Music Reviews

Abstract

Music Reviews Kathleen Roland-Silverstein (bio) Three of the publications reviewed here are the newest in a continuing windfall of works by women composers. These recent offerings, all published in 2022, include well known composers like Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn and Barbara Strozzi, but also others who have been neglected and who deserve to be better known, as is the case for twentieth century American composer Lola Williams. All are available from ClarNan Editions/Classical Vocal Reprints, which continues to be an invaluable resource for sheet music and pdf scores for musicians in all genres. But I begin with a review of the first set of songs, a truly special offering by American composer, Alan Louis Smith, whose remarkable and rich songs have been discussed in the Journal of Singing, and who was a recent interviewee in the journal's "Collab Corner." Smith, Alan Louis (b. 1955). Surfing the Thin Places: a Cycle of Five Songs for High Voice and Piano. Words and Music by Alan Louis Smith. E. C. Schirmer, 2022. "Surfing the Thin Places"; "Morning Glories"; "Gratitude (There are no words …)"; "To Tell a Life in a Line of Verse?"; "Joy! Welcome Home Joy!" or "What we like to hear when we return home." Alan Louis Smith's Ellis Island: A Song Cycle in Six Parts,1 Vignettes: Covered Wagon Woman,2 Five Psalms from Jonathan to David,3 and Vignettes: Letters from George to Evelyn,4 have been lauded and performed widely by such eminent artists as singers Stephanie Blythe and Christine Brewer, and pianists Craig Rutenberg, Warren Jones, and Roger Vignoles. As a fortunate mentee of Dr. Smith while in graduate school and as a young artist at Tanglewood Music Center, and as the fortunate singer for whom he wrote And With Such Boldness: A Set of Three Songs for Voice, Violin, and Piano,5 I am very familiar with the composer's prolific body of work and his remarkable ability to write for the voice. Collaborative pianist and colleague Margo Garrett interviewed Dr. Smith for the Journal of Singing "Collab Corner," where they talked together about how the composition process has aided him in his other roles as a performer and educator.6 He especially emphasized how the special relationships he has enjoyed with the singers for whom he writes have inspired him to create his songs. Surfing the Thin Places is one such creation; he wrote them for the husband and wife team, soprano Lucy Fitzgibbon and pianist Ryan McCollough. "In this latest commission, I thought I could write anything for Ryan, as he can play anything, just as Lucy can sing anything. So I asked what would feel good in Ryan's hands, what would feel good in Lucy's voice? So that is a part of what I do."7 And this is indeed what Alan does in every song he writes. Each is created with his remarkable acuity for the parameters of the voice (and the spirit) of the performer he has in mind. Surfing the Thin Places is no exception, offering a colorful and demanding palette for the sensitive singer and pianist. His compositional style is described thus in the interview: "Alan Smith, as a composer, is a harmonic sensualist. So you must use timing and color to create the most audible sensuality you can."8 Surfing the Thin Places is a tribute to his beloved mother, whom he describes as the first "wonderful soul" of his life, "who 'graduated' in April of 2018 at the age of ninety" (composer's notes), after suffering a stroke. The first two song texts begin with an incipit, a prompt that leads into the composer's own words for each song. He references Rilke in the second song. All these brief interpolated quotations and allusions serve to demonstrate his deep connection with the literature of song. The title song "Surfing the Thin Places" (E4–A5) is a rhapsodic, soaring paean of wonder and love, as the poem contrasts the stillness of his mother's body in her hospital bed to her spirit, which moves like a sea bird on the ocean waves. The title refers to a wonderful saying suggested by a...