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EFD37ABC-C0A3-42B4-B113-1E2133149F28
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Update Title: EFD37ABC-C0A3-42B4-B113-1E2133149F28
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Started upon a commission for a major work from the International Horn Society, Warren Benson incorporated another song cycle he had in mind for the distinguished mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani into the work. In looking for appropriate text, the composer recalled that distinguished American novelist John Gardner had studied horn at Eastman School of Music as a young man. Mr. Gardner responded favorably to the collaboration and provided six poems to the project. The titles given in the program for the various songs are by the composer, suggesting aspects of the poems which are both descriptive and in their small way, symbolic. Songs: I. Awakening, II. Two Step, III. Lullaby, IV. Spring, V. Siciliana, VI. Nocturne
Instrumentation
Mezzo-soprano (Vocal range: F#3-B5), Horn, English Horn, Marimba, Cello
Commission
Commissioned by the International Horn Society
Dedication
Program Notes
Upon accepting a commission from the International Horn Society to write a major work featuring the horn, Mr. Benson had in mind another song cycle for the distinguished mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani, professor of voice at the Eastman School of Music. After much thought concerning an appropriate text for such a cycle, he remembered that the distinguished American novelist John Gardner had studied the French horn at the Eastman School of Music as a young man, and had performed as a professional musician on the instrument. He wrote to Mr. Gardner, proposing collaboration on such a work. Mr. Gardner responded favorably. After several exchanges of correspondence and discussion regarding and particular subject matter of the cycle, Mr. Benson received the six poems. The titles given in the program for the various songs are by the composer, suggesting aspects of the poems which are both descriptive and in their small way, symbolic. Mr. Benson asken Mr. Gardner to provide a program note, and he responded as follows: “In SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD I wanted to write something that the composer might treat either as a song cycle or as an internalized onewoman short opera. I thought of trying to dramatize the way a woman’s exclusive love for her husband and children can, when she grows old, become love— and anxiety— for life itself. The idea provided me with a setting: the old woman awakening from a nightmare of the whole world’s death, comparable to the death of two of her children. I thought it was psychologically right that the old woman, in her terror, would turn to sweet thoughts of her girlhood and the man who would become her husband (the second song), and I thought that, because of her age and wisdom, that innocence and love would be generalized to all the world, a world all green yet subtly suggesting autumn— the houses are ‘red, orange, yellow.’ From there her thoughts might move, I imagined, to the warmth and security of family in an obscurely dangerous world (‘for the bear’s in the woods and owl’s in the sky’), a world still seemingly safe because of love and community. In the fourth song I state the tragedy that motivates the cycle. For all our hopes, for the seeming security of community, death sometimes strikes. Hastily, defensively, the old woman flees to a happy memory (in the fifth song) of the marriage of one of her surviving daughters. All will be well, the old woman desperately tells herself. She sees that her own motherlove is not necessary. When she dies, God’s love will take over for hers, and so, without guilt or anxiety or terror, she can sleep. And if there is no God? Never mind, there will be motherly love until the last generation, and even then still hope, still the prospect of ‘a brand new sun.’”
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Premier Performance Memo
Premiered by Jan DeGaetani (M-s), Verne Reynolds (Hn), Philip West (EH), Robert Sylvester (Vc), and John Beck (Mba) on November 24, 1980 at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York.
Recording Credits
Recorded by Virginia Dupuy on Gasparo CD GSCD-273 (1989) and by Jan DeGaetani on Albany Records [Troy 236] (1997)
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Title Movements
I. Awakening II. Two Step III. Lullaby IV. Spring V. Siciliana VI. Nocturne
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