" a s t h i s morning f a i r "
s o n g s o f
john o l d e n c a r p e nt e r
r o b e r t
e s b o r n e , b a s s - b a r i t o n e
l e n n i s h e l m r i c h ,
p i a n i s t
By the time of the great emergence of the recording industry in the 1930's, John Alden
Carpenter's exquisite songs, which had enjoyed such widespread acclaim in the 1910's and 1920's,
had begun to lose favor. Even to this day, very few of these songs, most of which date from the
early 1910's, have found their way into the recording studio. All the more reason, then, to welcome
this historic recording by Robert Osborne and Dennis Helmrich of nearly all of Carpenter's mature
songs. This includes some, mostly from Carpenter's later years, that the composer never even published. (Only someone as unsparingly scrupulous as Carpenter would think twice about bringing
out the likes of "Spring Joys," "Midnight Nan" or "The Hermit Crab.")
Carpenter's choice of texts - from Wilde and Yeats to Tagore and Li Po, from Langston Hughes
and James Agee to a few minor poets now forgotten, but still contemporaries of quality - reveals
an astonishing sensitivity toward new poetic trends. (It helped that he lived in the Chicago of
Harriet Moore's Poetry and Margaret Anderson's Little Review.) Complementing this refined literary sensibility one finds a highly sophisticated command of harmony and counterpoint, though the
music always serves, never overwhelms the poetic idea, somewhat in the tradition of Debussy,
whose songs clearly made a deep impression.
For all their delicacy, many of Carpenter's songs show a pronounced and rather melancholy
preoccupation with loneliness and death, but faced with extraordinary calm and restraint. Even the
love songs and humorous songs have a certain wistfulness, a bittersweet quality that is pure
Carpenter. Congratulations to Robert Osborne and Dennis Helmrich for helping to make them
newly meaningful and accessible.
-Howard Pollack
AS THIS MORNING FAIR
Songs of John Alden Carpenter
by Robert Osborne
I fust heard songs by John Alden Carpenter when I was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Festival in
the early 1980's. Several songs from Gitanjali, including "The Sleep that Flits on Baby's Eyes"
and "When I Bring You Colored Toys:' were exquisitely sung by a talented mezzo-soprano, also a
Fellow at the summer festival. I hated them. The poetry creaked with old-fashioned sentiment. The
songs were ear treacle. Little did I know that these two songs, though admittedly from one of
Carpenter's most renowned works, were hardly representative of his vast output of songs from the
1890's to 1930's. I just felt trapped, as if I were in an airless parlor on a Sunday afternoon, stifled
by antimacassars, doilies and forced pleasantries. Well, times change. So do ears. And sensibilities. I have since heard these two songs, from time to time, and now recognize their irony, craftsmanship, modernity, and fleetness of gesture. I can understand why Kirsten Flagstad, Rose
Bampton, Conchita Supervia, and Marilyn Home have enjoyed singing them. But I still don't really like them. It is all the other songs of Carpenter, aside from Giranjali, that have caught my fancy.
Several years ago, I happened upon Howard Pollack's Skyscraper Lullaby, a 1995 biography
of Carpenter. Mr. Pollack brings the Chicago arts scene in the first three decades of the twentieth
century vividly to life, placing Carpenter in context and revealing his modernist credentials:
"In his lifetime John Alden Carpenter won a success almost unparalleled for an
American composer of concert music ... Critics and colleagues warmly acknowledged
Carpenter's originality ... Critics admired the music's craftsmanship - it's polish,
elegance, rhythmic ingenuity, harmonic sophistication ... he epitomizes American
music's transition from romanticism to modernism. At the start of his career, his name
was linked to MacDowell ... later to Henry Gilbert and Deems Taylor; still later to
Gershwin, Copland and Sessions; and finally to Samuel Barber. He was the first
American composer - or at least among the first - to recognize the importance of
Debussy and Stravinsky and to experiment with rhythm, color and harmony in the
modernist fashion .... Similarly, he argued for the importance of American popular
music to high art, thus anticipating the music of Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein,
Harbison, and many others, including a whole new generation of composers born in
the 1950's and 1960's ... His best work deserves comparison with such contemporaries as Ravel, Holst, de Falla and Janacek. Still, many works await revival, including ... dozens of magnificent songs."
Dozens of magnificent songs? Well...I started collecting. Armed with over a hundred, three
quarters of which were published in Carpenter's lifetime, the rest in manuscript, Dennis Helmrich
and I set out to mine for gold. "Why are they all so slow?' "How can I ever get away with singing
lines like: I have touched the trilliumPale flower of the land?" "What is a trillium?" "Why in
God's name can't I get the rhythm right in that Spanish number?" Well, we asked many questions.
We read through hours of songs. And we let the music work on us over time. Eventually they didn't all seem slow. Singing about a common lily-like wildflower while enveloped in Rachmaninov
harmonies and opulent piano arpeggios felt fabulous. And inevitable. And the rhythms, well, they
were designed, sometimes, to be downright tough. Without realizing it, we had stopped questioning. The magic of Carpenter's craft had reached us.
For those of you not in the know, John Alden Carpenter, descended from the famous John
Alden of Mayflower fame, was born in Park Ridge, Illinois in 1876. After graduating from
Harvard, where he had studied with John Knowles Paine, he joined his father's shipping supply
business in 1897. He became vice-president in 1909 and retired in 1936. While conducting his successful business career, he made time for studies with Edward Elgar in Rome in 1906 and with
Bernard Ziehn in Chicago from 1908 until 1912. He married a bewitching socialite, Rue
Winterbotham, and together they were the toast of progressive Chicago. They hosted Chicago visits of Yeats, Stravinsky, Tagore, Prokofiev, and many other cutting-edge artists. Together they
advanced the poetic, musical and artistic avant-garde.
Carpenter's orchestral suite Adventures in a Perambulator (1915) and the ballets The Birthday
of the Infanta (1919), Krazy Kat (1921), and Skyscrapers (1926), which premiered at the
Metropolitan Opera House, won him considerable fame. By casting off the yoke of Geman influence Carpenter became one of the fust to lighten the fabric of American music. His catalogue,
which includes over a hundred songs, primarily favors French impressionism, but also incorporates popular American materials. Clearly his first love, the song idiom perfectly suited his innate
cultivation and refinement. His mother, Elizabeth, having studied abroad with two renowned voice
teachers, William Shakespeare in London and Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, clearly inculcated an
appreciation of vocalism and vocal literature in her son.
Carpenter had excellent taste in poetry. He and Rue were fluent in French, from summers spent
in France, so that his settings of French poetry spring from a deep identification. And he had such
a instinctual, fluid way with text that in his best settings each poem reveals its qualities as if music
and words had been conceived as one. William Treat Upton wrote in 1930 in his landmark book,
Art-Song in America:
"Surely, 1912 was a memorable year in American song, for during this year appeared
John Alden Carpenter's fmt published songs. These songs ... ushered in a new era in
American song literature. Here spoke a new voice, permeated with French influence,
to be sure, but yet thoroughly individual and with something definite to say, together
with the skill in the saying of it....I find in Carpenter, to a greater extent than in the
case of any other American songwriter, the meditative spirit, the love of expressing
the genius of nature, the out-of-doors, in its quieter aspects and in its influence upon
human experience.... To Brahms it was given in perhaps the fullest measure ever
granted, and we may well congratulate ourselves that in Carpenter we find one so
worthily following where he led."
During his lifetime, Carpenter's songs were sung and recorded by such illustrious singers as
Kirsten Flagstad, Conchita Supervia, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Alma Gluck, John McCormack,
Louise Homer, Maggie Teyte, Eleanor Steber, Eva Gauthier, Rose Bampton, Gladys Swarthout,
Povla Frijsh, Mina Hager, and Jean-Emile Vanni-Marcoux. More recently, Carpenter's songs have
been sung and recorded by Donald Gramm and Marilyn Home.
Carpenter died in 1951, having written his last song sixteen years before. This recording surveys his mature songs in roughly chronological order.
In "Go, Lovely Rose,'' a setting of the famous lyric by Edmund Waller (1606-1687), Carpenter
sets only the first, second and fourth stanzas, repeating the fust at the close to round off the song.
Carpenter frequently took liberties with the poems he set, often molding them to fit the ternary
form that he favored for songs. The Waller setting, composed in 1908, is a graceful and sweet song
characterized by a charming parlando melody over delicate, fluid triplets. The chordal middle section is based on a pentatonic scale, so favored by the Impressionists. Upton calls it one of
Carpenter's "most ingratiating songs" and noted the "weirdly conceived harmonies." "Go, Lovely
Rose" was a favorite of tenor John McCormack.
"The Green River," composed in 1909, is a setting of the somewhat purple verse of Lord Alfred
Douglas (1870-1945). Carpenter again takes liberties with the poem, making three slight changes.
This magical song received favorable marks from many of Carpenter's early critics, who alluded
to the perceived influence of his teacher, Edward Elgar. The singer, Mina Hager, intrigued by the
recitative nature of the vocal line, wrote, "What he uses is not Sprechstimme; it is rather what one
critic called Glor$ed Speech, because it sings almost as one would speak it." Arthur F m t I
dsxsikd the song as follows: "Modernity, ultra-modernity, if you will, animates fhis song from
first bar to last.... Each successive thought is crystal clear, and expressed with a simplicity and
lucidity which are among the composer's happiest characteristics." When Alma Gluck sang "The
Green River" at Carnegie Hall in 1912, the audience demanded an immediate reprise.
Composed in 1909, "Looking-Glass River" is the fust of two settings Carpenter made of
poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Carpenter sets only the first and second stanzas
of this six-stanza poem, number 35 from A Child's Garden of Verses, repeating the first to make
his favored ABA fonn. The languid vocal line describes the smooth sliding river over lazily flowing eighths in the piano accompaniment. It is a wonderful, atmospheric song made from the simplest of materials. Upton admired the song, which he described as "rich in carillon effects of great
attractiveness." "Looking-Glass River" is one of the many examples of Carpenter imagining childhood's perspective in his art.
The Five Paul Verlaine Settings were composed in 1910. Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) was
seminal source of lyrics for composers writing in French in the first decades of the twentieth century. Remarkable Verlaine songs were written by Debussy, Faure, Ravel, Hahn, and Stravinsky.
Carpenter's Verlaine settings hold their own, though the prosody in his later French-language settings of Mireille Havet is surely more advanced. "Dansons la Gigue!" is the lightest of the Verlaine
settings. It is characterized, in Howard Pollack's words, by "polymetrical high jinks" and the
"Spanish-French style of Bizet and Lalo [which] points to the Hispanic style of Porter and
Bemstein." It is one of two examples on this recording, with "Serenade," of Carpenter's brand of
Spanish-inflected music. In the atmospheric "Chanson d'automne," Carpenter subtly conveys the
melancholy of the text. He uses a consistently low register and the minor mode as well as a fourchord ostinato to affect a heavy weariness. "Le Ciel" resembles "The Green River," with its introductory piano chords built note by note from bass to treble. Pollack considers it of great "intimacy and poignance" and counts it as "one of the composer's finest songs." The haunting song's
anguished climax is all the more startling as it is surrounded by music both bleak and spare.
Verlaine's title for the poem is "Le Prison" - it was written when Verlaine was incarcerated in
B ~ s s e l Safter unsuccessfully attempting to shoot his lover, the poet Arthur Rimbaud. "En
Sourdine" is a suspended and lovely song. It was published in a bilingual version, with Carpenter's
own English singing translation, as "When the Misty Shadows Glide." The evocative and plangent
"11 pleure dans mon coeur" is driven by a repeated one-note pedal, suggesting incessant rain,
which was praised by Felix Borowski as "worthy of all praise." Verlaine's poem has an incipit by
Rimbaud, "I1 pleut doucement sur la ville"fit rains gently on the town. Carpenter also wrote a sixth
Verlaine song, the unpublished "Triste Btait mon h e . "
Carpenter wrote only two settings of William Blake (1757-1827), though they would seem a
natural pairing since both composer and poet often expressed their art through the adoption of a
childlike and innocent voice. "Little Fly:' composed in 1909, was dedicated to the composer, conductor and new music advocate, Kurt Schindler. A supple melody and an accompaniment rife with
clever word painting and harmonic daring characterize the song. In "A Cradle-Song," composed
in 1911, Carpenter uses only the first two stanzas of Blake's five-stanza poem, repeating the first
stanza to make an ABA form. He also makes a slight change in the second line of the first stanza.
Pollack describes the song as a "reserved, thinly textured, limpidly diatonic lullaby, with a vaguely pentatonic ostinato that gives the whole a delicate, oriental coloring."
In 1911 Carpenter composed "Bid Me to Live" by the English poet Robert Hemck (15911679). He set only the first, second and fifth stanzas of Herrick's six stanza poem. Pollack writes:
"Although not as ecstatic as such later love songs as 'Light, My Light' [from Gitanjali] or
'Serenade,' 'Bid Me To Live' strikes a new, impassioned note unheard before. Its thick chords in
the piano make it the richest of Carpenter's early songs... the song has an alluring, distinctive elegance." Carpenter dedicated "Bid Me To Live" to Henry Blodgett Harvey, a singer and author of
the satiric text of an earlier Carpenter song, "The Debutante." Harvey sang both these songs at
informal gatherings in Chicago.
"Les Silhouettes" is a 1912 setting of a poem by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). Wilde's words
aptly inspired an impressionistic seascape from Carpenter which worthily compares with the
Wilde settings of Charles Tomlinson Griffes. "Les Silhouettes" was a favorite of Maggie Teyte,
and Carpenter himself so liked the song that he arranged it for voice and orchestra in 1943. The
song is a series of constantly changing moods and images deftly unified by Carpenter's pervasive
use of a motivic dotted rhythm. In 1913 Carpenter set one other Wilde poem, "Her Face."
In 1912 Carpenter composed his biggest, most full-throttle song to date, setting Helen
Dudley's "To One Unknown." Dudley's poem was published in the first issue of Harriet Monroe's
Poetry in October 1912. Carpenter was a financial supporter of the Chicago-based magazine and
intimate with the circle of poets and writers who published their work there. Helen Dudley's sister was Dorothy Dudley Harvey, wife of the singer Henry Blodgett Harvey to whom "Bid Me to
Live" was dedicated. Describing "To One Unknown," Pollack writes: "The rhetoric -both poetic and musical -harkens back to Tchaikovsky, but some melodic turns in both the voice and the
accompaniment provide fresh, modem touches."
In the year following Carpenter's 1913 composition of Gitanjali, a set of six settings of
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), he returned one final time to Tagore, setting an independent
song, "The Day Is No More." Tagore, perhaps the most important poet and philosopher of modem India, won the Nobel Prize in literature for Gitanjali: Song Offering in 1913. "The Day is No
More" is number 74 from this collection. Pollack writes that the poem "is full of dread and uncer-
tainty" chosen by Carpenter "in response to the war." He writes further that the song "has a cold,
empty sadness that is new for Carpenter. Indeed, the song marks a poignant turning point in the
composer's life: it bids farewell to the overflowingjoy and hopefulness of [his earlier works] and
turns, with a shiver, toward some brave new world."
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) visited Chicago in early 1914 to lecture and read poetry.
Carpenter and his wife, Rue, participated in the festivities in honor of the Irish poet. No doubt
inspired by Yeats' appearance, Carpenter set, that same year, 'The Player Queen:' a poem which
had been published in Harriet Monroe's Chicago-based journal Poetry. The poem, intended for a
play that Yeats never completed, recollects a mother's lullaby in the guise of a dramatic ballad.
This lilting song, along with "Les Silhouettes," was a personal favorite of Maggie Teyte.
Carpenter composed five settings of ancient Chinese poetry in 1916. Carpenter used translations drawn from Gems of Chinese Literature by the eminent English orientalist Herbert A. Giles.
He published 'The Odalisque:' "On a Screen," "The Highwaymen," and "To aYoung Gentleman"
under the collective title Watercolors; the fifth setting, "Spring Joys," remained unpublished. Two
years later, Carpenter orchestrated Watercolors for chamber orchestra. Watercolors is not really a
cycle, but rather a set of miniatures with each song complementing the others. Each of these songs
is characterized by a lyrical declamation of the poetry set over a gossamer and impressionistic
accompaniment.
Legend has it that Li She (9th C. A.D.), author of the poem Carpenter set as 'The
Highwaymen," fell into the hands of brigands who were great admirers of his verse. The robbers
insisted that he compose a poem on the spot for them. Li She obliged with this poem and the brigands are said to have laughed heartily and set him free. Carpenter's fleet song moves from an
impressionistic depiction of the traveler's journey through a rainy landscape to a rapid, diatonic
setting of the punch line.
LiuYii-hsi (772-842), the author of "The Odalisque," was a statesman with a checkered career
of successes and exiles. He was also a poet who was such a purist that he left a beautiful poem
unfinished because it was necessary to use the word dumplings, a word not found in the works of
Confucius. Carpenter's setting of "The Odalisque" is described by Pollack as an "exquisite bit of
chinoiserie ... full of life and charm. The ironically tearful musical setting for 'bewailing' and
'flower' is delicious, only slightly short of musical comedy."
"On a Screen" is an especially sensitive setting of Li Po (701-762). Li Po's poem is curiously
entitled "A Snap-shot" in Gems of Chinese Literature. Li Po, regarded by many as China's great-
est poet, is popularly known as "The Banished Angel." He was exiled for years as a result of a
court intrigue from the very court where he had initially garnered his reputation. Legend has it that
the dissolute Li Po drowned by leaning over the gunwale of a boat in a drunken effort to embrace
the moon's reflection. Carpenter's impressionistic landscape is unusually pared down in texture,
no doubt in response to the simplicity of Li Po's text. Christopher Palmer wrote in Impressionism
in Music (1973) that "On a Screen" could well be Carpenter's masterpiece.
"Spring Joys" is a lovely setting of a poem by WeiYing-wu (8th C. A.D.). Wei Ying-wu sewed
as a soldier early in his life, but later, after a course of study, entered upon a civil career. His poetry has been described as being simple in expression, yet pregnant with meaning. Pollack writes:
"the song ... seems less complex and exotic than the other Chinese settings, the vaguely Chinese
trillings in the piano notwithstanding."
The Chicago Arts Club hosted a visit by the English poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) in
April 1920. Carpenter probably attended Sassoon's reading, for within a month he had composed
Two Night Songs, settings of his verse. "Slumber Song" is perhaps the culmination of Carpenter's
life-long series of lullabies. The song lulls the beloved to sleep and promises a benign forgetfulness of war. Pollack praises the song for its "form [which] shows unusual formal subtlety and daring.... The song contains a new, provocatively abstract element, in that the text is not so much a
lullaby as it is a poem about lullabies. The persona is neither the mother nor the lover but the poet,
whose poetry has the magic to comfort." Carpenter arranged this song for voice and chamber
orchestra in 1943, just as another world war was raging. In "Serenade," the second Sassoon song,
Carpenter uses a sultry, flamenco-flavored idiom. Hany Thorpe wrote a glowing analysis of the
song in 1929 calling the song's ending "one of the noblest and most stimng in the entire literature
of American song." The first and last stanzas of Carpenter's setting are from Sassoon's poem entitled "Lovers," while the middle stanza is of unknown provenance. The ecstatic song attracted
many singers, including Povla Frijsh and Gladys Swarthout.
Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) had wanted Carpenter, a long-time friend, to set his verse for
nearly a decade before Carpenter finally composed "The Little Turtle" in 1926. Carpenter, ever
drawn to children's verse, chose a rather uncharacteristic poem Lindsay had written as "a recitation for Martha Wakefield, three years old." Pollack writes that the "tune is folkish but somewhat
jazzed up, with snazzy syncopations in the vocal lines and blue notes in the accompaniment. It is
a children's song for the jazz age and one of Carpenter's most delightful." The song is unpublished.
Carpenter set five Langston Hughes (1902-1967) poems between 1926 and 1927 at a time
when Hughes was still virtually unknown. Pollack writes "Carpenter might have heard about
Hughes from Vachel Lindsay, who discovered the black poet-busboy in 1925, and who helped
arrange for publication of The Weary Blues." Carpenter's settings constitute a pioneering work in
the use of jazz and blues in serious song. Carpenter took great liberties with Hughes' verse, eliminating repetitions, deleting short sections, adding words, and giving each a new title. In "Shake
your brown feet, honey," originally entitled "Song for a Banjo Dance" by Hughes, Carpenter
depicts the banjo accompaniment by means of broken chords and staccato articulation. The song
also has an especially effective coda. Hughes' poem "Harlem Night Club" became Carpenter's
"Jazz Boys," an infectious jazz song which recalls the Charleston. Prior to the song's publication,
major changes were made to Hughes' poem to expurgate the interracial sexuality; for this recording we have reinstated the original poem. "The Cryin' Blues" is hailed by Pollack as "arguably
among the finest songs Carpenter ever wrote." Hughes' original poem is entitled "Blues Fantasy."
Carpenter, accentuating the despondency of Hughes' poem, eliminated the last five lines in which
the narrator takes action, saying: "I got a railroad ticket,/ Pack my trunk and ride." After the premiere, Hughes reported that "The Cryin' Blues" "brought down the house" and that it, coupled
with "Jazz-Boys," were "particularly successful in capturing the mood and feeling of the poems."
"Midnight Nan," called "Midnight Nan at Leroy's" in Hughes' original, perplexed both Hughes
and the audience at its premiere perhaps on account of its ambiguous, harmonically unresolved
ending. Hughes thought the audience didn't get it, which probably explains why Carpenter didn't
include it, replacing it with "That Soothin' Song," when his set was published as Four Negro Songs
in 1927.
"The Hermit Crab," composed in 1929, is a setting of a poem by Robert Hyde. Pollack praises the text as "trenchant and finely wrought, like a poem by Li-Po." The song paints an impressionistic seascape with rich harmonies in the piano accompaniment and a supple melodic line that
has phrases of great breadth and fluidity. It is unfortunate that "The Hermit Crab" was never published for its beauties would rank it highly among the songs of Carpenter were it more widely
known.
Likewise, the Two Mireille Havet Settings remain unpublished but are rich in compositional
interest. Mireille Havet (1898-1932) was a friend of both GuillaumeApollinaire and Jean Cocteau.
In fact, Apollinaire published the fifteen-year-old Havet's "Le petit cimetiere" in 1913 in his journal, Les Soirkes de Paris, No. 19. Both poems were published in Havet's 1917 collection of prose
poems for children, La Maison dans l'oeil du char, with an introduction by Colette. Outside the
literary realm, the maudlin Havet originated the role of La Mort, at Cocteau's request, in the stage
premiere of his Orphie produced in Paris in 1926. Havet was, for a time, the lover of Mary Butts,
the English novelist. Havet eventually died at the age of 34 in a Swiss sanatorium from her addiction to opium. Carpenter took liberties with Havet's prose poems, eliminating substantial sections
from each poem in making his settings. "Les cheminCes rouges:' which Carpenter recommended
as the better of the two, was composed in 1922 and "Le petit cimeti8re" was composed the following year. Carpenter wrote these songs for the French-Canadian soprano, Eva Gauthier, dedicating them to her. Although she often programmed Carpenter's songs in her recitals, she never
performed the Havet settings, finding them ill suited to her voice. Carpenter, aware of Gauthier's
reticence about the songs, revised both in 1934. This recording is of the revised versions.
Carpenter most probably found Mabel Simpson's "Rest" in the September 1925 issue of Dial,
the avant-garde arts journal of the time. The text was also published the same year in Simpson's
collection Poems. Simpson was a Chicago-based poet, playwright, and children's writer who published her work in such other journals as The New York Tribune, Poetry, The Smart Set, The
Bookman, The Newark Evening News, and Voices. Pollack writes that the poem "featured the kind
of melancholic, symbolist imagery that had earlier attracted Carpenter to Lord Alfred Douglas,
Paul Verlaine ... and Helen Dudley." He goes on the call "Rest," composed in 1934, "perhaps the
most perfect of the composer's late songs."
Carpenter discovered James Agee's poetry several months after Agee's one collection, Permit
Me Voyage, was first published. Pollack suggests that it may have been Carpenter's friend
Archibald MacLeish, author of the volume's laudatory forward, who introduced Carpenter to Agee
(1909-1955). Agee's "Sonnet X X became Carpenter's 1935 swan song "Morning Fair."
Carpenter's organically structured setting struggles with the density of Agee's metaphysical language and, as such, does not readily reveal its subtleties without repeated listening. "Morning
Fair:' an invocation of the dawn, requires a delicate balance between full-throated singing, an
unusually large vocal range, and a controlled lyricism. Pollack writes: "Carpenter could not have
known that 'Morning Fair' was to be his last art song, but it satisfies romantic expectations of what
a last song should be: slow, autumnal, full of deep humanity and tenderness."
As This Morning Fair
Songs of John Alden Carpenter
Go, Lovely Rose (Edmund Waller)
Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
Looking-Glass River (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Smooth it slides upon its travel,
Here a wimple, there a gleam 0 the clean gravel!
0 the smooth stream!
Sailing blossoms, silver fishes,
Paven pools as clear as air How a child wishes
To live down there!
Smooth it slides upon its travel,
Here a wimple, there a gleam 0 the clean gravel!
0 the smooth stream!
The Green River (Lord Alfred Douglas)
I know a green grass path that leaves the field,
And like a running river, winds along
Into a leafy wood where is no throng
Of birds at noon-day, and no soft throats yield
Their music to the moon. The place is sealed,
An unclaimed sovereignty of voiceless song,
And all h e umvished silence belong
To some sweet singer lost or u~evealed.
So is my soul become a silent place.
Oh may I awake from this uneasy night
To find some voice of music manifold.
Let it be shape of somw with wan face,
Or Love that swoons on sleep, or else delight
That is as wide-eyed as a marigold.
Robert Osborne
Dansons la gigue! (Paul Verlaine)
Dansons la gigue!
-
Let's dance the gig!
Let's dance the gig!
J'aimais surtout ses jolis yeux,
Plus clairs que I'ktoile des cieux,
J'aimais ses yeux malicieux.
Dansons la gigue!
Elle avait des facons vraiment
De dCsoler un pauvre amant,
Que c'en ktait vraiment charmant!
Dansons la gigue!
Mais je trouve encore meilleur
Le baiser de sa bouche en fleur,
Depuis qu'elle est morte A mon coeur.
Dansons la gigue!
Je me souviens, je me souviens
Des heures et des entretiens,
Et c'est le meilleur de mes biens.
Dansons la gigue!
Above all I loved her pretty eyes,
Brighter than the stars of the skies,
I loved her malicious eyes.
Let's dance the gig!
She truly had ways
Of desolating a poor lover,
That were truly charming!
Let's dance the gig!
But I find still better
The kiss of her mouth in flower
Since she has been dead to my heart.
Let's dance the gig!
I remember, I remember
Hours and conversations,
And that is the best of what I have.
Let's dance the gig!
Chanson d'automne (Paul Verlaine)
Song of Autumn
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone.
Tout suffocant
Et bleme, quand
Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure.
Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m'emporte
De@, delA,
Pareil A la
Feuille mom.
The long sobs
Of the violins
Of autumn
Wound my heart
W~tha monotonous
Languor.
All stifling
And pale, when
The hour sounds,
I remember
Days of long ago
And I cry.
And I am tossed
By the cmel wind
Which carries me
Here, there,
Like a
Dead leaf.
Le Ciel (Paul Verlaine)
Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit,
The Sky
Si beau, si calme!
Un arbre, par-dessus le toit,
Berce sa palme.
La cloche dans le ciel qu'on voit
Doucement tinte.
Un oiseau sur l'arbre qu'on voit
Chante sa plainte.
Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est 11,
Simple et tranquille.
Cene paisible rumeur-lh
Vient de la ville.
Qu'as-tu fait, 8 toi que voill
Pleurant sans cesse,
Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voilh,
De ta jeunesse?
The sky is above the m f
So beautiful, so calm,
A tree above the roof
Rocks its branches;
In the sky that one sees, a bell
Sweetly tolls,
On the tree that one sees, a bird
Sings its plaint.
My God, my God, life is there,
Simple and tranquil!
That peaceful sound
Comes from the town.
What have you done, 0 you there
Weeping unceasingly,
Say, what have you done, you there,
With your youth?
En Sourdine (Paul Verlaine)
Muted
Calmes dans le demi-jour
Que les branches hautes font,
Pbnbtrons bien notre amour
De ce silence profond.
Fondons nos h e s , nos coeurs
Et nos sens extasies,
Parmi les vagues langueurs
Des pins et des arbousiers.
Ferme tes yeux h demi,
Croise tes bras sur ton sein,
Et de ton coeur endormi
Chasse B jamais tout dessein.
Laissons-nous persuader
Au souffle berceur et doux,
Qui vient l tes pieds rider
Les ondes de gazon roux.
Et quand, solennel, le soir
Des chenes noirs tombera,
Voix de noee dtsespoir,
Le rossignol chantera.
Calm in the half-light
Made by the high branches,
Let us permeate our love
With this deep silence.
Let us join our souls, our hearts
And our raptured senses,
Amid the vague languors
Of the pines and arbutus trees.
Close your eyes half-way,
Cross your arms on your breast,
And from your drowsy heart,
Forever chase all scheme.
Let ourselves be persuaded
By the lulling soft wind
That comes, rippling at your feet
The waves of russet grass.
And when the solemn evening
Falls from the black oaks,
Voice of our despair,
The nightingale will sing.
I1 pleure duns mon coeur (Paul Verlaine)
Tearsfall in m y heart
I1 pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville,
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui ptnMre mon coeur?
Tears fall in my heart
Like rain upon the town
What is this languor
That pervades my heart?
6, bruit doux de la pluie
Parterre et sur les toits!
Pour un coeur qui s'ennuie
6,le chant de la pluie!
0 gentle sound of the rain
On the ground and on the roofs!
For a listless heart,
0 the song of the rain!
I1 pleure sans raison
Dans ce coeur qui s'6coeure.
Quoi! nulle trahison?
Ce deuil est sans raison.
Tears fall without reason
In my sickened heart,
What! No betrayal?
My mourning has no cause.
C'est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi,
Sans amour et sans haine,
Mon coeur a tant de peine!
Indeed it is the worst pain
Not to know why,
Wtthout love and without hate,
My heart feels so much pain.
Little Fly (William Blake)
Little Fly
Thy summers play,
My thoughtless hand
Has bmsh'd away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance,
And drink & sing:
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
John Alden Carpenter
A Cradle-Song (William Blake)
Les Silhouettes (Oscar Wilde)
Sleep Sleep beauty bright
Dreaming in the joys of night
Sleep Sleep: in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit & weep
Sweet Babe in thy face
Soft desires I can trace
Secret joys & secret smiles
Little pretty infant wiles
The sea is flecked with bars of grey,
The dull dead wind is out of tune,
And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.
Sleep Sleep beauty bright
Dreaming in the joys of night
Sleep Sleep: in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit & weep
And overhead the curlews cry,
Where through the dusky upland grass
The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky.
Bid Me to Live (Robert Herrick)
Etched clear upon the pallid sand
The black boat lies: a sailor boy
Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.
To One Unknown (Helen Dudley)
Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be:
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
I have seen the proudest stars
That wander on through space,
Even the sun and moon,
But not your face.
A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free,
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart Ile give to thee.
Bid me despaire, and n e despaire,
Under that Cypresse tree:
Or bid me die, and I will dare
E'en Death, to die for thee.
I have heard the violin,
The winds and waves rejoice
In endless minstrelsy,
Yet not your voice.
I have touched the trillium,
Pale flower of the land,
Coral, anemone,
And not your hand.
I have kissed the shining feet
Of Twilight lover-wise,
Opened the gates of Dawn Oh not your eyes!
I have dreamed unwonted things,
%sions that witches brew,
Spoken with images,
Never with you.
The Day is No More (Rabindranath Tagore)
The day is no more, the shadow is upon the earth. It is time that I go to the stream to fill my pitcher.
The evening air is eager with the sad music of the water. Ah, it calls me out into the dusk. In the lonely
lane there is no passer by, the wind is up, the ripples are rampant in the river.
I know not if I shall come back home. I know not whom I shall chance to meet. There at the fording in
the little boat the unknown man plays upon his lute.
The Player Queen (William Butler Yeats)
Highwaymen (Li Sh;)
My mother dandled me and sang,
"How young it is, how young!"
And made a golden cradle
That on a willow swung.
The rainy mist sweeps gently
o'er the village by the stream,
And from the leafy forest glades
the brigand daggers gleam...
And yet there is no need to fear
or step from out their way,
For more than half the world consists
of bigger rogues than they!
"He went away," my mother sang,
"When I was brought to bed:'
And all the while her needle pulled
The gold and silver thread.
She pulled the thread, she bit the thread
And made a golden gown,
And wept because she'd dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.
"When she was got:' my mother sang,
"I heard a sea-mew cry,
And saw a flake of the yellow foam
That dropped upon my thigh."
How therefore could she help but braid
The gold into my hair,
And dream that I should carry
The golden top of care?
The Odalisque (Liu Yii-hsi)
A gaily dressed damsel steps forth from her bower,
Bewailing the fate that forbids her to roam;
In the courtyard she counts the buds on each flower,
While a dragon-fly flutters and sits on her comb.
On a Screen (Li Po)
A tortoise I see on a lotus-flower resting;
A bird 'mid the reeds and the rushes is nesting;
A light skiff propelled by some boatman's fair daughter,
Whose song dies away o'er the fast-flowing water.
Spring Joys (Wei Ying-wu)
When freshets cease in early spring
and the river dwindles low,
I take my staff and wander
by the banks where wild flowers grow
I watch the willow-catkins
wildly whirled on every side;
I watch the falling peach-bloom
lightly floating down the tide.
Slumber-Song (Siegfried Sassoon)
The Little Turtle (Vachel Lindsay)
Sleep; and my song shall build about your bed
A paradise of dimness. You shall feel
The folding of tired wings; and peace will dwell
Throned in your silence: and one hour shall hold
Summer, and midnight, and immensity
Lulled to forgetfulness. For, where you dream,
The stately gloom of foliage shall embower
Your slumbering thought with tapestries of blue.
And there shall be no memory of the sky,
Nor sunlight with its cruelty of swords.
But, to your soul that sinks from deep to deep
Through drowned and glimmering colour, Time shall be
Only slow and rhythmic swaying; and your breath;
And roses in the darkness; and my love.
There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed upon the rocks.
Serenade (Siegfried Sassoon)
You were glad to-night: and now you've gone away.
Flushed in the dark, you put your dreams to bed;
But as you fall asleep I hear you say
Those tired sweet drowsy words we left unsaid.
I am alone, all alone: but in the windless night
I listen to the gurgling of the rain,
That veils the gloom with peace.
And whispering of your white limbs,
And your mouth that stormed my throat with bliss,
The rain becomes your voice, and tells no tales,
That crowd my heart with memories of your kiss.
Sleep well: for I can follow you, to bless
And lull your distant beauty where you roam;
And with wild songs of hoarded loveliness
Recall you to these arms that were your home.
He snapped at a mosquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.
He caught the mosquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn't catch me.
Shake your brownfeet, honey (LungstonHughes)
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake your brown feet, chile,
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake 'em swift and wil' Get way back, honey,
Do that low down-step,
Walk on over, darling,
Now! Come out
With your left.
Shake your brown feet, honey,
Shake 'em, honey chile,
Sun's going down this evening Might never rise no mo'.
Sun's going down this very night Might never rise no mo' So shake your brown feet, Liza,
Shake 'em honey chile,
Shake your brown feet, Liza,
(The music's soft and wil')
Shake your brown feet, honey,
(Banjo's sobbing low)
The sun is going down,
Might never rise no mo'.
Jau-Boys (Langston Hughes)
The Cryin' Blues (Langston Hughes)
Sleek black boys in a cabaret.
Jazz-band, jazz-band, Play, PLAY!
Tomorrow ... who knows?
So dance today!
Hey! Hey!
That's what the
Blues singers say.
Singing minor melodies
They laugh,
Hey! Hey!
White girls' eyes
Call gay black boys.
Black boys' lips
Grin jungle joys.
Dark brown girls
In blond men's arms.
Jazz-band, jazz-band, Sing Eve's charms!
White ones, brown ones,
What do you know
About tomorrow
Where all paths go?
My man's done left me,
Chile, he's gone away.
My good man's left me,
Babe, he's gone away.
So, now those cryin' blues
Haunt me night and day,
Hey! ... Hey!
Weary,
Trouble and pain,
Sun's gonna shine
Somewhere
Jazz-boys, jazz-boys, Play, PLAY! Tomorrow ... who knows?
Tomorrow ... is darkness.
Joy today!
Dennis Helmrich
Midnight Nan (Lungston Hughes)
The Hermit Crab (Robert Hyde)
Strut and wiggle,
Shameless gal.
Wouldn't no good fellow
Be your pal.
With the sound of the sea,
I fill my shell,
The sea can sing, so solemnly,
Can sing so well.
The storm winds sing their songs to me
And what they sing belongs to me
To me who dwell below the swell
And with their songs, I fill my shell
Beneath the sea.
Hear dat music ...
Jungle night.
Hear dat music ...
And the moon was white.
Sing your Blues song,
Pretty baby.
You want lovin'
And you don't mean maybe.
Jungle lover ...
Night black boy ...
Two against the moon
And the moon was joy.
Strut and wiggle,
Shameless Nan.
Wouldn't no good fellow
Be your man.
Le petit cimetiPre (Mireille Havet)
The Little Cemetery
Deni2re le mur du petit cimetibre, il y a une chkvre
blanche qui mange de l'herbe verte. Denikre le mur
du petit cimetikre.
Devant le mur du petit cimetibre, il y a la place aux
paves in6gaux. Devant le mur du petit cimetibre.
A l'intkrieur du petit cimetibre, il y a des rangdes
de tombes et un champ de croix. A I'int6rieur du petit
cimetikre il y a des croix, des croix, des croix!
LB sont rkunis sous la terre, tous ceux que la vie a
sdpards. Mais la chkvre blanche mange son herbe vene,
denikre le mur du petit cimetikre.
Ah! que de gens, que de gens, que de gens!
Behind the wall of the little cemetery, there is a
white goat who eats the green grass. Behind the
wall of the little cemetery.
In front of the wall of the little cemetery, there is
a square with uneven paving stones. In front of the
wall of the little cemetery.
Inside the little cemetery, there are rows of tombs
and a field of crosses. Inside the little cemetery
there are crosses, crosses, crosses!
There, reunited under the earth, are all who life
has separated. But the white goat eats its green
grass behind the wall of the little cemetery.
Ah! so many folks, so many folks, so many folks!
Les cheminges muges (Mireille Havet)
The Red Chimneys
Wngt-huit chemintes rouges dansent sur le toit
gris. Vingt-huit cheminks muges qui ont pour bras
des rayons de soleil et I'air bleu pour chapeau.
Vingt-huit chemin6es rouges font la ronde autour du
toit gris.
En bas, le monde s'agite. En bas, on souffre, on
pleure, on rit. Des gens passent, toujours les mBmes;
ce sont des hommes, ce sont des femmes, des jeunes
gens, des jeunes filles et de tous petits enfants.
Des enfantsjouent - pour la coutume - des enfants
jouent l'air ennuyt. Depuis le temps qu'ils jouent ils
sont si fatigubs.
Enfin, un p&tre passe. Enfin le @tre, lisant son
bdviaire, ne s'apercevant pas qu'il est passt hier.
Comme le monde est vieux! Comme le monde est
vieux!
Et pareille aux autres, je reprends ma route. Lahaut, les chemin6es rouges, continuent leur ronde au
soleil, font leur ronde sur les toits, font leur ronde au
soleil. La lumiere est bleue ... d'un bleu infini.
Twenty-eight red chimneys dance on the gray
rooftop. Twenty-eight red chimneys, which have sun
beams for arms and blue sky for a hat. Twenty-eight
red chimneys dance a round-dance across the gray
rooftop.
Below, the world bustles. Below people suffer, cry,
laugh. Folks pass, always the same folks, there are
men, there are women, young guys and young girls,
and tiny little children.
The children play - as is their wont - the children
play, with a bored air. Since the time they've played
they are so tired.
And then, a priest passes. Then the priest, reading his
breviary, not even noticing that he passed by here yesterday. How old this world is! How old this world is!
And like the others, I walk on. Up there, the red
chimneys, continue their round-dance in the sunshine,
do their round-dance on the rooftops, do their munddance in the sunshine. The light is blue ... of a blue like
infinity itself.
Resr (Mabel Simpson)
Morning Fair (James Agee)
No song, no song
From far or near
Has come to break
The silence here.
Where all day long
The dust lies deep,
And tree and hedge
Are lost in sleep.
Pale, pale the Willow
Where she swings,
And wan the Wind,
Beneath his wings
The folded rose
With drowsy breath
Shares in the tender
Dream of death.
No voice, no song,
No sigh, no word
From bush or bough
Or bed is heard,
But each alone
His secret keeps,
And each alone
In silence sleeps
Now stands our love on that still verge of day
Where darkness loiters leaf to leaf releasing
Lone tree to silvering tree: then slopes away
Before the morning's deep-drawn strength increasing
Till the sweet land lies burnished in the dawn:
But sleeping still: nor stirs a thread of grass:
Large on the low hill and the spangled lawn
The pureleaved air dwells passionless as glass:
So stands our love new found and unaroused,
Appareled in all peace and innocence,
In all lost shadows of love past still drowsed
Against foreknowledge of such immanence
As now, with earth outshone and earth's wide air,
Shows each to other as this morning fair.
ROBERT OSBORNE has sung extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Russia, and
Asia under such distinguished conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Dennis Russell
Davies, Michael Tilson Thomas, Vladirnir Spivakov, and John Williams. His television appearances have been on the BBC Omnibus Series, Soviet Arts Television, and on the PBS Great
Performances broadcast of the Bemstein at 70! Gala from Tanglewood as well as Musical
Outsiders: An American Legacy featured at the Louvre and on PBS, German and Austrian television. His operatic recordings include Meredith Monk's Atlas on ECM, Viktor Ullmann's The
Emperor ofAtlantis on Arabesque, both Hindemith's Hin und zuriick and Elias Tanenbaum's monodrama Last Letters from Stalingrad on Albany, and Stewart Wallace's Kaballah on Koch
International. His solo recordings include Orchestral Songs of Shostakovich on Arabesque and, on
Albany, both My Love Unspoken: Songs of Leo Sowerby and Songs of Henry Cowell, which was
hailed by Tilson Thomas in the New York Times 1998-99 season preview as one of the most eagerly anticipated musical events of the season.
His operatic repertoire includes over forty roles in operas by Bernstein, Blitzstein, Britten,
Cimarosa, Copland, Donizetti, Menotti, Mozart, Partch, Puccini, Purcell, Rameau, Rossini, and
Weill, which he has sung with companies in Berlin, Paris, Houston, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Santa
Fe and New York. Mr. Osbome's extensive concert repertoire has taken him to Carnegie Hall,
Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Royal Albert Hall in London,
Thtatre de I'Odton in Paris, Victoria Hall in Singapore, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and
Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. He has appeared with the Boston, New World, Singapore,
Tanglewood, Schleswig-Holstein, Moscow Virtuosi, and Racine Symphony Orchestras and with
the United States Military Academy Band singing such works as Bernstein's Songfest,
Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony, Six Romances on British Verse, and Eight British and
American Folksongs, Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon and Serenade, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
Copland's Old American Songs, Mozart's Requiem, ANO P&'s Miserere, Mussorgsky's Songs
and Dances of Death and Prokoviev's Lt. Kije. Mr. Osbome has also appeared with the
Tanglewood, Schleswig-Holstein, Nakamichi Baroque, USArtsIBerlin, Redwoods, Stom King,
Cape May, Aspen and Marlboro Festivals. He holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from Yale
University and is on the faculty of Vassar College.
Recent engagements included making three recordings: Aaron Kernis' vocal chamber work
Death Fugue for the Milken Archive, Hany Partch's microtonal hobo-opera, The Wayward, for
Wergo, and Frank Martin's Le vin herb6 for Newport Classics, singing Toby Rining's microtona1 Chrysalid Requiem at the Concertgebouw, Shostakovich's Ten Songs of the Fool from King Lear
with the Vassar Orchestra, Shostakovich's Six Romances on British Verse with the RWCC
Orchestra, a Beethoven Lieder recital for the annual Beethoven Festival in Oyster Bay, a tour of
Winterreise sponsored by the American Schubert Institute, performing Aaron Kemis' chamber
work Le quattro stagioni della cucinafuturista with the Eberli Ensemble for the Festival of New
American Music in Sacramento, singing on the Twentieth Century Masters: Samuel Barber
Festival at the Kaye Playhouse in New York, performing Partch's Ring Around the Moon and Dean
Drummond's Congressional Record with Newband at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco,
and performing Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King on a seven-city tour with the
Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble which the New York Times praised as "thrilling, both vocally
and dramatically."
DENNIS HELMRICH graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree cum laude, a
master's degree with honors, and prizes from the Lockwood and Ditson Foundations and the
National Endowment for the Arts, having studied piano with Donald Cumer and theoretical and
historical subjects with a numerous and distinguished faculty. After pursuing doctoral studies at
Boston University under Bela Boszormenyi-Nagy, at the age of 24, he joined the music faculty of
Antioch College in Ohio, and subsequently the faculties of the State University of New York campuses at Albany and Purchase, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Manhattan School of Music
in New York City, and New York University.
Invited to the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1969 to aid in the musical preparation of Berg's
Woueck under Erich Leinsdorf, in the following year Helmrich was appointed Vocal Music Coach
of the Tanglewood Music Center, where after more than a quarter century of continuous service
he is the occupant of an endowed chair in Vocal Studies. During the summer of 1996 he supervised the musical preparation of two casts of singers for the 50th anniversary performances under
Maestro Seiji Ozawa of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes.
Almost from the outset of his career Helmrich has concentrated on chamber music and the art
song literature in addition to the solo repertoire. It is as a sonata partner and accompanist that he
now makes most of his concert appearances, in a schedule which in the last few years has taken
him to thirty states, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Far East, to stages such as Avery
Fisher, Alice Tully, and Carnegie Halls in New York, the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco,
Symphony Hall in Boston, and Severance Hall in Cleveland, with artists such as Kathleen Battle,
Richard Stilwell, Mary Ann Hart, D'Anna Fortunato, Eugenia Zukerman, Claire Bloom, Carol
Wincenc, Gary Schocker, Roberta Peters, Frances Lucey, Petra Lang, and the late, legendary
Charles Holland.
A continuing interest in contemporary music has led Helmrich to give first performances of
many American compositions. For four years he was co-director of Hear America First@, a New
York conceit series devoted to the perfommce of American music. He has recorded chamber
music and m g s on the Orion, Spectrum, Nonesuch, Chesky, Musical Heritage, Albany, Newport
Classics, Delos, and Samsung labels. His publications include translations of opera libmtti and
song texts, as well as opera supertitles.
Acknowledgements:
We would Iike to express our gratitude to the following people and organizations who assisted in mis project
The Aaron Copland Fund for Recording, Rue Hubert, Cupenter's granddaughter,Pauline G. Hubert, C q m t d s
&reatgraddaughter, the Estate of John Alden Carpenter, Howard Pollack, whose SRyscmpcr Lulkby: The Lifc
and Music of John Alden Carpenter (Smifhsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1995) was of immense
help, Joan O'Connor, author of John Alden Carpenter:A Bio-Bibliogmphy, Brian Mann and Richard
as
well as the entire facuity and staff ofthe Music Depmtment of Vassat College, PierreVallet, Friends and Enemies
of New Music, Linda LoSchiavo and the Fordham University Library, George Boziwick and the New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts, Julius Rude1 and the Spoleto Festival, Susan Feder and Katie P1ybon at
G.Schirmer.
Recorded at Skinner Recital Hall, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York on June 11, 13 and 14, 1999
Steinway Piano.
Rnduced and engineered by Gregory K. Squires
Digital editing and mastering by Richard Price
Puhliahew
.-- ---.
.
-
All songs are published by G. Schirmer with the exclusion of six unpublished songs (Spring Joys, Midnight Nan,
7%eHennit Crab. The Link nrtle,Le petit cimetiPre, Les cheminbs muges) which were obtained from the collection of the Libmy of Congress. we-thank Rue Hubert and the.Estate of John Alden Carpmter for peamission
to recMd the unpublished songs.
English rraoslations of the. poems of Paul Verlaine and Mireille Havet are by Robert Osborne..
Photo of Jobn Alden Catpenter: Courtesy G. SchirmertAMP
Photo of Robert Osbome: Beatriz Schiller
Cover Art: Michael 1. Peeq
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