COLLABORATIVE WORKS FESTIVAL: MYTHS & LEGENDS

What are songs but stories set to music? Whether they are confessional stories of the self or the telling of any variety of narrative, songs are but musical tales.

CONCERT I

SCHUBERT & THE GREEKS

presented in partnership with The Poetry Foundation

Sarah Shafer, soprano

Nicholas Phan, tenor

Douglas Williams, bass-baritone

Myra Huang, piano

Shannon McGinnis, piano

PROGRAM

German-speakers have long had a fascination with the world of Ancient Greece – to this day, German school children are encouraged to study Ancient Greek as one of the requirements of their curriculum. The roots of this can be traced back to the middle of the 18th century, with the rise of Classicism, and a desire to turn away from the ornate complexity of the Baroque aesthetics.

Franz Schubert and his poet contemporaries were very much swept up in this fascination, and they incorporated Ancient Greek mythology into many of their works. Two of the leading literary poets of this classical movement, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, greatly inspired Schubert, as well as Johann Mayrhofer, Schubert’s very close friend and roommate for many years. In total, Schubert set 47 of Mayrhofer’s poems as songs – of those 47 songs, over one-third of them deal with the subject of Ancient Greek antiquity.

SCHUBERT: selected songs

INTRODUCTION
An die Leier

THE PLAYTHINGS OF THE GODS
Ganymed
Atys
Lied des Orpheus
Antigone und Oedip
Der zürenden Diana

ORESTEIA
  Orest auf Tauris
  Iphigenia
  Der entsühnte Orest

THE GODS
  Die Götter Griechenlands
  Prometheus
  Der Musensohn
  Gruppe aus dem Tartarus

POSTLUDE
Grenzen der Menscheit

CONCERT II

ONCE UPON A TIME…

Sarah Shafer, soprano

Nicholas Phan, tenor

Douglas Williams, bass-baritone

Myra Huang, piano

Shannon McGinnis, piano

PROGRAM

Before its meaning was watered down over time to simply refer to any popular sentimental love song, the term ‘ballad’ referred to a strophic song that related a narrative tale. Originally passed down between generations of singers and troubadours, they tended to tell fantastical and legendary tales, often involving stories about knights and their ladies, kings and queens, and all sorts of fantastical creatures, both good and evil. This program looks at many songs that were inspired by this tradition of musical story-telling through song.

INTRODUCTION
FAURÉ: Mélisande's song

KNIGHTS & THEIR LADIES
   DUPARC: Au pays où se fait la guerre
   BRAHMS: Es war ein Markgraf uberm Rhein
   BRITTEN: The False Knight Upon the Road

KINGS & QUEENS
   R. SCHUMANN: Belsazar
   MAHLER: Rheinlegendchen
   SCHUBERT: Der König in Thule
   RAVEL: Ballade de la reine morte d'aimer
   HEGGIE: The Haughty Snail King from Songs to the Moon

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
   SCHUBERT: Der Zwerg
   R. SCHUMANN: Waldesgespräch
   C. SCHUMANN: Lorelei
   MENDELSSOHN: Hexenlied

FAIRY TALES
   HEGGIE: Yet Gentle Will the Griffin Be from Songs to the Moon
   HEGGIE: What the Grey-Winged Fairy Said from Songs to the Moon
CHAUSSON: Dans la forêt du charme et de l'enchantement
R. SCHUMANN: Der Sandmann
   WOLF: Elfenlied