Resounding Verse – Details, episodes & analysis

The Mass for the Endangered, by Nathaniel Bellows and Sarah Kirkland Snider, appeals not to God but to nature itself and (in Snider's words) takes the "musical modes of spiritual contemplation" associated with the Latin mass and applies them to "concern for non-human life—animals, plants, and the environment."

The third movement of the Mass, "Alleluia," describes the brutal destruction of the natural world yet at the same time offers a promise of renewal.

The episode features a recording of the movement by Gallicantus, under the direction of Gabriel Crouch; an album of the entire Mass was released in 2020 by New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records.

If you're interested in learning about another haunting collaboration by Bellows and Snider, check out my podcast episode on "The River," from their song cycle Unremembered.

Alleluia
Nathaniel Bellows

Sea of cradle, foundling,
current, cold and quelled as morning.
Braid of vapored ashes,
shadowed creche, collapsing.

Contour, carve, corrode—
breathe through camphor, coal,
seed each breeze with gold.
Poison, parch, pollute—
plow the coast, the dune,
flow toward constant moon. 

Alleluia

Hearth of stone, of tar, of lava,
shelter shielding mother.
Oh, save us mother!   

She who is sleeping,
Is she who will wake.  

Fracture, foist, defoul—
shatter cliff and shoal,
sand each stone to whole.
Harbored, held, unharmed—
she’ll wake, rise, rejoin,
her daughters and her sons. 

Alleluia 

The title track from Rhiannon Giddens's recent album You're the One—which was just released by Nonesuch Records—is a love song, but not one about two adults; it's about a moment Giddens experienced with her newborn son, pressing her cheek against his and realizing that her world would never be the same again.

In this episode I reference a book by Matt BaileyShea called Lines and Lyrics: An Introduction to Poetry and Song. If you're interested in learning more about how words and music relate in pop songs and art songs and everything in between, I'd urge  you check out his book. It's superb, and really accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike.

You're the One
by Rhiannon Giddens (the song was cowritten with Lalenja Harrington)

I knew you were the one 
Were my one and only
And I knew 
That you would always know me 
Cause you were the one 
Who kept me from feeling 
So sad and lonely in my life and

I never knew 
Life could be so wonderful
That there could be someone 
Who was so beautiful
And I never knew  
That I could be so free  
To love someone like you and 

I wanna love you forever 
And I’ll be with you  
For worse and for better 
And I never thought I’d fall  
But you’re the one  

I thought my life was drawn  
In shades of gray and  
That washow 
I would live my everyday and  
Aimless no direction found
My destiny was going through the motions of a life and

Then you came along  
With your sweet sweet smile and  
Then you put your cheek  
Right next to mine and  
All those shades of gray slowly turned into a  
New technicolor world and  

I’m gonna love you forever  
And I’ll be with you  
For worse and for better  
And I never thought I’d fall  

And I’m gonna love you forever and  
I’ll be with you for worse and for better  
And I never thought I’d fall  
But you’re the one  

You’re the one 
Your smile contains the sun
Rays of glory  
You’re the one

Nathaniel Bellows’ poem and Sarah Kirkland Snider's haunting setting of it—from her song cycle Unremembered—revisit the site of a childhood trauma and meditate on innocence and the mechanisms of memory.  

The performance of the song features vocalists Padma Newsome, DM Stith, and Shara Worden, and the Unremembered Orchestra (members of ACME, Alarm Will Sound, ICE, The Knights, and Sō Percussion), conducted by Edwin Outwater.

In the episode I discuss Nathaniel Bellows' illustration that accompanies his poem; you can find this illustration, as well as the others associated with the song cycle, on the Unremembered website.

The River
by Nathaniel Bellows

On the banks
The wash so brown
The shadows blue
They’re black

I saw the form
Astride the loam
Splayed out upon
Its back

A bear, a dog
A bed, a log
A child’s eyes
Are pure

Until the hands
Of the missing man
Were clear against
The dew

The river’s flow
A blackened bow
That tied around
Our town

Had sapped his life
Like a lantern’s light
Buried
Underground

Anne Carson's poem and Caroline Shaw's mesmerizing setting of it meditate on the feeling of being in and out of time.

The recording of the song, which appears on the album Let The Soil Play Its Simple Part (Nonesuch, 2021), features Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion (Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting).

The 21st-century Mexican composer Rodrigo Ruiz sets a text by the 19th-century German writer Heinrich Heine. In so doing, Ruiz channels 19th-century musical style and offers a deeply moving interpretation of a poem about the loss of love and the death of an artistic tradition that Heine once held dear.

The performance of the song features soprano Grace Davidson and pianist Christopher Glynn.

The song appears on the CD An Everlasting Dawn.  Check out Ruiz's recent CD of chamber works, Behold the Stars, on the Signum Classics label, and be on the lookout for Signum's release of his song cycle Venus & Adonis.

Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen
by Heinrich Heine

Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen,
Das du einst so schön besungen,
Als die zaubermächtgen Flammen
Wunderbar dein Herz durchdrungen?

Jene Flammen sind erloschen,
Und mein Herz ist kalt und trübe,
Und dies Büchlein ist die Urne
Mit der Asche meiner Liebe.

———

Tell me, where is your beautiful sweetheart
That you once sang of so beautifully 
When the magical flames of love
Wonderfully pierced your heart?

Each flame is burnt out,
And my heart is cold and grey,
And this little book is the urn
With the ashes of my love.

Kendra Preston Leonard's poem and Lisa Neher's song—about a man who sells fresh fruit on a summer day—celebrate something sumptuous where we would least expect it.

The performance of the song is by Arwen Myers, who is also featured in a previous episode about a song by Florence Price.

Be sure to check out other collaborations by Kendra Preston Leonard and Lisa Neher,  especially the works in their micro-opera festival. 

Strawberry Man
by Kendra Preston Leonard

The Strawberry Man
and his little pinto pony
Sweetness, slaked
in the city street

Poem reproduced with permission from the author

Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and it has been set to music by many composers. This episode explores an extraordinarily inventive setting by the Black American composer Margaret Bonds (1913–1972), recently recorded by bass-baritone Justin Hopkins and pianist Jeanne-Minette Cilliers.

This recording comes from a playlist created by Hopkins and Cilliers, which includes performances of music by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.

To access a published score to the song, see Louise Toppin's anthology Rediscovering Margaret Bonds: Art Songs, Spirituals, Musical Theater and Popular Songs. Toppin, a professor of voice at University of Michigan who has been a longtime advocate for Bonds's music and the music of other African American composers, has also done a wonderful video recording of the song. See also the list of Bonds works published by Hildegard Publishing Company.

Learn more about Bonds's songs, access her song scores, and hear another performance by Hopkins and Ciliers on Art Song Augmented, my website devoted to art songs by underrepresented composers.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.  

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

In Julia Johnson Davis's poem "To My Little Son," a mother imagines what her baby boy will look like when he's twenty-one years old, and wonders whether, when he's grown up, she'll see glimmers of the boy in the man. Thinking of her own son, Florence Price turned to Davis's poem and created a song that is nuanced, affecting, and deeply personal.

The recording of “To My Little Son” is by soprano Arwen Myers and pianist Monica Ohuchi.

Learn more about Price's songs, access scores, and hear video performances of her songs by bass-baritone Justin Hopkins and pianist Jeanne-Minette Cilliers, and countertenor Darryl Taylor and pianist Deborah Hollist on Art Song Augmented, my website devoted to art songs by underrepresented composers.

To My Little Son
by Julia Johnson Davis

In your face I sometimes see
Shadowings of the man to be,
And eager, dream of what my son 
Shall be in twenty years and one.

But when you are to manhood grown,
And all your manhood ways are known,
Then shall I, wistful, try to trace
The child you once were in your face.

The protagonist in Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem looks upon a tree that has died and wonders what caused it to wither. She stands apart from the scene, awed and perplexed, but at a crucial moment enters the scene and takes a decisive action. In H. Leslie Adams's song, that action seems even more decisive—and even more brutal.

The recording of "Branch by Branch" is by Darryl Taylor and Robin Guy, and comes from a CD called Love Rejoices: Songs of H. Leslie Adams.

Branch by Branch
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Branch by branch this tree has died.
Green only is one last bough
Moving its leaves in the sun.
What evil ate its root,
What blight,
What ugly thing?
Let the mole say,
The bird sing,
Or the white worm behind the shedding bark
Tick in the dark.
You and I have only one thing to do,
Saw, saw, saw the trunk through.

In Nikolaus Lenau's poem "Scheideblick" (Parting Glance) a man leaves his beloved and, as he departs, imagines sinking his happiness into the ocean. Josephine's Lang's setting of the poem evokes the ebb and flow of the sea, and also the ebb and flow of the emotions associated with it.

For more on Josephine Lang, see Harald and Sharon Krebs's book Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs.

The recording of “Scheideblick” is by mezzo-soprano Milagro Vargas and pianist Susan Manoff.

Learn more about Lang's songs, access her song scores, and hear video performances of six of her songs by tenor Kyle Stegall and pianist Eric Zivian on Art Song Augmented, my website devoted to art songs by underrepresented composers.

Scheideblick
by Nikolaus Lenau

Als ein unergründlich Wonnemeer
Strahlte mir dein tiefer Seelenblick;
Scheiden musst’ ich ohne Wiederkehr,
Und ich habe scheidend all mein Glück
Still versenkt in dieses tiefe Meer.

Like an unfathomable ocean of joy
Your soulful gaze shone for me;
I had to take leave, knowing I would never return,
And as I departed I quietly sank 
All my happiness into this deep ocean.