Resounding Verse Stephen Rodgers

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

Have you ever felt as though a single moment—gazing into someone's eyes, listening to a passage of music, looking at a landscape—transports you to another realm? Maurice Bouchor's poem is about just this kind of experience, an experience that the French composer Mel Bonis transforms into a magical sound world that deftly blends Romanticism and Impressionism.

The episode features a recording of the song by Hélène Guilmette and Matin Dubé, from an album called L'Heure Rose.

For more information about Mel Bonis, go to the Mel Bonis website, maintained by Christine Géliot. You can also learn more about her songs at my website Art Song Augmented.

Songe (an excerpt from Vers le pur amour)
by Maurice Bouchor

Guidé par de beaux yeux candides,
Dans ma barque féerique aux reflets d'argent fin,
Vers l'amour, je voudrais faire voile sans fin
Sur des rêves bleus et splendides,
Vers l'amour dont le souffle frais
Berce des champs de fleurs dans une île enchantée
Et qui, pour apaiser mon âme tourmentée,
M'ouvrira de saintes forêts.

Et plus tard, quand, loin de la terre,
O Viola ! Guérie des brûlantes langueurs,
Nous irons caresser les songes de nos coeurs
Dans l'île heureuse du mystère.

Dans le libre ciel des esprits,
Quand nous aurons quitté la nature mortelle,
Ne goûterons-nous pas une paix éternelle ?
Rêveusement, tu me souris.

———

Guided by beautiful, innocent eyes,
In my magic boat with reflections of fine silver,
Toward love I would like to sail endlessly
On blue and splendid dreams.

Toward love, whose fresh breath
Cradles fields of flowers in an enchanted island,
And which, to appease my tormented soul,
Will open holy forests to me. 

And later, far from the earth,
O Viola, cured of burning languor,
We will go to caress the dreams of our hearts
On the happy island of mystery.

In the free sky of the spirits,
When we have left our mortal nature,
Will we not taste eternal peace?
Dreamily, you smile at me.

Arthur Symons's poem captures a lazy June afternoon, with a fountain burbling and the moon hanging in the sky, waiting for the coming of night. Elizabeth Maconchy transforms the poem into a song of mesmerizing stillness and beauty.

The episode features a world-premiere recording by soprano Joanna Songi and pianist Matthew Fletcher, based on an unpublished manuscript found in the Maconchy archive at St. Hilda's College, Oxford. You can find a YouTube video of their performance here.

For an illuminating look at Maconchy's life and work, see the final chapter of Anna Beer's book Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music.

Also please check out the Maconchy page on my website Art Song Augmented, which includes another recording by Songi and Fletcher, as well as additional resources and access to scores.

In Fountain Court
by Arthur Symons

The fountain murmuring of sleep,
A drowsy tune;
The flickering green of leaves that keep
The light of June;
Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
The peace of June.

A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
The white curved moon;
June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
Wait too, with June;
Come, through the lingering afternoon,
Soon, love, come soon.

The Haitian-American composer Nathalie Joachim transforms a Haitian hymn, and in so doing creates a multi-layered tapestry of sound that evokes the many voices of Haiti—past, present, and future.

"Resevwa Li" comes from Joachim's Grammy-nominated 2019 album Fanm d'Ayiti (New Amsterdam Records), featuring the Spektral Quartet.

Resevwa Li

Men n’ap proche devan ou Granmèt
Avèk tout ti kado n yo papa
Li mèt tout piti kou li ye,
Tanpri resevwa li
Adye papa souple
Kisa pou m ta ba ou
Ou ki fè tout bagay
Ou ki mèt tout bagay

Kado nou pot pou ou
Se tout jefò n ap fe
Pou peyi n devlope
Pou lavi nou pi bèl.

Receive Them

We come before you, God
With all of our little gifts, Father
As little as they may be
Please receive them

Oh father, please
What should I give you
You, who make everything
You, who create everything

The gifts we bring to you
Are all of our efforts
To benefit our country
For our lives to be the most beautiful

translation by Nathalie Joachim

Connie Converse was one of the first singer-songwriters, an uncommon talent who predated Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. But she was barely known in her day, and after making a handful of low-fi recordings in the 1950s, she disappeared in 1974. Her songs weren't widely known until some of those low-fi recordings were released on CD in 2009. This episode looks at one of her most affecting songs, which appears on Walking in the Dark, a recent album by soprano Julia Bullock, in an arrangement by Jeremy Siskind. Julia Bullock performs the song with Christian Reif.

For more information on Connie Converse's songs, go to her page on my website, Art Song Augmented.

Also, be on the lookout for Howard Fishman's book about Connie Converse, To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse, which is forthcoming in May 2023.

One by One
Connie Converse

We go walking in the dark.
We go walking out at night.
And it's not as lovers go,
Two by two, to and fro,
But it's one by one.

One by one in the dark
We go walking out at night.
As we wander through the grass
We can hear each other pass,
But we're far apart.

Far apart in the dark
We go walking out at night.
With the grass so dark and tall
We are lost past recall
If the moon is down.

And the moon is down.
We are walking in the dark.
If I had your hand in mine,
I could shine, I could shine
Like the morning sun,
Like the sun.

We know very little about the German composer Marie von Kehler (1822–1882), who served as a "lady in waiting" to a princess and seems to have been acquainted with Johannes Brahms. But we do know that she wrote over eighty songs that were published over a decade after her death—none of which had ever been recorded until Stephan Loges and Jocelyn Freeman recorded four of them for my website Art Song Augmented. This episode looks at one of the best Kehler song's, a setting of a poem by Julius Sturm about a strange prayer that someone says to a beloved who has wounded him.

For more information on Marie von Kehler's songs, go to her page on Art Song Augmented and check out my blog post on her on the Women's Song Forum.

Nur einmal möcht' ich dir noch sagen
Julius Sturm

Nur einmal möcht' ich dir noch sagen,
Wie du unendlich lieb mir bist,
Wie dich, so lang mein Herz wird schlagen,
Auch meine Seele nie vergißt.
Kein Wörtlein solltest du erwidern,
Nur freundlich mir in's Auge sehn,
Ja, mit gesenkten Augenlidern
Nur stumm und schweigend vor mir stehn.

Ich aber legte meine Hände
Dir betend auf das schöne Haupt,
Damit dir Gott den Frieden sende,
Den meiner Seele du geraubt.

———

Just once yet I would like to tell you
How endlessly dear you are to me,
How as long as my heart still beats
My soul, too, will never forget you.

You need not reply with a single word,
Just look kindly into my eyes,
Yes, with lowered eyelids
Just stand before me, speechless and quiet.

But I laid my hands
Prayerfully upon your beautiful head,
So that God might send you the peace
That you have stolen from me.

Thanks to Sharon Krebs for her help with the English translation.