| In Recital September 16, 2022 |
| Three (?) Bragas |
Reviews
Before we review Chrystal E. Williams' September, 2022 recital, I want to recount how we kept in touch since we last heard her sing live in June, 2019. Instead of a live recital in 2020 we shared a Zoom visit with Chrystal on April 10th. Her online-only 2021 Eighteenth Annual Evening with Chrystal E recital can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mpIuiych5Y. Imagine our surprise to find two photos of her in the October, 2021 BBC Music Magazine in an article about the late British opera director Graham Vick. She had important roles in several of his productions at Birmingham Opera (England), including Fricka in Das Reingold. She was offered the same role in Virginia Opera's fall 2021 production at Topgolf which used Vick's revision and Jonathan Dove's orchestration but was busy singing Carmen with Opera North in Leeds, England. We also saw her at a local movie theater in November, 2019 in the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series in Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten as Akhnaten's daughter Maketaten. Fellow GSA graduate Will Liverman was in the same production. We first heard Cinco Canções Nordestinas do Folclore Brasileiro by Brazilian composer Ernani Braga (1888-1948) on line on February 10, 2021, when we watched a program co-presented by Baltimore Concert Opera and Opera Delaware where Chrystal was accompanied by her husband Felipe Hostins on accordion. They also performed Bizet's Habanera and Seguidilla from Carmen and five folk songs by Lorca. All were arranged by Felipe. His accompaniment fitted well with her classically trained mezzo voice. It was really exhilarating with all of the jazzy improvisations. On December 17, 2021, also online, Chrystal performed the Braga songs again in a program with pianist Laurent Philippe presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series. The catchy rhythms and the intensity of these folk-song settings reached a whole new level of intensity as if we were all in the hall together.
This was the nineteenth annual “An Evening With Chrystal E” recital. The texts and translations were available to download to your phone but Chrystal Willaims' passionate singing left no doubt about her commitment to communicate meaning. She opened the evening with Tre Canzone, three passionate songs by Otorino Respighi who was fond of the human voice. He wrote more than sixty songs between 1906 and 1933. Notte (Night) offers poetic images of a garden infused with the scent of roses. The very air trembles with an ethereal atmosphere of a night weeping tears with a sustained legato vocal line in a fairly high tessitura. The end is a long sustained note by the piano. The second song, Nevicata (Snowfall), creates a playful scene of the world transformed and covered by white and ending with a nostalgic reverie on past loves. Her passionate delivery reminded me of another Italian composer, Puccini, and Madame Butterfly. In Nebbie (Mists), she sang a rising vocal line of sustained dramatic intensity throughout. The song paints a picture of mist over open fields with black-winged ravens evoking a wandering and despairing soul. Chrystal's face and body seemed to draw-in, only to explode outward, accompanied by Oksana Lutsyshyn's rich textured piano. The second set was by Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), the first African American composer of art songs in the European fashion. We know his settings of Spirituals well but his art songs less so. Encouraged and taught by Antonin Dvořák, Burleigh set poetry for solo singer and piano. Of Five Songs of Laurence Hope (1915) Ms. Williams said: “I was intrigued. Here was a black American man, composing vocal works to poetry by Adela Florence Nicolson (1865-1904), an English woman (Lawrence Hope was her pseudonym) who lived most of her life in India. There is power in music and it connects us all. Burleigh's musical life and influence is a testament to this fact!” I suspect that the earthy text's flagrant emotion in matters of love, joy and pain symbolized by flowers and tears, captured Burleigh's attention. Even in death in the last song the poet is lulled to sleep with a kiss! Today African American classical composers are finally getting a hearing by a broader audience. We had previously heard Burleigh's song cycle Five Songs of Laurence Hope sung by Orson van Gay II at Portsmouth Community Concerts in February, 2020 and on Metropolitan Opera baritone Will Liverman's 2021 CD titled Dreams of a New Day. The late Patricia Saunders Nixon's thesis, Harry T. Burleigh's Art Songs: A Forgotten Repertory, can be found at http://www.artsongupdate.org/Reviews/BurleighHarryT.htm/CelebratingHarryTBurleigh.htm Next came songs by Brazilian composer Ernani Braga (1888-1948), Cinco Canções Nordestinas do Folclore Brasileiro (Five Northeastern Brazilian Folk Songs). Carol Kimball, in her book Song, has said of his songs: “he takes the speech rhythms of the Afro-Brazilian dialect and blends them into his songs. In many songs, specific words, sound imitations or repetitions are used to colorful effect, producing an onomatopoeia that is almost hypnotic, and does not depend on literal word meanings.” Chrystal pointed out the unique way that "Braga built in a bit of the spirit of the Brazilian people, their beautiful way of maintaining their joy in life through difficult times. They are a people who love to laugh, dance and joke and this shines through Braga's compositions.“ Braga was a composer, conductor, musicologist, educator and virtuoso pianist. He was born on January 10, 1888 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and studied at the National Institute of Music where he embraced Brazilian musical nationalism. His most well known songs are the Five Northeastern Brazilian Folk Songs. He toured Brazil as a performer and educator the last eleven years of his life. He died on September 16, 1948. O'Kinimbá is a song of praise to the king for spiritual strength, inviting the king "to be among us.” The rich harmonization comes with attractive rhythms. Capim de pranta (The Persistent Weed) has an Afro-Brazilian rhythm. This Jongo song from Alagôas has an infectious, very rapidly paced vocal line with piano that propels the song forward. This is followed by a pause—the weed has grown again. Once again the rhythmic pattern represents attacking the weed until the queen gives orders that the workers are to stop. Chrystal and Oksana filled the room with joy! In Nigue-nigue-ninhas (Lullaby), this Afro-Brazilian lullaby blends Portuguese and African dialect but has no clearly defined English text. Braga dedicated the song to his daughter, offering a deep lovingness. A simple, rocking figure in the piano accompanies a beautiful lyric line. The song ends with an introspective hum. São João-da-ra-rão (St. John's Day). This children's song is typical of the northern region, celebrating St. John's Day with bouncy rhythms. St. John and the angels play their harmonicas even here on earth in this song addressed to a girl named Mary who is getting married. Ay!Ya! ends the celebration. Engenho novo! (The New Sugar Mill). Using the spinning of the wheel as a focus, the sung text accelerates as Ms. Williams' voice goes higher to a grand climax! The music builds native Indian, Portuguese and African elements into an exuberant dance. There are more songs by Braga that I would like to hear, especially his Cancioneiro Gaúcho (Cowboy Songs). I hope Chrystal will perform them in a future concert. The last set of songs featured music by two Black women composers and closed with Chrystal's signature Ride On, King Jesus, set by Hall Johnson (1888-1970). Chrystal has said “Spirituals are some of my favorite music. I find such freedom and joy in them.” First was You Can Tell the World by Margaret Bonds (1913-1972). Many of her compositions showcase her command of the piano. There are leaps and hand stretches that rival solo piano work with vocal lines that drew the audience into quiet hand-clapping. This was followed by Rev. Dr. Lena J. McLin's (b.1928) Don't You Let Nobody Turn You Round. The sense of urgency and grandeur she created with running notes was offset by piano chords brilliantly performed. Chrystal: “I love her play with rhythm. I hope it touches the core of your being.” We were all enthralled by this set that ended with Ride On, King Jesus, followed by an encore, Summertime by George Gershwin that also soothed our soul with her rich, mezzo-soprano voice. From the beginning Chrystal's recitals have been fundraisers for a scholarship for recent high school seniors who are pursuing a college degree in the arts. For 2022, Aniyah Ricks was the scholarship recipient and Dakota Smith received the Encouragement Award.
Researching Ernani Braga (1888-1948) was a challenge. Fortunately Chrystal Williams had discovered an Ernani Braga song on YouTube and went directly to the internet and discovered Sergio Anderson de Maura Miranda's thesis written in 2010. Researching our in-house reference books and CD booklets which date from the late 20th century led to confusion until we finally found Miranda's thesis (https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1952&context=theses). To promote Casa Ricordi's publication of Braga's Cinco Canções Nordestinas do Folclore Brasileiro (Five Northeastern Brazilian Folk Songs) the songs were first presented on July 1, 1942 in Buenos Aires with Braga at the piano accompanying mezzo-soprano Clara Souviron. The great Brazilian mezzo-soprano and Metropolitan Opera star Bidú Sayao (b. Rio, 1902; d. Maine, 1999) recorded them on June 2, 1947 and made his songs known throughout the world in her recitals. Her CD booklet is correct for his name but not for his birth (born 1888 not 1898). To ensure the performance of Braga's songs into the future, Sayao handed his music over to Teresa Berganza. The error begins in the program booklet for mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza's CD Villa-Lobos, Braga, Guastavino (1983, Claves 50-8401). We ordered it after seeing it listed in the Schwann Opus catalog where Braga's name and dates appear accurately. Yet the CD booklet's composer biography (unattributed) erroneously names “Francisco Ernani Braga (1868-1945)” as composer. Imagine our confusion. Our further research indicated that two different composers named Braga had been blended to create a third who never existed. The twenty volume Grove Dictionary published in 1980 only lists “Braga, (Antonio) Francisco” (b. April 15, 1868. d. March 14, 1945). In 1890 (when Ernani Braga was two years old) Francisco Braga traveled to Europe on a fellowship where he studied for a time with Massenet. He later lived in Germany where he was influenced by Wagner. As a composer he followed late Romantic models in his mostly orchestral works. He wrote church music and there is an unfinished opera. No songs are listed. Thus Ernani Braga (1888-1948), the composer of Five Northeastern Brazilian Folk Songs, and Francisco Braga (1868 -1945), the composer of romantic orchestral and church music, were conflated into Francisco Ernani Braga with various dates from both. In Song: A Guide to Style and Literature, the art song scholar Carol Kimball cites the Berganza CD and re-publishes the errors found there and then discusses Ernani's songs with great insight. I also found the song Maracatú on a longtime favorite CD titled Duets for Spanish Guitar with Salli Terri, mezzo-soprano and Laurindo Almeida, guitar. The song is correctly attributed to Ernani Braga but lists his dates as 1868-1945. Ernani's dates are, in fact, 1888-1948. We hope that this research will help others interested in Ernani Braga's music to bypass the confusion we encountered. Printer Friendly Back to Review Index
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Keeping Up with Chrystal E. While Covid Kept Us All Apart