Reviews

NCC: Prince Igor and Poulenc
With Guest Baritone Alex DeSocio
December 4, 2023, Chandler Hall
Review by John Campbell

In a major program, Prince Igor and Poulenc, the chamber music of Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and songs by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) were presented by Norfolk Chamber Consort, featuring many art songs sung by opera baritone, and more recently recitalist, Alex DeSocio.

The opening chamber ensemble played music by Poulenc titled Rapsodie nègre that launched the eighteen-year-old composer's very successful career. During WWI there was a fashion for African arts in Paris. The cheeky, court jester of the six young composers known as Les Six, Poulenc ran across some published verses that purported to be Liberian texts and used them as the center movement of his five-part chamber piece. The texts were a hoax, full of nonsense and Parisian boulevard slang. The joke turned out to be on Poulenc. On the evening of the premiere the chosen singer bowed out, saying the text was too stupid and he didn't want to be taken for a fool. Poulenc, who was in uniform and masked by a big music stand sang the interlude himself—a soldier bawling out a song in pseudo Malagasy!

The third movement, III. Honoloulou, had a sung text with deep, round vocal sounds. The opening I. Prelude offered gentle fun with a tremulous violin and piano shimmer. Then II. Ronda for flute, clarinet and string quartet, was conducted by Tyler Austin. It was a mad dash. The IV. Pastorale was meditative/introspective with exotic piano and V. Final brought it to a happy conclusion.

The music pleased dedicatee Erik Satie and also Ravel, who was in the audience. Stravinsky was impressed enough to arrange a contract for Poulenc with a leading music publisher.

Two songs with contrasting moods followed. Stravinsky in 1910 set two poems by Paul Verlaine. Un grand sommeil noir (A long black sleep) tells of falling into a state of emotional stupor, even death, convincingly sung by Mr. DeSocio. Le lune blanche (The white moon) is somber with its nighttime moonlight-in-the-woods leading to a calm in the voice that becames lovely. Sung in French, it offers a calm that descends from an iridescent sky—"it is an exquisite hour!"

Of Poulenc's song set Le travail du peintre (The work of the painter) we heard five of the seven melodies on poems of Paul Eluard. The program booklet listed only four with text. Juan Gris comes before the final Paul Klee. The poems created a verbal picture of paintings in Poulenc's lighter-than-air style of serious whimsy. The other songs are about Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Georges Braque. The singer gave a colorful reading of each song that seemed to capture an emotion associated with viewing each painter's work.

The neoclassical Serenade for Piano (1925) by Stravinsky was played by Oksana Lutsyshyn. The heading in the program booklet, "Prince's Refined Neoclassical Style and Piano Writing," introduces the piece. We heard the second and third movements. It is Stravinsky's imitation of Nachmusik of the 18th century commissioned by patron princes for festive occasions. 2. Romanza and 3. Rondoletto are not in the key of A major or minor but rather they radiate from and tend toward note A as a "tonic pole." The musical lines in the Rondoletto overlap each other.

While still under the influence of Satie, Poulenc set a cycle of songs, Le bestiaire ou Cortège d'Orphée (The Books of Beasts or Procession of Orpheus) by surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire, creating fantastic and bizarre images. Le Dromadaire (The camel), represented by heavy, plodding piano notes, is a portrait of Portuguese explorer Don Pedro d'Alfaroubeira and his four camels making slow progress. A four bar postlude adds a startling but charming comment. Without pause, Le Chêvre du Thibet (The Tibetan goat) is sweetly silly, saying Jason's Golden Fleece cannot compare to the head of hair he's smitten by. Then comes La sauterelle (The grasshopper). The last two measures see-saw on two notes reminiscent of the sound of the grasshopper's wings. Le dauphin (The dolphin) is sprightly, like breaking the waves in forte, then in piano, almost a conversation. Stranger still is L'ecrevisse (The crayfish) which ends in a big vocal sound as the crayfish progresses "backwards, backwards." Mr. DeSocio closed the set with La carpe. "Poulenc writes a declamatory vocal line of small range: the combination of melodic phrase and piano ostinato produces the feeling of being under water" says Carol Kimball in her book Song. Watching DeSocio's facial expression added to the communication and pianist Zachary Deak was excellent.

After intermission we had "Igor the Cosmopolitan" represented by two songs. The first was Con queste paroline (With these little words) from Pulcinella, a ballet with a song in one act based on music by Baroque composer Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-1736). We heard "You are snatching away my heart" in this rather aggressive love song. All the girls are in love with Pulcinella but there is a plot to kill him so he fakes his death and it all ends well.

Also by Stravinsky was I burn, I freeze from his opera The Rake's Progress (1951) which looks back to music by Handel, Gluck and Mozart and the elegant, gallant style of the 18th century. Mr. DeSocio, a trained opera singer, gave it his all, accompanied by Andrey Kasparov on piano, though Stravinsky's opera was written for chamber orchestra and harpsichord. The opera abounds with lyricism that is "wide-striking and craggy" (David Ewen).

"Poulenc's Sheer Mastery" is represented by his Chansons galliardes (Ribald Songs) (1925-1926), a cycle of three songs. Madrigal describes a charming, beautiful angel who is flat chested. Invocation aux Parques has vocal notes of great seriousness. Couplets bachiques fluctuates between merry verses and deeply expressive ones of "love, sex and rock and roll" as it might be expressed today.

Turning to music from 1917 when Stravinsky was thirty-five years old for "Igor the Teacher", Invencia Piano Duo played Five Easy Pieces for piano duet. It was written between January and April, just months before the Bolshevik Revolution took place in November. Kasparov played the lighthearted student's music and Oksana Lutsyshyn was the teacher!

The closing music from 1932 under the heading "Poulenc the Independent!" was his Le bal masqué (The masked ball) with text by poet Max Jacobs, whose text approached surrealism. Originally written for nine performers, Poulenc considered the work as a sort of carnival, designed with the poet. We heard the world-premiere arrangement by Andrey Kasparov for baritone, piano duo and percussion. David Walker, head of Old Dominion University's Music Department Percussion Program, joined the others to play the large variety of percussion instruments on stage.

Poulenc is known to us today as part monk, part rogue. The religious "spiritual awakening" came in 1936, four years after Le Bal Masqué was written. The opening Preamble with an air of bravery is a bouncy cafe song backed by a bit of percussion. The other movements are Interlude, Malvina, Bagatelle, The Blind Lady, and Finale. Word repetitions follow many phrases. Some lines refer to the body's parts that have failed once a person is buried in the ground, from the bleeding eyes to the pulling of worms from a corpse's nose. There are many absurd notations like making "cannon from goose, grease, grease, grease." The singer treated the audience to a visual of a blind drunk who laughs, then bellows. Mr. DeSocio most enthusiastically gave vocal energy to each line with a variety of percussion backing him while the Invencia duo pianists underlined the expressive scene.

Unique music is standard fare for Norfolk Chamber Consort and for that we are most grateful!