Rachmaninoff:  Daisies

Rachmaninoff: Daisies

Okay, perhaps on another beautiful day in Berkshires I shouldn’t wave goodbye so quickly to summer.  Igor Severyanin’s poem beholds daisies in perfect summer bloom, and Rachmaninoff doesn’t hold back.  I got to know the music when I was fourteen,...
Schumann:  Des Sennen Abschied

Schumann: Des Sennen Abschied

This week I am in the Berkshires, preparing for a performance at Tanglewood of my Variations on a Summer Day, songs which in part were previewed on the NYFOS Next series two years ago.  Songs about summer, and about mountains, spring to mind.  I am numbering these...
Kurt Weill:  Muschel von Margate

Kurt Weill: Muschel von Margate

I met Cyndia Sieden outside her voice lesson at Marlena Malas’s studio in 1982. She was a breath of fresh air—guileless and smart, an unbeatable combo. We seemed to fall into one another’s confidence instantly. I was fascinated by her name, which happens to be the...
Lee Hoiby:  What If

Lee Hoiby: What If

William Sharp has been my most enduring song partner. We met at Aspen in 1978, where he was a fellowship student and I was…whatever I was. An apprentice coach or something. The first thing I remember working on with Bill was the Act I duet from Don Pasquale, what’s...
Puccini: Chi il bel sogno di Doretta

Puccini: Chi il bel sogno di Doretta

It is amazing what you can find on the internet. Trawling YouTube for this week’s videos, I nonchalantly typed “Blier Fleming” into its search engine. There were a few clips I already knew about, but also something I had not seen before: a performance of the Rondine...