Caroline Charrière's For Emily, settings of eight of Emily Dickinson's poems, was a commission for the 2004 Ernen music festival, but not all eight pieces were performed then, as they are very difficult. We were so glad we managed all of them (and with only small problems which were not noticeable to the audience). A world premiere! Caroline was hoping to attend the concert, but was ill and sent messages instead.
She had made some changes since 2004, which led to amusing incidents in rehearsal, as Mon had the original version and the singers had 2.0.
Dickinson's poems are short, succinct, and well-crafted. The settings are also short, and beautifully put together. They are for SATB, divisi at times, with a couple of solo passages. The rhythms are very important: strong basic patterns overlaid with complex off-beats; there are frequent tone clusters and generally crunchy bits, interspersed with lovely snatches of melody. On keyboard the harmonies are rather uncomfortable, but somehow they sound wonderful with voices - possibly because singers would naturally slip into untempered.
Beginning with the cool and relatively simple We never know we go, when we are going, each one is different in style.
Gamblers ('We lose because we win') drops us into complicated rhythms: any piece that gives you a time signature of 8/8 and then in slightly smaller print 6/8+1/4 is going to be interesting. The direction 'dansant' is a clue to how to sing it - if you swing your hips twice and then bounce, you've got it. The ending is great fun, with a huge crescendo on a glissando to a really lush chord, with first sopranos on a flashy top A, and altos doing their subtle dissonance thing on a less-than-subtle top C# and D. There is a story that the word settings were originally a little different, and we were relieved not to have to sing "toss, toss toss". It is occasionally noticeable that Caroline is not a native English speaker, and two or three times the musical stresses were at variance with the words, for example in We never know we go where there is a hefty downbeat on the low of following.
In this short life took a lot of rehearsal. It has fast fierce rhythms in 3/8 with a metronome going for the whole piece and no way to fudge the timing; entries are sometimes sung and sometimes spoken on offbeats and counter-rhythms. The directions are "agité, angoissé" and if nothing else we were sure to achieve both of those. Mon used a metronome via internet ("and joining us all the way from California..") but it didn't work so well in the church so we had a real one for the concert. The score calls for two lots of percussion with "two sticks on another or an object". Someone found a split log for second percussion, and the next day Hans decorated the percussion-log with "For Caroline" and a lovely line drawing of the church, and we all signed it.
The following piece, Noon, is a complete contrast, being slow and 'Mystérieux', with long passages of gently chromatic quavers against held chords, and a final crescendo to an ecstatic "Ah!".
Being the only English-speaking soprano, I spoke the words of A word is dead, which has a pretty melody and an exuberant final "live... live ...live!".
I also sang a small duet in I'll let my heart, a delicate setting of touching words with the characteristic chord build-up at the end, but this time pp, even though there are 11 notes in the final chord!
Back to rhythmic complexities for Of Heaven, but this time created not by unusual beats and offbeats, but built out of a 4-voice canon with passages gradually silenced, and ending with one bass voice softly singing "Heaven below". It is very difficult to keep the timing exactly towards the end when there is little left of the original. It was also difficult at first to remember not to sing the missing words!
Finally, Fame is a bee is bright and bouncy, with a joyful melody in tenor and bass, sometimes in unison and sometimes dissonant.
Sopranos and altos keep up a backing bee-noise on quaver runs. It's not easy to keep pitch on a bzzzzz sound - z is pitched, but hard to control; Mon had some of us singing doodle-ooodle to keep the tune, and the rest zzzzing.
What a delicious contrast to the early music, and again to the Brahms.
The early music selection consisted of Palestrina's Missa Brevis, Weelkes' All People Clap Your Hands, Sweelinck's Viri Galilei, and Philips' Ascendit Deus.
Weelkes is fun, and I think we almost got the trumpet imitations. The Sweelinck is bright too, but it was quite hard work with only two first sopranos against three hefty basses (there were three first sops present, but one had a sore throat and couldn't sing). This was also true of the Philips, though I adored singing it for the soaring sopranic passages.
Palestrina is always a pleasure to sing (and one of the few composers I feel comfortable sight-reading), though the canonic passages can be tricky if you lose the pulse. We had the Chester edition which is rather modern: barlines can encourage the wrong stresses unless you've learned to use them only for checking where you are in relation to other parts, so Mon had to spend some time lightening final syllables and getting the words right. The three soloists for the Benedictus had sounded lovely in rehearsal, so it was such a pity, on the Sunday, that the trio (which wasn't performed in the concert programme) was skipped because the priest rushed straight past it.
The Brahms songs were just lush. We began the concert with Abendstäaut;ndchen and Vineta, and finished it with Waldesnacht, Dein Herzlein mild, and Es geht ein Wehen. Gorgeous.
I hope to get chance to sing the Charrière again.
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