WMV Music Web Log

Rehearsed Brahms songs with Karyn Friedman today - her voice really does have "surprising resonance" and "naturally emotes", so I guess Grace Jean did some accurate reporting there. Karyn's husband, Gary Poster, is a terrific bass singer who will be singing with us in the fall. I unearthed Maurice Saylor's wonderful AE Housman songs ("Alta Quies", I think they are called) for him; we programmed them about five years ago, and it would be great to do them again with Gary. Maurice Saylor is a very skilled composer with a unique musical "vision." We were lucky enough to be present at the premiere of his "Hunting of the Snark" a few weeks ago - it is a powerful masterpiece, well performed by Gisele Becker's Cantate Singers and the "Snarkestra". We will also work up the song cycle by Stephen Paulus for piano trio and bass voice, "The Long Shadow of Lincoln," on Carl Sandburg's poetry about the Civil War. Performing some war related texts would help us feel like we are living in the real world, even if sometimes we might rather be somewhere else. Their one year old son Bran was here too, pointing to Marilyn's art and babbling and even holding himself up to stand and taking a few steps.

Marilyn and I have these great discussions sometimes when we take walks, or sit at breakfast over coffee (the coffee definitely contributes!). I often think we should record and transcribe them the way we did for her Masters thesis many years ago, because at the least they would make great blog entries. We covered the state of art in Washington, a usual topic, discussing Lenny Campobello's recent blogs, and the abysmal galleries we visited in Bethesda recently. Marilyn walked into one, started choking and had to walk out right away. I said, this must be what they want here, otherwise they wouldn't have it. Pretty upsetting, but no more so than looking at the blank pasty white faces of the typical passersby. I kept saying to her, "but these are our people!" I thought she might hit me. Next week is our 30th anniversary, but we have lived together since 1969.