Butler: Piano Sonata

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG:  Book of the Hanging Gardens, Op. 15.  Bethany Beardslee, soprano, Robert Helps, piano.  Son Nova 2.  ca. 1962

SCHOENBERG - BOOK OF THE HANGING GARDENS - BEARDSLEE - HELPS - SON - NOVA 2

0:00 – I.
5:00 – II.

Thomas Feng, piano

I met Eve in 2017 at a festival in Vermont, where she was a faculty composer. We became fast friends, and have collaborated frequently and fruitfully over the years since. I have always adored the meeting in Eve’s music of elegant structural concepts and processes (be they serial, post-minimal, or otherwise) with a heartfelt lyricism; I find her music witty, playful, ecstatic, nostalgic – sometimes all at once.

Unearthly Booty coalesced from multiple strands of inspiration. One summer, Eve took me walking through the woods of Vermont, and we came across a patch of ghostly white flowers, which we later learned were called “ghost pipes”. They are plants, but don’t have chlorophyll and can’t photosynthesize, feeding parasitically instead on fungi. During the pandemic, Eve dove deeply into the work of Emily Dickinson, and found a letter in which Dickinson described picking a bunch of ghost pipes as a child – an ‘unearthly booty’.

Eve and I also both share an affection for the music and personage of Milton Babbitt, with whom she studied as an undergraduate at Princeton. She once told me that my embrace of Babbitt struck her as like I was “eating him”, and thought to write me a piano piece in which Babbitt’s music would be decomposed and metabolized. As a result, Unearthly Booty is a two-movement fantasy on a brief cello piece Babbitt wrote for her in 1978 ("Eppesithalamium").

The first movement traces and retraces the rhythmic and melodic contours of Babbitt’s original piece, as if building it up bit by bit, in increasingly elaborate repetitions, before disassembling it once again. Moments of elegance leaven the pointillistic texture, evoking Babbitt’s own sly (musical and personal) charm.

This swift, chatty banter gives way to singing and dancing in the second movement. Eve takes the initial material increasingly afield: a chorale, a moto perpetuo, a reverie – and finally a cryptic wink.

Eve Beglarian – Unearthly Booty

A charming ballad I recorded in 1988 with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra.  It was one of my Galway-born Irish mother's very favourite songs!

(1). NEAR TO BANBRIDGE TOWN IN THE COUNTY DOWN
ONE MORNING IN JULY
DOWN A BOREEN GREEN CAME A SWEET COLLEEN
AND SHE SMILED AS SHE PASSED ME BY!
O, SHE LOOKED SO SWEET FROM HER SNOW-WHITE FEET
TO THE SHEEN OF HER NUT BROWN HAIR,
SUCH A COAXING ELF, I HAD TO SHAKE MYSELF
TO MAKE SURE I WAS REALLY THERE!

(Chorus) FROM BANTRY BAY, UP TO DERRY QUAY
AND FROM GALWAY TO DUBLIN TOWN,
NO MAID I'VE SEEN LIKE THE BROWN COLLEEN
THAT I MET IN THE COUNTY DOWN!

(2).AS  SHE ONWARD SPED, SURE I SCRATCHED MY HEAD
AND I GAZED WITH A FEELING RARE
AND I SAID, SAYS I, TO A PASSERBY
"NOW WHO'S THE MAID WITH THE NUT BROWN HAIR?"
OH, HE SMILED AT ME, AND WITH PRIDE SAYS HE,
"THAT'S THE GEM OF IRELAND'S CROWN!
YOUNG ROSIE McCANN FROM THE BANKS OF THE BANN,
SHE'S THE STAR OF THE COUNTY DOWN!"

FROM BANTRY BAY......ETC.

(3). AT THE HARVEST FAIR, SHE'LL BE SURELY THERE
SO I'LL DRESS IN MY SUNDAY CLOTHES
AND I'LL TRY SHEEPS' EYES AND DELUTHERIN' LIES
ON THE HEART OF THE NUT BROWN ROSE
NO PIPE I'LL SMOKE, AND NO HORSE I'LL YOKE
THO' MY PLOW WITH RUST TURN BROWN,
'TIL A SMILING BRIDE AT MY OWN FIRE-SIDE
SITS THAT STAR OF THE COUNTY DOWN....

FROM BANTRY BAY......ETC.

The Star of the County Down

In Breaking Walls Episode 79, we present a detailed look at Orson Welles’ radio career through the end of 1941. 


Highlights:
• Beginnings in Illinois and China — How they helped shape Orson
• The Todd Seminary School — His first exposure to theater and Radio
• Connections and Early Breaks — How his mentor Roger Hill, Thornton Wilder, Alexander Woollcott, and Katharine Cornell helped Orson get to Broadway
• Orson meets John Houseman and Archibald MacLeish, and first appears on the March of Time
• 1935-1937 — From the March of Time to the Columbia Workshop, and how Irvin Reis taught Orson how to create for radio 
• How the US Government shaped the opportunity for Orson to write, direct, and star in Les Misérables on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1937  
• The Shadow Knows! — Agnes Moorehead and Orson Welles’ one season on The Shadow
• The birth of the Mercury Theater on the Air as First Person singular. 
• How it’s success led to the most infamous night in radio in October of 1938
• Mainstream success with Campbell’s Soups
• Orson goes to Hollywood, and signs the greatest autonomous film contract in history at 24
• Citizen Kane — How William Randolph Hearst and RKO shaped the film
• Lady Esther Presents — Orson comes back to radio in the autumn of 1941
• Pearl Harbor Day and collaborating with Norman Corwin
• Joseph Cotton introduces Orson to Rita Hayworth

The WallBreakers:
http://thewallbreakers.com
Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

To support the show:
http://patreon.com/TheWallBreakers

Special thanks to our Sponsors: 
• The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society
http://www.ghoulishdelights.com/series/themorls/

• Twelve Chimes, It’s Midnight
https://twelvechimesradio.blogspot.com

• The Fireside Mystery Theatre
https://www.firesidemysterytheatre.com


The reading material used in today’s episode was: 
• Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles by Frank Brady
• This is Orson Welles by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich
• The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio by John Dunning
• Discovering Orson Welles by Jonathan Rosenbaum

Other materials included:
• http://www.wellesnet.com - an incredibly comprehensive website on Orson’s career
• Orson Welles on the Air, 1938-1946 at https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu
• The Radio Preservation Task Force also has a great Facebook group headed by Josh Shepperd


Selected Interviews in this episode were:
• Orson Welles with Dick Cavett, Johnny Carson, and Huw Wheldon, 

• Agnes Moorehead and Alan Reed were with radio Hall of Fame Member Chuck Schaden, who interviewed over 200 members of the radio community during his 39 year career. Chuck’s interviews can be streamed for free at SpeakingofRadio.com.

• William Robson was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio in January of 1976 and Kenny Delmare was with John Dunning in 1983. Those interviews can be found at the Old Time Radio Researcher’s Group at Otrrlibrary.org 

• William Herz was with Walden Hughes and John and Larry Gassman in 2013 for their program on the Yesterday USA Radio Network, which you can visit at http://www.yesterdayusa.com.


A Special Thank you to:
Christian Neuhaus
Rebecca Shield

WallBreakers Links:
Patreon - http://patreon.com/thewallbreakers
Social Media - @TheWallBreakers
URL - http://thewallbreakers.com
Online Store - jamesthewallbreaker.com/shop/

BW - EP79: The Boy Wonder—Orson Welles' Early Career (1931 - 1941)

SCHOENBERG - ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, OP. 41, ELLEN ADLER, SPEAKER, JACQUES MONOD, PIANO, VILLARS QUARTET, RENE LEIBOWITZ, CONDUCTOR - DIAL 3  RECORDED LATE 1949 or EARLY 1950.  First Issued March 1950.

SCHOENBERG - ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.  LEIBOWITZ - ADLER

Sephestia’s Song to Her Child (1991)

Soprano and Piano
Text: Sephestia's Lullabye by Robert Greene
Duration: ca. 4 minutes
Publisher: C. F. Peters Corporation, Edition Peters 67525

Christine Schadeberg, soprano; Christopher Oldfather, piano.

Sephestia’s Song to Her Child is a setting of an excerpt from the "prose romance" Menaphon, written in 1589 by the English poet Robert Greene. It is sung to a young child by a mother whose husband has been separated from her family by some unfortunate turn of events. The song is dedicated to Christine Schadeberg and Christopher Oldfather, and was premiered by them in April of 1991.

Sephestia’s Lullabye
Robert Greene

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.
Mother’s wag, pretty boy,
Father’s sorrow, father’s joy,
When thy father first did see
Such a boy by you and me,
He was glad, I was woe:
Fortune changèd made him so,
When he left his pretty boy,
Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.
Streaming tears that never stint,
Like pearl drops from a flint,
Fell by course from his eyes,
That one another’s place supplies:
Thus he grieved in every part,
Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,
Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.
The wanton smiled, father wept,
Mother cried, baby leapt;
More he crowed, more we cried:
Nature could not sorrow hide.
He must go, he must kiss
Child and mother, baby bliss;
For he left his pretty boy,
Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.

Biggs, Hayes: Works for Solo Soprano

Sephestia’s Song to Her Child (1991)

This nocturne is loosely based on a paragraph from Lucy Church Amiably: A Romantic Novel of Nature by Gertrude Stein. A reading of the passage by Ilvi Dulack precedes the performance of the piano piece.

Nocturne No. 9 [Gertrude Stein] This is It! #13

BABBITT - Vision and Prayer, World Premiere, September 1961 - Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Bethany Beardslee, soprano

Includes Introduction by Emanuel Winternitz and a post performance interview with Milton Babbitt.  Broadcast on WNYC

BABBITT - VISION AND PRAYER - 1961 - 09 - BEARDSLEE - WORLD PREMIERE

a wedding song with text by Walt Whitman; there are lesbian, gay, and straight versions of the song: this one is the (nominally) straight version...

We Two (Eve and Corey version)

Margaret Kampmeier, pianist

The pianist and in this instance, critic, Jerry Kuderna (San Francisco Classical Voice) wrote of a performance of Sphinxes: “Each segment … was like a freshly opened fortune cookie, tasty and revealing an enigmatic message about the possible meaning of music and of life.” 

Given Cone’s instructions for ordering this collection of 25 + 1 tiny segments (“N.B.: These pieces are in random order. Any number, from 0 to 25, may be played in any order.”), and assuming that no segment is repeated, the fortune cookies can be opened in any of approximately 62 septillion permutations. Even more alarmingly, Cone’s instruction that any number of the pieces — from none to all — may be played and count as a performance, leads to the conclusion that any time a  pianist declines to play any of the segments at all, he or she has actually played Sphinxes.

Jeffrey Farrington, Ringoes, NJ, September 18, 2019

Edward Toner Cone: Sphinxes: 25 Aphorisms for Piano (1974)

Jeffrey Farrington

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