From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Bolcom's "Songs of Innocence and of Experience"
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:09:37 GMT

There's no recording, and they only gave one performance in NY, so maybe
there's no point in my posting anything about this.  But I just had to
say a few words about a truly impressive piece of music I heard in
Carnegie Hall on Saturday night (Nov. 22).

Leonard Slatkin conducted the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
(plus others, see below) in William Bolcom's "Songs of Innocence and of
Experience," a complete setting of the William Blake poetry collections
of the same name.  This is a large-scale oratorio for voices and
orchestra, lasting about 2 hrs 45 mins.  (With one intermission between
the two "books," the concert lasted almost exactly 3 hours.)  A "big"
piece in every way.

And a successful one, to my way of thinking, though my friends who also
attended felt otherwise (though each liked some of it).  The work is
arranged in separate "parts," each encompassing several songs without
pause.  Styles shift enormously from one moment to the next.  Some songs
are in a familiar neo-tonal 20th-century vein (I was reminded often of
Britten), others go whole hog into a country-western idiom, or rock, or
big-band jazz ballad, or reggae.  Bolcom is master of each of these
styles and brings them all off.

What surprised me is that he didn't explore more of a mixture of these
possiblities within a single song; he tends to think either pop or
serious, without any halfway mixes.  Also, some of the longer poems
recieved perhaps too rhythmically regular and predictable a treatment;
almost all the settings are strophic or nearly so, and he might with
advantage and varied his patterns more (and thereby cut down some of the
length too).

But otherwise, it basically worked for me.  Highlights included: "The
Shepherd" and "The Nurse's Song," straightforward country waltzes for
voice, guitar, and fiddle; "The Little Boy Found," a soothing piece of
soft rock; "The Tyger" (you know, "Tyger, tyger, burning bright"), a
tour de force for speaking chorus and percussion; "The Angel," a
breathtaking setting for super-high soprano (I'm told it ascends to A
above high C); "The Sick Rose" (the "O Rose thou art sick" poem that
Britten also set), a luscious setting for low alto; and the final "A
Divine Image," a reggae that fits the phrasing of the verse perfectly.

The performance was amazingly fine; given the length, complexity, and
varied forces, plus the realities of American orchestral schedules,
there cannot possibly have been enough rehearsal time, and yet it
sounded as if there was.  Only the madrigal sextet (The Western Wind)
sounded as if they messed up in any noticeable way.  The event was
"staged" to a certain extent, with hangings above the orchestra of
Blake's unique drawings, lighting changes of various sorts including
spotlights, well-managed light amplification for the pop singers, 
ingenious deployment of the childrens' choir around the main audience
floor for various movements, and skillful entrances and exits for the
soloists (they didn't stay on throughout as they would in a "regular"
oratorio).

Joan Morris, noted mezzo and wife of Bolcom, had laryngitis and couldn't
perform.  Her music was shared among 3 other soloists, 2 of whom were
last-minute additions to the program.  Here are the performers:

Sopranos: Ilana Davidson, Linda Hohenfeld, Mary Shearer, Debby Lennon
Mezzo-Soprano: Nancy Maultsby
Country Singer: Lee Anna Knox
Tenors: Walter Plante, John Absalom
Baritone: Vernon Hartman
Boy Speaker: Jordan Cooper
Rock Singer: Andre de Shields
The Western Wind
St. Louis SO & Chorus, Concert Choir of the St. Louis Children's Choirs

Instrumentation: Triple woodwind, 2 saxophones, piccolo trumpet, cornet,
2 fluegel horns, 5 trombones, euphonium, 2 tubas, electric violins,
guitar and bass guitar, harp, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine,
cowbell, chimes, toy piano, vibraphone, multiple cymbals, crotales,
gong, woodblocks, guiro, ratchets, sandblocks, tom toms, timbales, four
timpani, jawbone, small maraca, harmonica, marimba, glockenspiel,
triangle, temple blocks, slapstick, sleighbells, Thai gongs, strings,
and keyboard (in this performance, a Kurzweil K2000 served for
harmonium, electric piano, celeste, and pipe organ).

The work was written beginning in 1956 and most intensively 1973-1982.
It was first performed in Stuttgart, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies,
in 1984.  It has had fewer than a dozen performances since then: in Ann
Arbor, Chicago, Brooklyn, St. Louis, and now NYC.  All efforts to
interest recording companies have failed.

But I hope more chances to hear it come our way.

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical