Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts: Melodies of Stephen Foster

Abstract

In his time, Stephen Foster's works were considered suitable for the blackface minstrel stage, the parlors of the most self-consciously genteel, and sometimes both. However originally designated (e.g. Ethiopian song, plantation melody,' ballad, or merely song), they are variously comic and ebullient, sentimental and refined. On Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts, the ensemblein-residence at the Stephen Foster Memorial of the University of Pittsburgh offers an assortment of types. The production is modestly conceived, and that is its greatest virtue. Available on cassette, it features Kate Young and Claudia Benack (sopranos), Guy Russo (tenor), James Ferla (guitar), Mark Graf (piano), and Jean Thomas (flute). In a mix of solos, duets, and trios, the group approximates the distribution of musicians one might find in a midnineteenth century parlor: sisters and a brother singing, perhaps, with friends or other family on instruments for which Foster's music was arranged. The ensemble successfully evokes a performance milieu of the composer's day. Then, as today, not all types of vocal music were performed the same way. In 1845 Walt Whitman contrasted the of the operatic troupes with the heart of the singing families. We know a great deal about the performance practice of art music; we know less about how vernacular songs were sung on the stage and in the parlor. But we do have phonograph records of the latter music, and while they do not reach back to Foster's lifetime, their trail is nearly a century long. Following it can help us see modern performances in the context of several generations of Foster performances, and thus establish a context for criticism.