music article 11

The Aids Quilt Songbook: Songs by William Bolcom, Elizabeth Brown, Carl Byron, Chris DeBlasio, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Harbison, Fred Hersch, Lee Hoiby, David Krakauer, Annea Lockwood, John Musto, Ned Rorem, Donald St. Pierre, Richard Thomas, Donald Wheelock ; And Trouble Came: Musical Responses to AIDS Review by: Keith Ward American Music, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 351-356 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3052643 . Accessed: 31/12/2011 22:03

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Recording Reviews 351

Morath), the jailbird in "Waiting for the Evening Mail" (by Billy Baskette), and the man who abandons his wife, only to find her with another upon his

hasty return, in "Ain't That a Shame" (by John Queen and Walter Wilson, with new words and musical adaptation by Max Morath). Jazz aficionados familiar with "Willie the Weeper" from the classic effervescent recording by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven will hear a tune transformed: in Mor- ath's vocal version, it becomes a contemplative tale ending on a cautionary note of empathy. These ragtime-era songs blend well with the poignant sig- nature numbers of Bert Williams. Scattered among the vocal pieces are inter- ludes, billed as "bonus tracks" on this issue, in which Morath and his small band play instrumental ragtime from the period. Here too Morath offers a

delightful variety of well-known and obscure numbers: James Scott's "Kan- sas City Rag," a classic rag from the Midwest; Charles L. Johnson's bubbly "Dill Pickles Rag," a big hit on Tin Pan Alley; Clarence Woods's "Sleepy Hol- low," a genial "novelty" rag featuring tremolos; and William H. Krell's "Mis-

sissippi Rag," a piece perhaps more widely known by reputation than by sound, since it was the first work to be published (January 1897) with the word "rag" in its title.

In the end, this CD comes off as not only a tribute to Williams but to the music of the ragtime era. As such, it represents another in a long line of re-

cordings by Morath featuring popular music from the last turn of the centu-

ry. Morath (born 1926) has been a distinctive interpreter of that music for sev- eral decades. Far from a note-for-note classicist, he offers his own aptly idiomatic arrangements of the published versions of the pieces he performs. In that, he shares the spirit of the musicians who played the music when it was new.

The cover of the disc features a photo of Morath smiling and relaxed in a

cap and a plaid flannel shirt. The woodsman image is apt. Morath lives in the repertory of Bert Williams's era like it was a log cabin he had built by hand.

Jeffrey Magee Indiana University

The Aids Quilt Songbook: Songs by William Bolcom, Elizabeth Brown, Carl Byron, Chris DeBlasio, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Har- bison, Fred Hersch, Lee Hoiby, David Krakauer, Annea Lockwood, John Musto, Ned Rorem, Donald St. Pierre, Richard Thomas, Donald Wheelock. Donald Wheelock. Fury. William Parker, baritone; Alan Marks, piano. Fred Hersch. blues for an imaginary valentine. Wil- liam Sharp, baritone; Fred Hersch, piano. John Musto. Heartbeats. William Sharp, baritone; John Musto, piano. Ned Rorem. A Dream of Nightingales. Kurt Ollmann, baritone; Ned Rorem, piano. Chris De- Blasio. Walt Whitman in 1989. Sanford Sylvan, baritone; David Breit- man, piano. David Krakauer. The 80s Miracle Diet. William Parker, baritone; David Krakauer, clarinet. Annea Lockwood. For Richard. Sanford Sylvan, baritone; David Krakauer, clarinet. Donald St. Pierre. Fairy Book Lines. Kurt Ollmann, baritone; Donald St. Pierre, piano. William Bolcom. Vaclav's Song: Dasvedanya, Mama. William Sharp, bar-

352 American Music, Fall 1998

itone; Steven Blier, piano. Richard Thomas. AIDS Anxiety. William Sharp, Kurt Ollmann, Sanford Sylvan, baritones; Richard Thomas, piano. John Harbison. The Flute of Interior Time. Sanford Sylvan, bari- tone; David Breitman, piano. Carl Byron. The birds of sorrow. Kurt 011- mann, baritone; Donald St. Pierre, piano. Lee Hoiby. Investiture at Cec- coni's. William Parker, baritone; William Huckaby, piano. Elizabeth Brown. A Certain Light. William Sharp, baritone; William Huckaby, piano. Ricky Ian Gordon. I Never Knew. Kurt Ollmann, baritone; Ricky Ian Gordon, piano. Liner notes by Philip Caggiano and Jeffrey Stock. 1994. Harmonia Mundi France 907602.

And Trouble Came: Musical Responses to AIDS. Chris DeBlasio. All The Way Through Evening: Five Nocturnes for Baritone and Piano. Mi- chael Dash, baritone; Chris DeBlasio, piano. C. Bryan Rulon. Self Re- quiem. Computer tape by Curtis Bahn. Musicians' Accord (Katharine Flanders Mukherji, flute/piccolo; Matt Sullivan, oboe; Terry Szor, trumpet; Michael Pugliese, percussion; Margaret Kampmeier, piano/ synthesizer; Ted Mook, cello; Charles Tomlinson, contrabass); C. Bryan Rulon, conductor. Laura Kaminsky. And Trouble Came: An African AIDS Diary. Mark Lamos, narrator; Fidelio (Lois Martin, viola; Harry Clark, cello; Sanda Schuldmann, piano). Liner notes by Perry Brass, C. Bry- an Rulon, and Laura Kaminsky. 1996. Composers Recordings, Inc. CRI CD 729.

Historical accounts of American culture at the close of the twentieth century will not be written without a chapter devoted to HIV and AIDS. Recognized now as one of the most profound health crises of our time, the pandemic caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus has changed human interac- tion fundamentally. The HIV/AIDS crisis also has had a catastrophic effect on the music world: an entire generation of creative performers, composers, teachers, and scholars, as well as technicians, engineers, and executives in the music industry has watched its ranks thinning with the spread of this virus.

Whether out of anger, anguish, resignation, or fear, musicians have used their creative energies to respond to this pandemic with compositions that offer gripping narratives and testimonials. Beginning in the early 1990s, a good ten years after the publicly recognized outbreak of HIV, recordings of music writ- ten clearly and explicitly in response to AIDS began to emerge. John Corigliano's Symphony no. 1 was premiered and recorded by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim (Erato 2292-45601-2). The arresting, highly charged works of Diamanda Galas appeared on CD (see particularly Plague Mass, Mute 9-61043-2, and vena cava, Mute 9-61459-2). Jon Anthony's song cycle, When We No Longer Touch, was recorded by the Turtle Creek Chorale of Dallas, Texas (AmFAR) and featured in a special program on public television (After Good-bye: An AIDS Story). Falsettos, by William Finn, one of the first musicals in which the specter of HIV-related illnesses arose, was released by DRG Records (22600). Roger Bourland's and John Hall's can- tata, Hidden Legacies, was commissioned and recorded by the Gay Men's Cho- rus of Los Angeles, Jon Bailey, artistic director (GMCLA 022).

Recording Reviews 353

This review examines two additional contributions to this oeuvre. To date, The AIDS Quilt Songbook stands as one of the most important musical respons- es to AIDS. Unlike the music typically performed at AIDS benefit concerts, which had little or no relevance to the pandemic, the songs in this compila- tion were written with the clear purpose of naming the virus along with its social as well as personal and medical complications in contemporary life. And Trouble Came: Musical Responses to AIDS offers a sampling of the diverse musical styles of HIV-related compositions. Most important, it draws our at- tention to the reality of HIV in the global epicenter of the pandemic: Africa.

The Aids Quilt Songbook originated with baritone William Parker (1943-93), who commissioned or solicited composers to write songs that would address HIV and AIDS, either directly or metaphorically. Like the growing number of

quilt patches on the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, he hoped the songs would place a personal stamp on the ravages, confusion, and injustices of HIV. And, like the growth of the NAMES Quilt, Parker hoped composers would continue to add songs. This has happened, with new works from composers in Minnesota (recorded on Heartbeats: New Songs from Minnesota for the AIDS Quilt Songbook, INNOVA 500), Chapel Hill, N.C., and Philadelphia.

The value of the eighteen songs goes well beyond Parker's mission, how- ever. With contributions by William Bolcom, Elizabeth Brown, Carl Byron, Chris DeBlasio, Ricky Ian Gordon, John Harbison, Fred Hersch, Lee Hoiby, David Krakauer, Annea Lockwood, John Musto, Ned Rorem, Donald St. Pierre, Richard Thomas, and Donald Wheelock, The AIDS Quilt Songbook is one of the most significant collections of modern art song from the final quar- ter of this century. (The musical score, published by Boosey & Hawkes, also includes songs by Richard Wilson, Libby Larsen, and Steven Houtz. They were not recorded on the CD but were part of the New York premier of the

Songbook in 1992.) This songbook contains compositions of remarkable breadth, expressive power, and high musical quality.

Mostly through narratives, the songs address such themes as alienation, loneliness, regret, and injustice. They present the stories of everyday people struggling to cope with personal loss, mortality, and the myriad of emotions that accompany the presence of HIV in a person's life. Some songs focus on the reality of gay men caught in the spotlight of this pandemic. Though the themes are universal, it is significant that the content of these compositions is derived sometimes from the experiences of homosexual men. The fact that a major recording company released performances of such songs empowers and dignifies the minority group of homosexual men in a heterosexual world.

As would be expected, the range of musical styles in this collection is broad. "Fury" by Donald Wheelock uses an incessant, pulsing rhythm. Strategical- ly placed dissonances give the sense of imminence. Fred Hersch ("blues for an imaginary valentine"), William Bolcom ("Vaslav's Song"), and David Krakauer ("The 80s Miracle Diet") use a jazzy idiom for their contributions. Richard Pearson Thomas's setting of "AIDS Anxiety" has the tone of a Broad- way tune; it also uses humor to play into our own ignorance and insecuri- ties about HIV and AIDS. Carl Byron ("The birds of sorrow"), Lee Hoiby ("In- vestiture at Cecconi's"), and Elizabeth Brown ("A Certain Light") offer musically challenging songs of great breadth. "A Dream of Nightingales" by

354 American Music, Fall 1998

Ned Rorem capitalizes upon a bird-like, grace note gesture that accompanies textural allusions of migratory birds with the habits of people flying "South" to escape more than just the bitter northeastern winter.

Three songs deserve special mention. "Walt Whitman in 1989," by Chris DeBlasio, which also appears on the second recording reviewed here, reminds us of Whitman's Civil War diaries, in which he describes young men dis-

figured by war. He returns, only this time to the hospital rooms of the 1980s, to ease the grief and suffering of a dying man and to help him with his peace- ful journey into eternal rest. A brief, recitative-like beginning brings Whit- man into our consciousness. The journey to rest is led by a soft accompani- ment of sustained chords in slow, undulating fugures. The vocal line arches to the goal of the journey ("evening") and then settles into a bed of long tones. John Musto's "Heartbeats" is a song of devastating power. It chronicles the deterioration of a person in the final stages of AIDS. Changing meters, fluc-

tuating tempi, and jolting syncopations are contrasted with listless, sing-song passages. Musto quotes the Stabat Mater chant, thus drawing an analogy be- tween the sufferings of Christ and those of a person living with AIDS. It is a

piece that leaves one profoundly moved. "I Never Knew," by Ricky Ian Gor- don, focuses on the regret as well as grief of gay men who came of age in the sexual revolution and, with the onset of HIV, saw hard-fought freedoms taken away. The title recurs throughout the text like a mantra. The song pre- sents the experience of the survivor, the person who now faces life alone.

The performances by all fifteen artists are exceptional: they are vibrant, in- tense, and convincing. The accompanying booklet to the CD contains intro-

ductory remarks by Philip Caggiano, brief notes on each song by Jeffrey Stock

(including three songs that were part of the premier but not included in the

recording), photographs from the premier at Alice Tully Hall in New York

City, and complete song texts. The anguish of AIDS has found voice in virtually every style and genre of

today's music: concert music of all varieties, pop, rap, country, Broadway (most notably Rent), new age, minimalism, performance art-the list is long. In this light, the eclectic collection of music on the disk And Trouble Came: Musical Responses to AIDS typifies the broad spectrum of musical responses to this pandemic. The compositions also are compelling musical utterances whose profound depths linger in the listener's ears and heart.

All the Way through Evening: Five Nocturnes for Baritone and Piano (1990), is a collection of poignant songs with music by Chris DeBlasio and poems by Perry Brass. As a set (the final three songs are performed without break, though they also may be performed separately), they present a highly per- sonal testimony: DeBlasio's own struggles-according to Brass-with being HIV-positive, having closeted feelings in a closed heterosexual world, expe- riencing the pain and joy of remembrance, feeling a seinse of belonging and

sharing grief. Evening and night are used metaphorically to represent death.

Though it is unwanted, death is portrayed in a way that suggests peace, even transcendence. The music is written in an appealing tonal language: long, arched phrases in slower songs contrast effectively with the pressing, rhyth- mically surging character in faster ones. Falling motivic gestures help unify the entire work. Hypnotic, repetitive figures permeate the accompaniments.

Recording Reviews 355

The performance on this CD is mostly effective. Michael Dash, the bari- tone for whom these songs were written, has an expressive, reedy voice. Its wide, varied range contributes to a moving interpretation, even though top notes are strained in some songs and the tone is sometimes gruff. DeBlasio

provides a sharp, assertive accompaniment replete with tonal colors.

Self Requiem (1994-95) by C. Bryan Rulon combines writing in a minimal- ist style with a computer tape by Curtis Bahn. Performed with intensity and

precision by Musicians' Accord, it is a tribute to Layman Foster, who died from AIDS complications in May 1994, yet Rulon also feels the composition is about "the inner world of anyone with a terminal illness." According to the composer, the two-part work attempts to combine an expression of "the

vitality and motion of an everyday life" with the "emotional states" of dy- ing (denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) as defined by Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying (1969). The most effective part of Self Requiem is the second section, which combines Bahn's tape and acoustical instruments. It is here that Rulon demonstrates an impressive control of complex organizational materials. Pervaded by a

layered texture of semi-independent ideas, sections contrasted by changes in character, timbre, and tempo clearly mark Kiibler-Ross's stages of grief. The effects are haunting: after the buoyant tone of the first section they create a sense of intense loneliness and of moorings lost. One feels adrift in an inner world of perceptions.

The third and final piece, And Trouble Came (1993, 1996 version for record-

ing), was written on commission for Fidelio (a trio of viola, cello, and piano) and narrator. The text consists of an alternation between preexisting secular and sacred texts and entries excerpted from a diary Kaminsky kept while in Ghana in 1993.

Considering its content, one cannot exaggerate the importance of this piece. Precious few compositions by American composers give testimony to the horrors of the AIDS pandemic in Africa, a continent on which untold mil- lions of people have been infected and have died, often in the most gruesome conditions and the most painful of circumstances. Gone is the transcendence and peaceful acceptance of death found in DeBlasio's songs; to their place have moved the abduction of life and the cruel rejection of AIDS sufferers. Faces are bony; all sense of hope is lost. HIV is treated with aspirin, when available. This disquieting reality emerges in Kaminsky's diary entries. Com-

bining her narrative with appropriated texts strengthens this piece. Captur- ing eternal themes of human dignity, alienation, loss, and mortality, Kamin-

sky addresses the universal significance of the pandemic. It is this universality that makes her composition so profound.

The through-composed form reflects the unfolding of Kaminsky's testimo-

ny. Narrations, accompanied or unaccompanied, alternate with instrumen- tal interludes that either set a mood or interpret the text. The Stravinsky-like walking rhythm of the beginning gives way to music that grows heavier and

tonally ambiguous. "The Dust of Death," the tenth of thirteen movements, and the final movement, "I Want to Die While You Love Me," leave one feel- ing completely resigned. Trouble, indeed, has come!

Extensive notes by Perry Brass, C. Bryan Rulon, and Laura Kaminsky ac-

356 American Music, Fall 1998

company the CD. They contain an overview of the recording, biographical sketches of the composers and performers, autobiographical notes on the

compositions, and complete texts of all the songs. While medical researchers struggle to find vaccines in laboratories and

physicians experiment with combination drug therapies that may make HIV more of a chronic-though still dangerous-condition, musicians continue to search their souls for ways to cope spiritually with this debilitating virus. In this regard, the musical significance of the above compositions is not sep- arate from their social mission: they attempt to express an outrage and sor- row unique to our time. They were written to elicit personal responses and, in some cases, political activism. Let us hope that soon we will not need to hear more compositions like these. Let us also hope that they will never end.

Keith Ward

University of Puget Sound

John Adams. The Death of Klinghoffer. Libretto by Alice Goodman. Or- chestra of the Opera de Lyon; The London Opera Chorus, Richard Goode, director; Janice Felty and Stephanie Friedman, mezzo sopra- nos; Sheila Nadler, contralto; Thomas Young, tenor; Thomas Ham- mons, James Maddalena, Eugene Perry, and Sanford Sylvan, bari- tones; Kent Nagano, conductor. Liner notes by Michael Steinberg. 1992. Elektra Nonesuch 9-79281-2 (2 CDs).

Throughout his career, John Adams has shown himself to be a master orches- trator and technician. His ability to summon up all manner of emotional ef- fects very quickly, to effect smooth or abrupt transitions from one moment to the next, are marks of the composer's style. An early experimentalism, pen- chant for the musical vernacular, neo-Romanticism, and minimalist veneer

emerge in early works, from American Standard (1973) to The Chairman Danc- es (1987). Traditional nineteenth-century dramatic gestures also appear in the

symphonic cantata Harmonium (1981), and even such early works as the third movement of Shaker Loops (1979). In Harmonium (1985), the references to the Anfortas Wound and Meister Eckhardt, both drawn from Wagner, make al- lusions to the musical past even clearer and have led to Adams being dubbed a "postmodern" composer by journalists and pundits alike.

In terms of its identity, while it is true that Adams's early works have cer- tain minimalist characteristics-Phrygian Gates (1979), Common Tones (1980), and Light Over Water (1983), and to a lesser extent Harmonium-what emerg- es most strikingly in discussions of his music of the early 1980s was a process in which the composer could be seen to be distancing himself from minimal- ism. Adams has repeatedly stated that he did not want to be thought of as a minimalist. What attracted Adams most was not so much minimalism per se as the timbral effects it created. As he told Musical America in 1985, Steve Re- ich's music "is a little too pure, too formally reserved for me. What I love about his work, though, is the sound-a very scintillating, glistening, sexy sound."

More recently, the sheer popularity of Adams's music has defied its crit- ics. In a recent survey Adams was cited as the most frequently performed composer of contemporary music. This success has only been matched by Philip Glass, whose popularity Adams has equaled in the opera house and