Reviews

La música hispana
Shannon Jennings, soprano; John Holman, guitar
Wycliffe Presbyterian Church, October 4, 2023
Review by John Campbell

Besides the sheer pleasure of the evening's musical experience there has been the intellectual quest of learning more about the composers. As Shannon Jennings said in her generous remarks throughout the evening, there is a wide range of Spanish language songs besides the ones from Spain. October was Hispanic Heritage Month and Ms. Jennings says she "grew-up in Miami a skinny, white Cuban" and as her first teacher, a Cuban, told her it was "her duty to sing these songs and share this music." With full text and English translations, the handsome program booklet was expanded by the conversational comments of soprano Shannon Jennings and guitarist John Holman.

Jennings opened with five of the seven songs from Manuel de Falla's Siete canciones populares españolas (Seven popular Spanish Songs) from 1914-1915. The songs of Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) are rooted in Spanish folk music with a flavor of flamenco. The emotionally volatile songs were wonderfully presented by the rich, full voice and with guitar with its percussive possibilities. The underlying theme of virginity in El paño moruno (The Moorish cloth) told us that stained cloth loses its value and Seguidilla murciana (a dance from Murcia) frames it as a coin that is passed from hand to hand becomes worn. In Asturiana the singer finds consolation in bonding with nature through a green pine tree (a symbol of sexual desire). The plaintive melody comes from northern Spain and created a melancholy mood in Jennings' beautifully lyrical voice. The tender, hypnotic lullaby Nana followed. The final song Polo offered the thrumming, Gypsy-world guitar of flamenco in which sadness and love unite in high-spirited passion vibrantly voiced Ay, Ay. We felt the curse of love viscerally.

Having anchored our journey in an exciting, traditional song cycle, Ms. Jennings moved into a wider world of Spanish text from the Caribbean with the Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona (1896-1963). Lecuona is a sort of Latin Gershwin with a prolific output in many forms, walking a careful line between art song and Latin popular musical theater (zarzuela) and movie music. Five of his hit songs can be heard on Placido Domingo's CBS CD A Love Until the End of Time.

Lecuona favored an open string guitar. From his only opera, Maria la O we heard La Romanza de Maria, the aria accompanied by John Holman on violin and with Valetta Fellenbaum at the piano (imagine it is a bongo drum!). The lush vocal tore at our heart strings: "Miserable mulatto, your life is over." Her lover has betrayed her and she wishes him dead at her feet. "Maria la O then dreams of dying!" Lecuona wrote his own text. We learned that due to governmental restrictions Cuban scores are almost impossible to obtain.

Turning to South America (la musica latina), with guitar and voice we heard Cantilena from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). The opening vocalise was followed by the dreamy and beautiful Portuguese text. It is pure passion filtered through a voice expressing a longing that both laughs and cries. The end is a hummed reprise of the opening vocalise that "reminds one of a song whose words have been long forgotten" to quote contemporary composer Ingram Marshall.

The last group of three love songs were from Mexico: Manuel Ponce (1882-1948) Estrellita (Little Star), Bésame Mucho (Kiss me a lot) by Consuelo Valázquez (1920 - 2005) and Cielito Lindo (Beautiful Little Heaven/My Darling) by Quirino Mendoza y Cortés. (1862-1957). All three have both music and lyrics by the composer.

In researching these pieces I came up with stories that connected the songs to a bigger picture. American coloratura soprano Beverly Sills (1929-2007) was building a career in opera and worked with conductor Andre Kostelanetz (1901-1980) who was for a time married to French born soprano Lily Pons (1898-1976). Pons was a superstar at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the 1930s and sang Estrellita (Little Star) often during her career. Sills wrote: "Kosty gave me lots of her arrangements. After I did Estrellita with him I used it often as an encore. It was very dear."

The musical theme of Besame Mucho (Kiss me a lot) is from an opera well known in Spain: Goyescas by Enrique Granados (1867-1916). As a child, Consuelo Valázquez (1920-2005) heard the opera and decided she wanted to be a composer. In her song we hear the passion of the Latin soul. It was written in 1932 when she was twelve years old; as she says, "before I'd ever been kissed." Besame Mucho became a big band hit during WWII and still stands as a symbol of the Latin heart. Domingo's CD even includes a disco version! Consuelo Valázquez had a long, successful career as a composer.

The closing song, Cieltio Lindo (Beautiful Little Heaven/My darling) was used as a singalong. We practiced the "Ay, Ay Ay"s that came in each verse. This happy song is a favorite of Mexican expatriates who have spread it around the world. The line "when singing my darling, hearts rejoice" we responded with "Ay, Ay, Ay." What a wonderful evening of passionate song, and what a superb voice!

Later we found that the Beverly Sills Sony Classical CD Plaisir d'Amour ends with three Spanish language songs: The Maiden and the Nightingale from the Granados opera Goyescas, and Ponce's Estrellita. In the third, La Morena de mi Copla (The brunette of my song), the lyricist and musician Alfonso Jofre de Villegas Cernuda and Carlos Castellano Gómez used three symbols of Mexico: the embroidered shawl, the happy guitar and the red carnation. We're now looking forward to hearing them live as well!

In her comments during the recital, Shannon Jennings told us how every singer of Hispanic origin she knows has experienced the same racial put-down she has: when her singing failed to live-up to her teacher's expectations, as not classical or operatic enough, she was told "This is not Besame Mucho."

During the pandemic, American sopranos Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra and American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, along with pianist Vlad Iftinca and guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, performed arias and scenes at the Royal Opera of Versailles. All three singers are of Hispanic heritage. In addition to arias by Mozart, Offenbach and Bizet they also sang the beloved Spanish language songs Bésame Mucho and Cielito Lindo.

We watched the broadcast on PBS on October 8, 2021, and at the time assumed that, like the Three Tenors' including Neapolitan songs, including Besame Mucho was an entertainment driven decision. Now it looks like a statement of pride and perhaps one of defiance against generations of white Anglo classical prejudice.