John Matthew Myers (tenor)
Desiderium
Myra Huang (piano)
rec. 2020, Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, USA
Sung texts enclosed
Reviewed as downloaded from press preview
AVIE AV2512 [64]
For his debut recital disc John Matthew Myers has chosen songs and groups of songs by five American composers, active during the 20th century. The common denominator is a feeling of loneliness, and it all stemmed from Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915, which is the only really well-known work in this album. Myers is quoted in Julian Haylock’s liner notes, when he analyses his choices and relates them to his personal background: “I view the entire program as a fragmented arc of a particular person who is, in many ways, on the periphery of his life“, and continues: “Every song has varying degrees of yearning and some form of being separated, alone, or distant. I am half-Chinese and half-Caucasian, and have always felt this kind of isolation in not being accepted, because I am not enough of one thing or another – or just feeling like an outlier. All these pieces have a sense of intimacy and longing for connection.”
It goes without saying that the overriding mood is that of melancholy and gloom, but the texts and the musical expressions differ greatly, which vouches for a varied programme. Barber’s Knoxville was composed in 1947 for a high voice and orchestra, and has almost exclusively been soprano territory – it was premiered by Eleanor Steber in 1948 – but it was recently recorded by Nicky Spence on the Resonus set of Barber’s complete songs (review), and the accompaniment there as well as on the present recording is Barber’s own piano reduction of the orchestral score. Since James Agee’s dream-like prose poem from 1938 is written in the persona of a 5-year-old male child, it’s logical to have it performed by a tenor. John Matthew Myers sings the many lyrical sections with soft beautiful tone, but he is also apt at expressing the desperation and sorrow in the crucial lines… and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth. The final lines express consolation – or is it resignation? - but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am. He sings it softer … and softer … and softer … It is a deeply felt reading.
Composed in 1918 The three Griffes songs were among his last vocal works before he died in the Spanish Flu pandemic in April 1920, aged 35. The poems were by Fiona Macleod, which was the penname for William Field, who never revealed his identity until it was read in his will. The songs were orchestrated in 1919, and a couple of years ago I reviewed a recording with Australian tenor Stuart Skelton that I highly appreciated. Like Barber’s Knoxville the orchestration has an attractive colouring that the piano cannot measure up to, but still it has its own attraction, and since it is the original it’s valid and gives the music a more intimate image, more chamber music like. I am happy to have both versions in so convincing readings.
I must say that André Previn’s 4 Songs for Tenor and Piano is a harder nut to crack. Composed in 2004 they are dressed in a rather knotty harmonic language. The mood is gloomy, also in the up-tempo last song, The Revelation. I believe that repeated listening might open them up, but at present I must content myself with admitting that the singing and playing are of the highest order. As far as I have been able to find out, this is a first recording, even though the liner notes don’t specifically say so.
I have a special liking for John Kander’s A Letter from Sullivan Ballou ever since I heard it with Lisa Delan a few years ago (review). Sullivan Ballou, a major in the Civil War, wrote it in the battle front to his beloved Sarah, leaving it among his belongings in case he would be killed, which he was just a week later. It is a very gripping letter, which expresses both hope for the future and fear that something would go wrong. But it is also comforting, ending with “Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again …”. The setting is wonderful, gripping and it is difficult to hear it without shedding tears. It was premiered by Renée Fleming and Warren Jones in 1994 for Marilyn Horne’s 60th birthday celebration gala at Carnegie Hall and a live recording of that occasion was issued on RCA. John Kander is known, at least to Broadway musical enthusiasts, for his collaboration with Fred Ebb in Cabaret, Chicago and other Broadway successes. Here, in a quite different vein, he catches all the shifts and nuances of the letter so sensitively. There are certainly echoes from his musical background, which in no way is a drawback. John Matthew Myers reading is just as sensitive as Lisa Delan’s, and both discs can be warmly recommended.
Kurt Weill was German and had a brilliant career in the 1920s and early 1930s, often in collaboration with Berthold Brecht. Being Jewish he had to flee Germany when the Nazis came to power. From 1935 he lived in the US, where he had a new successful career at Broadway, and he became a US citizen in 1943. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 triggered him to set three of the Walt Whitman poems recorded here. He “structured the original three as a gradual decrescendo of militarism from the bullish opening to the wistful intensity of the final dirge”, as Julian Haylock says in his notes. Five years later he added Come Up from the Fields, Father, which here is placed third in the suite. Weill was a great admirer of Whitman, and said as early as 1926 that he was “the first truly original poetic talent to grow out of American soil.” The music is warlike and sturdy in the first song, reminding me of his style in the 1920s, the second song is a funeral march, and the whole suite – I wouldn’t call it a cycle – is deeply engaging.
John Matthew Myers can feel satisfied with his debut album, and he is excellently supported by Myra Huang’s accompaniment.
Göran Forsling
Contents
Samuel Barber
Knoxville Summer of 1915 Op. 24
Charles Griffes
3 Poems of Fiona Macleod:
The Lament of Ian the Proud
Thy Dark Eyes to Mine
The Rose of the Night
André Previn
4 Songs for Tenor and Piano:
Is It For Now
To Write One Song
Ad Infinitum
The Revelation
John Kander
A Letter from Sullivan Ballou
Kurt Weill
4 Walt Whitman Songs:
Beat! Beat! Drums!
Oh Captain! My Captain
Come Up from the Fields, Father
Dirge for Two Veterans
