Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra

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Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra is a 1977 song cycle by Leonard Bernstein. The cycle consists of 12 settings of 13 American poems, performed by six singers in solos, duets, a trio, and three sextets.

The work was intended as a tribute to the 1976

Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., a year later. The soloists were Clamma Dale (soprano), Rosalind Elias (mezzo-soprano), Nancy Williams (contralto), Neil Rosenshein (tenor), John Reardon (baritone), Donald Gramm (bass).[1] The work was first performed on the West Coast in 1983 at the Hollywood Bowl, the composer conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic.[2]

On July 4, 1985, Bernstein conducted a nationally televised performance of Songfest as part of the National Symphony's annual A Capitol Fourth concert.

Poems

Songfest includes settings of these poems:

  1. "To the Poem" (Frank O'Hara) – sextet
  2. "The Pennycandystore Beyond the El" (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) – baritone solo
  3. "A Julia de Burgos" (Julia de Burgos) – soprano solo
  4. "To What You Said" (Walt Whitman) – solo
  5. "I, Too, Sing America" (Langston Hughes) / "Okay 'Negroes' " (June Jordan) – duet
  6. "To My Dear and Loving Husband" (Anne Bradstreet) – trio
  7. "Storyette H. M." (Gertrude Stein) – duet
  8. "if you can't eat you got to" (
    e.e. cummings
    ) – sextet
  9. "Music I Heard with You" (Conrad Aiken) – solo
  10. "Zizi's Lament" (Gregory Corso) – solo
  11. "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" (Edna St. Vincent Millay) – solo
  12. "Israfel" (Edgar Allan Poe) – sextet

Instrumentation

piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, english horn, e-flat clarinet, 2 b-flat clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, piano, electric keyboard, bass guitar, harp, timpani, string orchestra, percussion.

References

  1. ^ "13 Poems For a Bernstein Songfest" by Paul Hume, The Washington Post, October 9, 1997
  2. ^ "Review: Colburn's SongFest brings fervor to Bernstein's Songfest" by Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2013

External links

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