Honey and Rue

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Honey and Rue
by
Chester Music, London
Scoringsoprano and small orchestra

Honey and Rue is a

New York Times termed the composition "a model of understated luxury, rich and plastic without the need of ornament".[3]

History

According to The Critical Companion to Toni Morrison, Kathleen Battle had been moved by Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, and asked Previn and Morrison to create a song cycle for her. The cycle was ultimately commissioned by Carnegie Hall.[2] The lyrics, according to the Chicago Tribune, "move across a specifically black, urban, female landscape of experience".[4]

It was premiered in 1992, sung by Battle in the Carnegie Hall, but most notably remembered as the

Chester Music.[5] Battle also performed the work that year at the Ravinia Festival with conductor John Nelson and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.[6]

Battle recorded the cycle with the

Detroit Symphony and conductor Thomas Wilkins in 2006.[11]

Soprano Harolyn Blackwell has also performed the work several times with Previn as conductor, including performances with the Orchestra of St. Luke's in New York (1996),[12] the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1998),[13] the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo (1999), and the Oslo Philharmonic (2001).[14] Previn led the Oslo Philharmonic in performances of the work again in 2006, this time with soprano Nicole Cabell.[15] More recently, soprano Jeanine De Bique performed the cycle to open the 102nd season of Matinee Musicale in the Anderson Center in Cincinnati in May 2015.[16] Soprano Elizabeth Futral is scheduled to sing the work in August 2015 with the Pacific Symphony.

Cycle

  1. "First I'll Try Love"
  2. "Whose House Is This"
  3. "The Town Is Lit"
  4. "Do You Know Him"
  5. "I Am Not Seaworthy"
  6. "Take My Mother Home"

References

Further reading

  • Fontaine, Jeanette. "He Sang, She Sang: The Gendered Song Cycle." Journal of Singing 70.1 (2013): 97.
  • Gingerich, Katrina. "The Journey of the Song Cycle: From “The Iliad” to “American Idiot." Musical Offerings 1.2 (2010): 3.
  • Baby, Tar, et al. "Works byToni Morrison." Toni Morrison (2010): 307.

External links