CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Isabel Leonard
Brian Zeger

Weill Recital Hall
Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 7:30 PM

Isabel Leonard, Mezzo-Soprano
New York Recital Debut
Brian Zeger, Piano

NIN "A la Jota"
NIN "Alma, Sintamos"
NIN "El amor es como un niño"
WOLF "Mein Liebster singt am Haus"
WOLF "Schweig einmal still"
WOLF "Du denkst mit einem Fädchen"
WOLF "O wär dein Haus durchsichtig"
WOLF "Ihr jungen Leute"
WOLF "Wir haben beide lange Zeit geschwiegen"
HAHN "Mai"
HAHN "L’heure exquise" from Chansons grises
HAHN "Fêtes galantes"
FALLA Seven Spanish Popular Songs
RACHMANINOFF "How Fair This Spot," Op. 21, No. 7
RACHMANINOFF "In the Silence of the Secret Night"
RACHMANINOFF "Oh, Do Not Sing to Me, Fair Maiden"
RACHMANINOFF "These Summer Nights," Op. 14, No. 5
SCHOENBERG "Galathea"
SCHOENBERG "Mahnung"
SCHOENBERG "Seit ich so viele Weiber sah (Aus dem Spiegel von Arcadia)"
PORTER "From This Moment On"
KERN "Long Ago and Far Away" from Cover Girl
PORTER "I Concentrate on You"
GERSHWIN "Our Love Is Here to Stay"
WILLSON "Till There Was You" from The Music Man
RODGERS / HART "This Can't Be Love" from The Boys from Syracuse

Encores:
TRAD. "Espana Venga"
GOUNOD "Stefano's Aria" from Roméo et Juliette

Presented by Carnegie Hall in partnership with the Marilyn Horne Foundation.

This concert is made possible by The Ruth Morse Fund for Vocal Excellence.

Program Notes:

By Susan Halpern

JOAQUÍN NIN “A la jota,” “Alma, sintamos,” and “El amore es como un niño”
Born September 29, 1879, in Havana; died there on October 24, 1949.

Nin was taken from Cuba to Spain as a child to study music. Although he returned to spend his adulthood in Cuba, he toured throughout Europe and South America, performing Bach and early Spanish works. His enthusiasm for the Spanish Baroque is clear from his music, which also shows the influence of French Impressionism.

“A la jota” takes its name from a dance known throughout Spain, often accompanied by castanets or other percussion. The steps of the dance have similarities to the waltz, and its lyrics traditionally tend to be written in eight-syllable lines. “Alma, sintamos,” a somber song, the fourth from a series called El Jilquerito, is a mother’s lament for her child. Nin embellishes it with interesting harmonies and a recurring piano trill, reminiscent of Scarlatti. The delicate “El amor es como un niño” has a vibrant sense of exhilaration.

HUGO WOLF “Mein Leibster singt am Haus,” ”Schweig’ einmal still,” “Du denkst mit einem Fädchen mich zu fangen,” “O wär’ dein Haus durchsichtig ein Glas; “Ihr jungen Leute,” and “Wir haben beide lange Zeit geschwiegen”
Born March 13, 1860, in Windischgraz; died February 22, 1903, in Vienna.

Wolf desired to compose operas like Wagner, but instead, wrote songbooks containing miniatures of intense dramatic content. From 1889 to 1896, he composed more than 300 songs, sometimes writing as many as 40 a week.

Volume I of the Italienisches Liederbuch appeared in 1891 and Volume II in 1896. Its texts come from an anonymous Italian collection translated into German by Paul Heyse, a collector of folk and traditional verses. Many originate in the Renaissance oral tradition and were folksongs, but Wolf experienced them only in Heyse’s literary German. Italienisches Liederbuch mostly includes poems with themes of love and loss, although some focus on war, religion, and philosophy. Most importantly, although the texts are brief and sometimes trivial and repetitive, each reveals the emotional reality of the narrator. Wolf emphasized how much German personality he felt he gave these songs, “A warm heart, I can assure you, beats in the small bodies of my youngest children of the south, who cannot, despite appearances, deny their German origins.”

The masterful “Mein Liebster singt am Haus,” a lover’s serenade, composed December 12, 1891, is a passionate entreaty for elopement. An expressive little song, it is tender, passionate, and full of sorrow. Critics have pointed out that the piano part, the vehicle for the lover outside, could be performed independently and compares favorably with a Chopin mazurka because of its effective tenderness.

“Schweig’ einmal still,” composed on April 23, 1896, deals with the feelings a listener has on hearing a serenader. The exasperated protagonist, without shame, parodies the melody of the serenade, which we never actually hear independently. The song is not comic, although the braying that appears in both piano and voice, particularly in the postlude, alludes to the sound of a mule.

“Du denkst mit einem Fädchen mich zu fangen,” composed December 2, 1891, is a diminutive song characterized by a slow dotted rhythm. The piano provides a melodic counterpoint to the almost-spoken voice part that concludes in laughter.

Composed April 12, 1896, “O wär dein Haus durchsichtig ein Glas” is known for its formal perfection. It is delightful and delicate, exquisitely wrought overall, and the piano with its tip-toeing figurations creates a sense of clarity.

“Ihr jungen Leute,” composed December 11, 1891, deals in a cajoling and affectionate way with the subject of going to war. The music has the feeling of a little military march, and Wolf gives the subject wit and an enticing melody.

“Wir haben beide lange Zeit geschwiegen,” composed December 16, 1891, is a masterpiece in which Wolf makes the contrast between silence and speech palpable. Beginning with a slow, descending piano accompaniment evocative of the sadness of estrangement and a vocal melody emphasizing its extended length of time, the music soon quickens with a blossoming melody as the hearts become eased and the lovers’ quarrel forgotten.


REYNALDO HAHN “Mai,” “L’heure exquise,” and “Fêtes galantes”
Born August 9, 1874, in Caracas, Venezuela; died January 28, 1947, in Paris, France.

Hahn, with his Venezuelan mother and German father, moved to France when he was three. As a youth, he became a darling of the salons of the Belle Epoch. In Paris in 1886, he entered the conservatory and studied with Jules Massenet, whose influence can be detected in his early songs. Hahn went on to study with Gounod and Saint-Saëns and made a significant mark in Parisian society with his songs, which he sang to his own piano accompaniment.

Early in his career, Hahn met Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust. Proust, with whom it is often contended he had a relationship, gave Hahn a deep appreciation and understanding of poetry, which he put to good use in his vocal composition. Hahn once wrote, “The genuine beauty of singing consists in a perfect unison, an amalgam, a mysterious alloy of the singing and the speaking voice, or to put it better, the melody and the spoken word.”

Hahn’s songs are not innovative; rather, conservative in style, they are thoroughly Romantic with immediately accessible melodies and lush harmonies in the classical French tradition of the mélodie.

From Mélodies, Book 1, “Mai” (“May”) has a lush accompaniment as the piano follows the voice. Unlike many of the songs in Mélodies, its lively vocal line is contoured and covers a wide range.

The charming “L’heure exquise” (“The Exquisite Hour”) helped to establish Hahn’s reputation in Parisian salons and concert halls. Verlaine’s poem tells of a meeting of lovers in the woods on a moonlit night. Swirling arpeggios sound as the song opens with a nearly static melody; the pattern breaks off when the lovers meet. Hahn uses a strophic structure, although the two refrain-like lines “C’est l’heure” and “C’est l’heure exquise” receive varied settings.

In the delicate “Fêtes galantes,” composed in 1892, the broken chords in the rhythmically flexible piano accompaniment evoke the playing of the mandolin.


MANUEL DE FALLA Seven Popular Spanish SongsBorn November 23, 1876, in Cádiz, Spain; died November 14, 1946, in Alta Gracia, Argentina.Manuel de Falla was educated in Madrid and then lived and worked in Paris, where he became friends with Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Dukas, Turina, and García Lorca. Even during his time in France, he was constantly inspired by the folksongs and dances of Spain and its art music, and he combined these with features of the two great aesthetic movements of his time, Impressionism and Neo-classicism, to create many fascinating works of great originality.

Falla began his Seven Popular Spanish Songs in 1914 in Paris, completing them in 1915 in Madrid. Spanish folksong inspired him, and he listened to the dances and songs of the peasants with Lorca.

The seven songs begin with “El paño moruno,” from the province of Murcia; the Moorish rhythm in the accompaniment is most haunting. Its tale of stained fabric that must be sold at discount has sexual overtones. Falla used the theme of the first measures of the accompaniment again for the miller in The Three Cornered Hat. “Seguidilla murciana,” is a Spanish dance and folk poem in quick triple meter, and “Asturiana,” a sweet lament from northern Spain, (although it is the music of the south that we encounter more often in Falla’s works); “Jota,” is an Aragonese dance-song of love; and “Nana,” a lovely Andalusian lullaby that the composer’s mother had sung to him in his infancy. “Canción,” simply titled “song,” has a complex structure in both words and music; and “Polo,” a flamenco song of unhappy love, expresses the tragic sense of life. Gypsies brought a new musical style from the East, which evolved into this form and include the repetition of the same note over and over again and the cry “Ay!”, a ritualistic cry of woe.


SERGEI RACHMANINOFF “How Fair This Spot” Op. 21, No. 7; “In the Silence of the Secret Night,” Op. 4, No. 3; “Oh, Do Not Sing to Me Fair Maiden,” Op. 4, No. 4; and “These Summer Nights,” Op. 14, No. 5Born April 1, 1873, in Oneg, Russia; died March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California.

Unlike Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff did not draw his musical impetus from folksongs. Instead of adapting nationalistic themes, he used the rhythmic and harmonic elements intrinsic to Russian music and created his own vocal lines. He composed 83 songs before he emigrated in 1917.

More than any other subject, Rachmaninoff chose the romance, setting lyrics of emotion, from the desperately unhappy to the ecstatic, as well as songs for those lyrics that declare rapture at the world of nature. Many of the songs are very small in structure and short in length.

Rachmaninoff composed “How Fair This Spot” to a text by G. Galina, when he and his wife were on their honeymoon, and he dedicated the song, which describes a pastoral scene where young lovers have come to be alone with nature and their love, to her. He was totally happy and was moved to write about romance and passion with one of the most beautiful vocal melodies imaginable. The accompaniment is subdued and as romantic as the vocal line.

“In the Silence of the Secret Night” an early song, composed in 1893, shows the influence of Tchaikovsky even though the coda foreshadows the mature Rachmaninoff in its reflective calm. This song, dedicated to V. Skalov, with a text by Afansasy Fet, is a very accessible song for the listener.

The early song, “Oh, Do Not Sing to Me, Fair Maiden,” Op. 4, No. 4, published in 1893, has a text by Alexander Pushkin. Many other composers including Balakirev, Glinka, Liadov, and Rimsky-Korsakov set this particular poem. Composed when Rachmaninoff was only 19, with a detectable Schumann influence in form, the song has folklike simplicity yet is very sad, brooding, and Russian in character. A compelling work, it has rich harmony, reminiscent of Borodin, combining modal chords with chromatic inner voices and a steady pedal point. A coda for piano alone complements the lengthy piano introduction. The fully worked-out type of accompaniment Rachmaninoff used here became the standard for his mature songs.

When Rachmaninoff composed “These Summer Nights,” his style was still evolving. Using text by Daniil Rathaus, it expresses restless feelings aroused by the summer night. The modulations of the piano accompaniment reinforce the uncertainty of the emotion.


SERGEI RACHMANINOFF “Galathea,” “Mahnung,” “Seit ich so viele Weiber sah” (“Aus dem Spiegel von Arcadia”)
Born September 13, 1874, in Vienna; died July 13, 1951, in Los Angeles.

The first official Berlin Cabaret was the Über-Brettl, which Ernst von Wolzogen founded in 1901. With it, he aimed to raise the level of the commonplace vaudeville show and to bring first-rate artistic talent to it. It was for von Wolzogen’s troupe that Schoenberg, that same year, wrote his famous cabaret songs, eight Brettl-Lieder. Either mildly satiric or pertly erotic, they generally have repeated stanza melodies, and their source of reference is the Viennese operetta rather than the lied.

“Galathea,” with words by Franz Wedekind, captures the longing and passion that cabaret so boldly explored. Structurally, it has a standard strophic form, mixed with some fragmentation usual in German cabaret songs. In other ways, the song is unusual: Schoenberg alternates extremely chromatic passages with leaping melodic sequences to express the passionate feelings of a man’s desire for a young girl. In “Mahnung” (“Warning”), a young woman receives the advice to be smart and quickly nab a man while she’s young or she will become an old maid. Schoenberg gives this waltz a chromatic edge, and he was probably being somewhat ironic. “Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arkadien” (“From the mirror of Arcady”) with a text by Emanuel Schikaneder, the eighth of the series, a slow waltz, stands apart from the rest, with the simplest setting in the group.


COLE PORTER “From this Moment On” and “I Concentrate on You”
Born June 9, 1892, in Peru, Indiana; died October 15, 1964, in Santa Monica, California.

Porter, famed for the verbal virtuosity of his songs, was inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan’s trademark patter songs from which he, early on, learned about the relationship between words, meter and music; he later quoted the lesson he learned: “Words and music must be so inseparably wedded to each other that they are like one.” “From this Moment On” is a 1951 song, a romantic paean to love and what it will hold for the future, written for his musical, Out of This World. It was dropped from the musical but included in the 1953 film adaptation of Kiss Me Kate.

Porter included “I Concentrate on You” in Broadway melody of 1940, a musical comedy film with a screenplay by Leon Gordon and George Oppenheimer and book by Jack McGowan and Dore Schary. The song, introduced by Douglas McPhail, declares that the power of the beloved brings the singer through any adversity.


JEROME KERN “Long Ago and Far Away”
Born January 27, 1885, in New York; died there November 11, 1945.

Kern composed melodious, poignant, wistful and tender songs, and his Show Boat became one of the most popular American musicals. Around 1933, Kern, who wrote more than 1000 songs, began writing for films. He composed the music and Ira Gershwin the lyrics to “Long Ago and Far Away,” a popular 1944 song from the film musical Cover Girl. In it, love is the great redeemer, and the beloved is the fulfillment of dreams and all that is needed to make life a “four-leaf clover.”


GEORGE GERSHWIN “Our Love is Here to Stay”
Born September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York; died July 11, 1937, in Beverly Hills.

George Gershwin, renowned for Rhapsody in Blue and American in Paris, was a child of the Jazz Age. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he grew up in Brooklyn, where, he recalled, he had his seminal musical experience: hearing Rubinstein’s Melody in F played on a player-piano in the street. He learned much in Tin Pan Alley beginning in 1914, when he worked as a song plugger, seeing the direct relationship between composer and consumer and finding his own bearings by writing for Vaudeville acts. In his early 20s, Gershwin became a successful popular songwriter, widely admired for the beauty and originality of his melodies and for the vigor and ingenuity of his rhythm. “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” with lyrics by his brother Ira, was written for the movie, The Goldwyn Follies of 1938, which was released shortly after Gershwin’s death. It extols the durability and permanence of love.


IRVING BERLIN “How About Me?”
Born May 11, 1888, in Temun, Russia; died September 22, 1989 in New York.

Irving Berlin, the son of a Jewish cantor, worked first as a street singer, then as a singing waiter in a popular cafe. His first published song appeared in 1907; and in 1911, he wrote his first hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Hundreds of songs as well as Broadway and Hollywood musicals followed, including “God Bless America,” almost our unofficial national anthem, and “White Christmas,” whose popularity equals that of any traditional carol. Berlin’s lesser known, “How About Me?” is the only song in this final set that does not take joy in the feelings produced by love. Here the lover bemoans love’s conclusion and the feelings of being left behind without hope.


MEREDITH WILLSON “Till There Was You,” from The Music Man
Born May 18, 1902, in Mason City, Iowa; died June 15, 1984.

Willson wrote popular, romantic “Till There Was You” in 1957 for the Broadway musical The Music Man. He also composed “76 Trombones” for the same musical as well as the seasonal favorite, “It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas.”

RICHARD RODGERS AND LORENZ HART “This Can’t Be Love,” from The Boys from Syracuse Rogers: born June 28, 1902, in Hammels Station, New York; died December 30, 1979, in New York.Hart: born May 2, 1895, in New York; died there on November 22, 1943.

The composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist Lorenz Hart formed an American song-writing partnership and worked together on about 30 musicals from 1919 until Hart’s death in 1943. “This Can’t Be Love,” is a song with a vivacious immediacy. It was composed in 1938 for The Boys from Syracuse, a musical American variation on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

Copyright © 2008 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Susan Halpern contributes program notes to numerous musical organizations.

Isabel Leonard, Mezzo-Soprano
New York Recital Debut
American singer Isabel Leonard is making waves in the world of classical music. In September 2007 Ms. Leonard made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette, conducted by Plácido Domingo and starring Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna. In addition to her Metropolitan Opera debut, she appears as Zerlina in Don Gioivanni with Chicago Opera Theater and Cherubino in a new production of Le nozze di figaro at the Santa Fe Opera in 2008. She makes her first coast-to-coast recital tour including Atlanta, Fort Worth, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and her Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall. Orchestral engagements in the 2007–08 season include performances with the Saint Louis Symphony with Jiri Bềlohlàvek in Mozart’s complete Exsultate, jubilate and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. She makes her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a soloist in Mozart’s C Minor Mass, conducted by Esa Pekka Salonen, and in Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, conducted by Valery Gergiev. She makes her debut with the Cincinnati May Festival, also performing Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, conducted by James Conlon, followed by her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, singing a program of Mozart concert arias conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.

During the 2006–07 Season, Ms. Leonard made her New York Philharmonic debut in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges, conducted by Lorin Maazel, and repeated her roles in Spain, in the newly completed Palau de les Arts “Reina Sofía.” In February 2007 Ms. Leonard made her professional US opera debut as Stéphano in Atlanta Opera’s production of Roméo et Juliette. Ms. Leonard was also a member of The Juilliard Opera Center, where she appeared in their production of Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers and sang the role of Ramiro in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera.

In summer 2006 Ms. Leonard made her European and professional stage debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni with the Opera National de Bordeaux and her American orchestral debut in The Three-Cornered Hat with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at the 2006 Tanglewood Festival.

A recent graduate of The Juilliard School, Isabel Leonard sang the title role in the Juilliard Opera Theater production of Cavalli’s La calisto and the role of Masha in Wargo’s The Music Shop. In summer 2005, Ms. Leonard was the soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, conducted by David Zinman, at the Aspen Music Festival.

In previous seasons, Ms. Leonard has performed with Barbara Bonney in recital at Alice Tully Hall, as presented by The Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. She has participated in a master class with Maestro James Levine through the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and appeared with the New York Philharmonic in Bernstein’s Candide under the direction of Lonny Price and conducted by Marin Alsop.

Winner of the Giulio Gari Competition (2005), Ms. Leonard is a recipient of the Richard Gold Award of the Shoshana Foundation (2007), a Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation Award (2006), the William Schuman Graduation Prize of The Juilliard School (2006), the Makiko Narumi Prize of The Juilliard School (2005), and The Marilyn Horne Foundation Award of the Music Academy of the West (2005).

Ms. Leonard is a native New Yorker. She received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at The Juilliard School.

Brian Zeger, Piano
Pianist Brian Zeger has built an important career not only as a pianist but also as an ensemble performer par excellence, radio broadcaster, artistic administrator, and educator.

Mr. Zeger has collaborations with many of the world’s top artists: Itzhak Perlman, James Galway, Claire Bloom; and song recitalists Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Battle, Arleen Auger, Frederica von Stade, Samuel Ramey, Susan Graham, Bryn Terfel, Maria Bayo, René Pape, Thomas Hampson, and Joyce DiDonato. Upcoming engagements include recitals with Deborah Voigt, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Denyce Graves, Hei-Kyung Hong, Adrianne Pieczonka, Juliane Banse, and Isabel Leonard.

Mr. Zeger has been a regular guest at many festivals, including Aspen, Ravinia, Caramoor, Aldeburgh, and Santa Fe. He collaborates regularly with An die Musik, the New York Philharmonic Chamber Ensembles, and the Boston Pops.

Some of his critical essays and writings have appeared in Opera News, The Yale Review, and Chamber Music magazine. He has adjudicated the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Concert Artists Guild auditions, and the Walter W. Naumberg Vocal Competition. His recordings may be heard on the EMI Classics, New World, Naxos and Koch record labels.

Mr. Zeger serves as Artistic Director of the Vocal Arts Department at The Juilliard School, and Director of the Vocal Program at the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival. He has been on the faculty of the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Chautauqua Institute, the Mannes College of Music, and the Peabody Conservatory.