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Michel Legrand: You Must Believe in Spring (Tony Bennet and Bill Evans)
Today is definitively the first day of autumn. I cannot ignore the fact that the days are shorter, that deadlines are growing tighter, and that I never seem to have enough time to get everything done. My mood must have something to do with this endless election, which is like a 29-month pregnancy—at the end of which you might be giving birth to a monster. On days like this I need a re-set button. Bill Evans and Tony Bennett come to the rescue with a song I find very reassuring at this time of year: “You Must Believe in Spring.”
Frank Bridge: Goldenhair
My teaching week has mixed coaching sessions with auditions for the January NYFOS@Juilliard show: an all-British program called “From Lute Song to the Beatles.” I had asked the students to bring in English song, suggesting they they might offer one art song in tandem with either an operetta aria or a popular song. It’s only Tuesday and I’ve already heard Finzi, Quilter, Britten, John Ireland, and Purcell—
Sergei Taneyev: The Restless Heart Is Beating
My Tchaikovsky concert isn’t till early next year, but I want to get it squared away now before the autumn hits me like a ton of bricks. Having decided to include a little group of songs by Tchaik’s teachers and students, I received some expert guidance from Antonina Chehovska, the soprano soloist for the project. She had wonderful ideas for Rubenstein, Arensky, and Taneyev, and I appreciated her promptness and her enthusiasm.
Adam Guettel: Awaiting You
“Awaiting You” has all the Adam trademarks—a gorgeous harmonic progression, a lyric that provokes and stimulates, and a white-hot opulence that never fails to conquer me. Here is the unbridled Billy Porter, who gave the first performances of the song.
Puccini: “No, pazzo son” from Manon Lescaut, sung by Beniamino Gigli
I spent three hours of my day today listening to my fellow young artists here in LA sing arias for each other, with feedback from our fearless leader Josh Winograde, who’s job is the hiring of singers. These sessions are a chance for us to get up, sing something that may be a total work in progress, and work through our challenges. One thing that Josh says time and time again is to “give us what we want.” I think this is so poignant, and a topic of much debate among modern musicians.
Benjamin Britten: Songs and Proverbs of William Blake
One of the pieces of music that has haunted my mind (and by that I mean made my imagination run wild) since I was first exposed to it is Britten’s “Songs and Proverbs of William Blake”. Written in 1965 for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the piece serves as a meditation on the state of the world and the frailty of man in Britten’s day and Blake’s, about 200 years prior to the work’s composition.
Giuseppe Verdi: The Sleepwalking Scene from “Macbeth”
If I felt strange and out of place in the rehearsal room, my discomforts were quelled when we got into the theater. It turns out Verdi didn’t write Macbeth for a rehearsal room, and it is certainly something exhilarating to be onstage in a gorgeous 3000+ seat house hearing these singers do what they do (and doing a bit of it myself), learning from the dark, majestic sect of this art form called Verdi. Here for your listening pleasure is Maria Callas singing Lady Macbeth’s final grand scena, the Sleepwalking Scene, from Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth.
Stephen Sondheim: “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods
To conclude the week, I offer you one of my favorite songs about children, “Children Will Listen” from Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Even before I had my own little one, the message of this song always went straight to my heart. Such a beautiful way to be reminded of our power and responsibility towards the next generation, here sung by the song’s originator, Bernadette Peters.
Mozart: “Pa Pa Pa Pa” from The Magic Flute
And now for some parent-related frivolity courtesy of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. This duet makes having lots of little ones running around sound like nothing but fun, but I’d love to hear another version of this ten years down the line once all of those little Papagenos and Papagenas have their parents busy! This recording features Bryn Terfel and Miah Persson.
Schubert: Erlkönig
Being a parent opens the door to a whole new set of fears, which makes this already frightening song downright terrifying. I clearly remember the first time that I heard Schubert’s “Erlkönig” in a German diction class twenty years ago and being completely riveted. Here to bring us this miniature masterpiece is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Jeff Blumenkrantz: I Won’t Mind
Continuing with our theme of motherhood, “I Won’t Mind” by Jeff Blumenkrantz beautifully captures the feeling of longing for a child, by highlighting all of the seeming mundane things that make time spent in their company exquisite, here sung by Audra MacDonald.
Francis Poulenc: La courte paille
This last year my life has changed rather dramatically with the arrival of my daughter Amélia. So when I was invited to contribute to the Song of the Day series, the natural theme that came to mind was exploring motherhood in song.
Gian Carlo Menotti: Steal me, sweet thief
“Steal me, sweet thief” has been one of my favorite arias since I heard it about 2 years ago. I only started singing it recently because my usual English aria, “No Word from Tom” from Stravinsky’s opera The Rakes Progress (another must-listen), wasn’t quite doing it for me anymore. “Steal me” is one of the only well known arias by Menotti.
Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman: Simply Second Nature
The song is “Simply Second Nature” from the 2013 musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. I heard it for the first time as an undergraduate student, when I was just beginning to delve into the world of musicals. As a classical musician since childhood, I found that I really didn’t know much at all about Broadway. And recently, I’d started to try my own amateur hand at some composition, so I needed all the guidance I could get.
The Chieftains: The Foggy Dew
Before coming to Orient for NYFOS@North Fork I spent two months in Europe. My adventures began with a week in Ireland. It was my second time visiting the Emerald Isle but this time around I really fell in love with the country and became fascinated with its compelling history. After a week in the Irish moors and probably enough pints for a year, I trekked off to Vienna for the Franz Schubert Institut where, lo and behold, I met an Irishman and we became fast friends! Between our escapades into the German Lied, my new friend Seán Boylan would introduce me to his favorite Irish bands and singers.