Not only does it require an understanding of advanced music theory, but with a few exceptions they are quite difficult technically.

The pieces I'm working on are from the 17th and 18th century and use a musical language similar (though highly adjusted to the French language) to those in the standard Italian arias singers are so familiar with (the 24 Italian Songs and Arias; and the newer 26 Italian Songs and Arias).

There are some challenges with this repertoire. First, French as it was spoken at that time was not the same as modern French. This is hardly surprising since 17th and 18th century English is quite different from today's English, but since I'm not a native speaker it's harder for me to adjust. Luckily, I found a highly useful online tool, the ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago. It includes several dictionaries from the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

Second, these pieces are only available in the U.S. as facsimile reproductions. Some are available digitally (see the Lully score above), but others are only in hardcopy form at a few libraries. I was fortunate to visit Oberlin College & Conservatory in the summer of 2008 where the Conservatory Library is full of excellent facsimiles.

Lastly, most of the scores include only a figured bass and vocal line or are for full orchestra and voice. The pieces must be arranged so that those who are not specialists in early music can accompany the singer.

This is the part I'm working on refining now. Although I made arrangements for a recital I gave in December 2008, that performance showed me that they still needed improvement. My goal is to have accompaniments that an intermediate pianist can perform, this way it will be more useful for high school level students who often don't have access to excellent pianists. It will also give more teachers the option of playing for their students.

I'll try to post more information as I continue the project, perhaps including a performance and/or a score.

Toot, Toot Tootsie

This is the latest video in my public domain video project. "Toot, Toot Tootsie" by Gus Kahn, Erie Erdman and Dan Russo was published in 1922. Any later and it wouldn't be in the public domain! The original publication has the highly apropos subtitle, "A Cute Fox-Trot Song."

The song is quite well known, but most performers have sung only the chorus. I've included the first verse, which puts the chorus in the third person rather than in the first person. Instead of the singer telling a girlfriend good-bye in a ridiculously happy way, it becomes a story about a silly man saying goodbye at the train station that the singer tells to friends. Hope you enjoy it!

Check out my Youtube channel for more videos.

Cosi fan tutte: "Soave sia il vento"

This trio is one of my favorite compositions by W.A. Mozart and this is my favorite recording of it. Despite the Peter Sellars production feeling very dated, (hello, 1986!) there is something about this performance that is very touching. Susan Larson plays Fiordiligi (in pink), and I had the honor of studying with her my junior and senior years at the University of New Hampshire. She and the other singers (Janice Felty as Dorabella and Sanford Sylvan as Don Alfonso), along with conductor Craig Smith give a beautiful performance.