A century of song transcribed for viola and piano
Daniel Moore, Viola
Zerek Dodson, Piano
Notes on the Project: Why Transcription?
Music with words is a tricky thing to pin down. Where does the meaning of a song live? Not merely in the words or the music, but in a union of the two. What, then, is the sense in instrumental transcriptions? Maybe it's just an indulgence by instrumentalists with a love of song who can't sing, but I believe that it can be more than that. In a song, the structure of the music and the structure of the lyrics are at each other's mercy, especially when the composer and poet are one and the same, the singer-songwriter. In the process of writing the song, these two elements make demands of each other until the final piece emerges in a kind of artistic equilibrium. If we take either element alone, reading lyrics as poetry, or experiencing the musical structure without words, as in instrumental transcriptions, our understanding of the emotional meaning of the piece can change. It is tempting to condemn this as a slight against the songwriter, a pale half-image of the original work, but I think that is a myopic view. I prefer to think of transcription as a kind of indirect viewing of the lyrical content of a song, like taking an impression of a leaf in clay, a plaster footprint of an animal, or observing a shadow play; none of these things *are* the things we take them to represent, but have their own beauty and meaning that can sometimes cause us to see the things from which they are derived in a new light. In this way I see the transcriptions on this record to be a kind of emotional “impression” of the content of the lyrics; the mark left in musical substrate by the more literal meaning of the words, transmuted by the musical imagination of the artist.
Whatever the appeal of vocal transcriptions may be, there is no doubt that people have felt compelled to make such transcriptions for centuries. In more recent years, the viola in particular has found a certain affinity with the voice and vocal repertoire, possibly because of its similar range to the voice, as well as its ability (like all bowed strings) to emulate the most characteristic expressive qualities of singing. There is a rich tradition of playing the vocal music of Schubert, Bach, and other masters on the viola going back to the days of Tertis and Primrose, those great exponents of the viola in the 20th century, as well as the late romantic flowering of the genre of songs for viola and voice together.
In the spirit of this tradition, I present here some new transcriptions of great vocal music for viola and piano, with an emphasis on bringing to light older and newer repertoire that has been overlooked for various reasons, whether on the basis of gender, genre, or style.
In the spirit of letting these song impressions speak for themselves, the lyrics have been provided, but I don't feel the need to expound on the deep meanings of the texts; otherwise, why listen? I will say that these pieces were chosen with a general trajectory in mind, the songs by Boulanger, Amos, and Sill deal with love, spirituality, and religion and the ways that these intersect, with the shock of Clint Borzoni's “In Dispair” introducing more somber meditations on loss and reconciliation in the latter half of the record. Though not a vocal piece originally, Marin Marais piece for viola da gamba Les Voix Humaines seemed a fitting way to end an instrumental meditation on the human voice. The painful sweetness of his harmonies, to me, encapsulates the bittersweet tension of love and loss contained in these songs.
Clairières dans le ciel, no. 1 & 2
Music: Lili Boulanger
Text: Francis Jammes
1. She had gone down to the bottom of the meadow
She had gone down to the bottom of the meadow,
and because the meadow was full of flowers
that like to grow in the water,
I had gathered the drowned plants.
Soon, because she was wet, she came back to the top
of that flowery meadow.
She laughed and moved with the lanky grace
of girls who are too tall.
She looked the way lavender flowers do.
​
2. She is solemnly gay
She is solemnly gay. Sometimes she looked up
as if to see what I was thinking.
She was as soft as the yellow and blue velvet
of a lane of pansies late at night.
​
​Translations copyright © by Faith J. Cormier, reprinted with permission from the LiederNet Archive
Gefaβter Abschied
Music: Wolfgang Erich Korngold
Text: Ernst Lothar
Resigned Farewell
Do not weep that I am now going,
Be cheerful and let me kiss you.
If joy does not bloom when we are near,
It will greet you more chastely from afar.
Take these flowers that I have picked,
Red China roses and carnations,
Shake off the sorrow that oppressed you,
The heart's blossom cannot wither.
Do not smile a bitter smile,
Do not push me aside in silence.
A soft breeze will soon fan you once more,
Love will soon escort you!
Give me your hand without trembling,
Give me all your rapture to this last kiss.
Be not afraid of tempests: after storms
The sun rises more resplendently.
So, take one last look at the lovely lime-tree,
Beneath which no eye ever saw us.
Believe, O believe, I shall find you again,
For they who sowed love with a smile shall reap its harvest.
​
Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005) and The Complete songs of Hugo Wolf (Faber, 2021)
Dragon
Text and Music: Tori Amos
Don't tell me
A woman did this to you
Candy lies
You touched my hand
I felt a force
You called it dark
but now I'm not so sure
Just stay awhile
Stay awhile
Why don't you
Stay awhile
'Cause your wild card Boy needs playing
Don't believe the lie
your Dragon needs slaying
Won't you lay here with me
and I will bring
kisses for the beast
Lay here with me
here with me
Don't tell me
A woman did this to you
Candy lies
When I look back over
documents and pages
Ancient savageries
Christened those inflated.
Now it has come to light
the Gods they have slipped up
They forgot about the power
of a woman's love
Just stay a while
Stay awhile
Why don't you
Stay awhile
'Cause your wild card Boy needs playing
Don't believe the lie
your Dragon needs slaying
Won't you lay here with me
and I will bring
kisses for the beast
Lay here with me
here with me
Don't tell me
A woman did this to you
Candy lies
Forgive my
Candy lies
Icicle
Text and Music: Tori Amos
Icicle icicle
where are you going
Where are you going
I have a hiding place
when spring marches in
Will you keep watch for me,
I hear them calling
Gonna lay down
gonna lay down
Greeting the monster
in our Easter dresses
Father says bow your head
like the Good Book says
I think the Good Book is
missing some pages
Gonna lay down
gonna lay down
And when my hand touches myself
I can finally rest my head
And when they say take of his body
I think I'll take from mine instead
Getting off, getting off
while they're all downstairs
Singing prayers sing away
He's in my pumpkin p.j's
Lay your book on my chest
Feel the word
feel the word
Feel the word
feel the word
Feel it
I could have
I should have
I could have flown
you know
I could have
I should have
I didn't
so
Icicle icicle
where are you going
I have a hiding place
when spring marches in
Will you keep watch for me,
I hear them calling
Gonna lay down
gonna lay down
Lay down
gonna lay
down
The Kiss
Text and Music: Judee Sill
Love, risin' from the mists
Promise me this and only this
Holy breath touchin' me
Like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss
Sun, siftin' thru the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swoopin' down
Just to show me
How to give my heart away
And once a crystal choir
Appeared while I was sleepin' and called my name
And when they came down nearer
Sayin', "Dyin' is done",
Then a new song was sung
Until somewhere we breathed as one
Stars, burstin' in the sky
Hear the sad nova's dyin' cry
Shimmerin' memory
Come and hold me
While you show me how to fly
Sun, siftin' thru the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swoopin' down
Just to show me
How to give my heart away
And lately sparklin' hosts
Come fill my dreams descendin' on firey beams
I've seen 'em come clear down
Where our poor bodies lay
Soothe us gently and say,
"Gonna wipe all your tears away"
Love risin' from the mists
Promise me this and only this
Holy breath touchin' me
Like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss...
In Despair
Music: Clint Borzoni
Text: Constantine Cavafy
He lost him completely. And he now tries to find
his lips in the lips of each new lover,
he tries in the union with each new lover
to convince himself that it’s the same young man,
that it’s to him he gives himself.
He lost him completely, as though he never existed.
He wanted, his lover said, to save himself
from the tainted, unhealthy form of sexual pleasure,
the tainted, shameful form of sexual pleasure.
There was still time, he said, to save himself.
He lost him completely, as though he never existed.
Through fantasy, through hallucination,
he tries to find his lips in the lips of other young men,
he longs to feel his kind of love once more.
For You There Is No Song
Music: H. Leslie Adams
Text: Edna St. Vincent Millay
For you there is no song,
Only the shaking of the voice that meant to sing,
The sound of the strong voice breaking.
Strange in my hand appears the pen,
And yours broken
There are ink and tears on the page.
Only the tears have spoken.
Indian Summer
Text and Music: Tori Amos
Indian summer
Fresh mown grass
Girls in the attic
looking on them
Indian summer
call me back
Someone tell me there is another way
Is it loud
Is it autumn that you're talking about
Is it why
Is it lost on what I'm talking about
Is it just that you can't find a way out
Find another way
teach me how to pray
Indian Summer
Through the year
On the medicine wheel
Call me back
Trap me in between
somewhere west
somewhere south
it seems these days
anything west gets the blade
gets wasted
Is it right
Is it real what you're talking about
Everything that I feel
you're talking about
Sometimes I don't know what I'm hearing now
Is there another way
There is another way
another way to pray
Here, here, here, here
Girls take your hands like you pray
over the ground
then back on your body
Girls take your hands like you pray
through the blades of grass
gently, gently, gently
There is another way
yes, another way
another way to pray
Indian summer
Fresh mown grass
Can you Mr Bush
light the sage
Can you, anyone that's listening
find a way
It is clear, it is clear
that we need another way
another way to pray
Do you feel
Do you feel now
what I'm talking about
everywhere that I look
I know no one's coming out
out of it
what it is
and what they're feeling now
There is another way
another way to pray
Mond, so gehst du wieder auf
Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Text: Ernst Lothar
Moon, thus you rise once more
Over the dark valley of unwept tears!
Teach, teach me not to yearn for her,
To make my blood run pale,
Not to suffer this sorrow,
Caused when two souls part.
See, you shroud yourself in mist.
Yet you cannot darken the bright images
That the night arouses in me with wilder and fiercer pain.
Ah! I feel in the depths of my being:
The heart that has suffered separation
Will burn eternally.
​
​Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005) and The Complete songs of Hugo Wolf (Faber, 2021)
Sterbelied
Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Text: Alfred Kerr
Death Song
When I am dead, my dearest,
Do not lament.
Insted of roses and cypress,
Grass shall cover my grave.
I shall sleep quietly in the twilight,
In the heavy dusk.
And if you will, remember,
And if you will, forget.
I shall not feel the rain,
I shall not see the dawn,
I shall not hear the nightingale
Lamenting in the trees.
No one shall ever wake me,
All the world has vanished.
Perhaps I shall remember you,
Perhaps I'll have forgotten you.
​
Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005) and The Complete songs of Hugo Wolf (Faber, 2021)
Flowers Burn to Gold
Tori Amos
Where are you?
I scan the skies
Voices in the breeze
I scan the sea
Someone said they thought they saw you there
Through a cloud in the Midwest
Then I thought, could it be you?
By the way you were described
"She had the kindest eyes"
Where? Where? Where?
Where? Where? Where?
You told me once
Gardens, yes, they know
Death is not the end and
Flowers burn to gold
Someone said that they saw you there (saw you there)
On a cliff in the Southwest
Then I thought it might be you
By the way you were described
"She had the kindest eyes"
Where? Where? Where?
Where? Where? Where?
Someone prayed you were there for them (once again)
Like a miracle, miracle angel
Now I think it might be true
By the way you were described
"She had the kindest eyes"
Now I know all of it's true
By the way you were described
"She has the kindest eyes"
Les Voix Humaines
Marin Marais
Instrumental
Lyrics
Performer Bios
Viola and Arrangements
Daniel Moore
A native of Houston, Texas, Daniel Moore is a member of the North Carolina Symphony. Daniel began playing viola in his middle school orchestra program, and his affinity for the instrument led him to attend Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, studying with Lawrence Wheeler. He then earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in viola performance at Vanderbilt University and Louisiana State University under Kathryn Plummer, and Elias Goldstein, studied for two years at Lynn University under Ralph Fielding, and holds a Doctorate from the University of Colorado Boulder, where he studied under Erika Eckert.
Piano
Zerek Dodson
A consummate performer on piano, organ, and harpsichord, Zerek Dodson currently serves as organist and pianist at First United Methodist Church in Boulder, and is on-staff at the University of Denver as a choral pianist and instrumental accompanist. A graduate of the DMA program in Collaborative Piano at CU Boulder, Zerek is much in demand as a chamber musician, vocal coach, and music director. He enjoys a busy performance schedule across the Front Range, working with singers, instrumentalists, chamber groups, choirs, and orchestras.
Contact
Daniel Moore
daniel.moore.violist@gmail.com
(979) 665-5605