Reviews

NCC: Traversing the Americas
Featuring sopranos Elizabeth Madeiros Hogue & Monica Rose Slater
& Tenor Brian Nedvin
November 11, 2019, Chandler Hall
Review by John Campbell

We who live in the United States call ourselves Americans but so do the peoples of Central and South America, starting long before the U.S. was established. This program focused on music of our neighbors to the South: Mexico, Argentina and Brazil as well as the U.S.

Old Dominion University faculty members Elizabeth Hogue and Brian Nedvin were featured vocalists while pianists Stephen Coxe and Invencia Piano Duo, Andrey Kasparov & Oksana Lutsyshyn, performed.

There were unusual but important works on this chamber program that require special attention. The first is Folk Suite No. 2 (1962) by William Grant Still (1895-1978). Still's music was recommended by ODU's New Music Ensemble, whose members played the three-movement suite: Hyorim Kim, flute; Timothy Martin, clarinet; Trinity Green, cello; Laurence Halsey, piano. Andrey Kasparov conducted. Still was part of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920's when black artists came together in New York City to “promote racial advancement through artistic creativity.”

Still's Folk Suite No. 2 highlighted three of the Americas with music from Venezuela, El monigote, with its lively, open, celebrational sound; Anda buscando de rosa en rosa from Mexico, featuring piano and flute enhanced by cello; and the rhythms we associate with Brazil in Tayêras. Considered dean of African-American composers, Still had his African-American Symphony played by the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall (1935), the first ever by a black composer by any orchestra in the U.S. In the next 60 years there were hundreds of performances in the U.S. and abroad. A Guggenheim Fellowship (twice renewed) allowed Still to move to Los Angeles where he wrote 6 operas as part of his 150 compositions. There is so much more of his music to be explored!

The second is two songs by contemporary Brazilian composers sung by soprano Monica Rose Slater, the 2018 winner of the Lisa Relaford Coston Voice Competition. The songs are Diga em quantas (Tell me how many) by João Guilherme Ripper (b. 1959) and Dengues da mulata desinteressada (Fickle, disinterested, mixed-race girl) by Marlos Nobre (b. 1939). The beautiful, young singer sang with confidence, clarity and artistry. Her vocal tone was light and elegant and she seemed totally engaged in telling the stories. The first was about the drama of a man in love. The second told of great passion and the frustration of that passion, while Ms. Slater gestured playing a guitar and ended the song with open arms. She had translated the sung Portuguese into English for the program text. This exciting young singer is an opera star in the making!

The program was capped by the Virginia Premier of Little Suite (1939), discovered by Irene Herman after The Invencia Duo's CDs of Complete Piano Works 1 and 2 by Paul Bowles were released. Before each of the eleven short sections there was a narration voiced by soprano Elizabeth Hogue for Disney cartoon characters: Minnie, Mickey, Donald Duck, Pluto and an aggressive Cat, all with a clever scenario delivered with a light, playful touch. The pianists played the soundtrack that included two reveries by Minnie, Pas de Trios before The Cat Ensnares Mickey, who showed spunk. Cortège was followed by rambunctious music as The Cat Persues Minnie, followed by the Chase, March and finally Happy Ending. Little Suite was written in 1939 when Bowles was employed by the WPA Federal Music Project, paid $23.86 per week and given various assignments, including writing some first-grade piano music, a variety of choral pieces and arranging traditional American folk songs for voice and piano.

This piece may have been written by Bowles as a pilot for additional film work. My evidence is that in the October-November, 1939 issue of Modern Music Magazine, Bowles wrote an essay “On the Film Front” speaking strongly against dull film music. He wrote that the music should be the soundtrack of the visual action. It would be interesting to know if he composed this music for a specific cartoon. (Paul Bowles on Music edited by Timothy Mangan and Irene Herrmann).

The concert opened with Cinco Canciones Populares Argentinas, Op 10, (1943) by Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983). Tenor Brian Nedvin paired with pianist Stephen Coxe performed the five popular songs. These settings are based on Argentine folk songs/dance forms: chacarera, triste, zamba, arrorró and gato with traditional melodies, rhythms and harmonies. Chacarera has a spirited, driven vocal with displaced rhythmic stresses. Triste is a melancholy love song with a long piano introduction with repeated phrases as the singer gives his heart away. The big, passionate vocal in Zamba has complicated rhythms from tango and was followed by a quiet, simple lullaby in Arrorró. Gato has a spectacular piano opening matched by exclamatory vocals as the singer flirts with the pretty dancing girls in a gaucho (cowboy) inspired tune.

Ms. Hogue, with Kasparov at the piano, followed in the first six of a 13 song cycle, Canções típicas brasileiras by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). Each song was collected from a different region of Brazil. For Xangô the text came from the Afro-Brazilian religious tradition. This is an African fetish chant of the Makumba people and rhythmic energy and color dominate. It features the god Xangô who is master of fire and lightning. He loves war and women and helps people withstand the storms of life and protects them from sorcery. It is a “spiritual” without Christian symbolism and was performed with great passion.

Also from the Makumba people came Estrella é lua nóva which speaks of the new moon as a star, sung with understated charm and a winning rhythm. The song Papai Curumiassú is a lullaby with a matter-of-fact text delivered in a gentle, pleading way with the lowest notes describing the sound of the rooster singing from the hill. “Shoo! Ungrateful rooster...”

Villa-Lobos was a prolific composer with some 400-500 known works (as counted by Dr. Kasparov from the Grove Dictionary of Music, not the 2000 claimed by other sources). He is the best known of all Latin American composers and his music “beats with the heart and pulse of Brazil” (David Ewing). The set closed with Viola quebrada with three verses and a thrice repeated refrain. The man meets with his love, who on a whim deserts him for a popular (fado) singer. Ms. Hogue's passionate singing in Portuguese was superb—in both high, dramatic passages and low, earthy notes she offered an authentic experience of another American culture.

After intermission Oksana Lutsyshyn played Suite Cubana (1916) by Mexican composer Manual Ponce (1882-1948). Influenced by study with Paul Dukas in Paris, Ponce's guitar pieces have become part of the oft-played guitar repertory but not his piano pieces, written when he was younger. This performance opened another channel of exploration of Ponce's some one-hundred piano pieces that draw on the brilliant salon style of Moszkowski and Cecile Chaminade. These charming pieces were beautifully recreated for our pleasure by Ms. Lutsyshyn.

Three piano four-hands pieces by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1828-1869)followed. This music is old—composed long before any other composer on this program was born. Gottschalk was born 25 years after Louisiana was purchased from France to become part of the United States. His father was a Jewish-English New Orleans real estate speculator and his French-descended mother was born in Haiti and fled to New Orleans after the slaves rose up to claim their freedom from their French colonial masters. He was exposed to Creole melodies by his mother and was later educated in Paris and at age 16 debuted at the Salle Playel and was praised by Chopin. His popular Creole melodies made him a star in the Caribbean, Europe and South America but not in the U.S. He died at 40 of appendicitis. After his death his music's popularity in silent movies led to its being seen as old fashioned and clichéd. Yet, it transcends time through its emotional power, technical mastery, audacity, wit and charm. This was well demonstrated by the Invencia Piano Duo in three of his less well-known pieces: Réponds-moi: Danse Cubaine (1859); Danse de Nuit (1855); Printemps d'amour: Caprise se Concert (1855).

If the listening audience were not so besotted by European composers we would benefit greatly by an annual “Music of the Americas” program each season. The excellent Norfolk Chamber Consort is just the group to initiate this.