Roundup of Texas Art Song Composers
Michael Capps, composer
After Paradise - Text by Czeslaw Milosz
Performed by: Amy Canchola, soprano, Brian Bentley, piano
1. Understanding and Pity
2. I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should
Notes from the composer, Michael Capps:
After Paradise
These two songs are from a larger song cycle called After Paradise, based on texts by the Polish American poet Czesław Miłosz. The title refers to our desire to return to a mythic Paradise, often apprehended in fleeting moments when we catch a glimpse of beauty or bliss amid the disasters and dissipations of life. The first song, Understanding and pity, is based on text taken from the poem City without a Name. It is something of an asymmetric waltz with constantly shifting rhythms and harmonies. These shifts reflect the puckish text, where the poet adds a critical extra line to each stanza that redirects our understanding of the previous text. This feature is mirrored in the setting by a three-note descending motive accompanied by hairpin harmonic shifts. In the second song, I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should is based on text from the poem Preparation. Here, Miłosz cleverly alludes to the “in-between-ness” of the poet and his readers. With a playful and varying metric structure, the song crests with a musically incongruent setting of the line “not-quite degraded.”
II. Understanding and pity
Understanding and pity,
We value them highly
What else?
Beauty and kisses,
Fame and its prizes,
Who cares?
Doctors and lawyers
Well-turned-out Majors
Rings, furs, and lashes,
Glances at Masses,
Rest in peace.
Sweet twin breasts, good night.
Sleep through to the night,
Without spiders.
From City Without a Name – 1969*
IV. I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should
I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should, calmly.
With not-quite truth
And not-quite art
And not-quite law
And not-quite science
Under not-quite heaven
And not-quite earth
To the not-quite guiltless
And the not-quite degraded
From Preparation – 1986*
After Paradise - Text by Czeslaw Milosz
Performed by: Amy Canchola, soprano, Brian Bentley, piano
1. Understanding and Pity
2. I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should
Notes from the composer, Michael Capps:
After Paradise
These two songs are from a larger song cycle called After Paradise, based on texts by the Polish American poet Czesław Miłosz. The title refers to our desire to return to a mythic Paradise, often apprehended in fleeting moments when we catch a glimpse of beauty or bliss amid the disasters and dissipations of life. The first song, Understanding and pity, is based on text taken from the poem City without a Name. It is something of an asymmetric waltz with constantly shifting rhythms and harmonies. These shifts reflect the puckish text, where the poet adds a critical extra line to each stanza that redirects our understanding of the previous text. This feature is mirrored in the setting by a three-note descending motive accompanied by hairpin harmonic shifts. In the second song, I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should is based on text from the poem Preparation. Here, Miłosz cleverly alludes to the “in-between-ness” of the poet and his readers. With a playful and varying metric structure, the song crests with a musically incongruent setting of the line “not-quite degraded.”
II. Understanding and pity
Understanding and pity,
We value them highly
What else?
Beauty and kisses,
Fame and its prizes,
Who cares?
Doctors and lawyers
Well-turned-out Majors
Rings, furs, and lashes,
Glances at Masses,
Rest in peace.
Sweet twin breasts, good night.
Sleep through to the night,
Without spiders.
From City Without a Name – 1969*
IV. I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should
I haven’t learned yet to speak as I should, calmly.
With not-quite truth
And not-quite art
And not-quite law
And not-quite science
Under not-quite heaven
And not-quite earth
To the not-quite guiltless
And the not-quite degraded
From Preparation – 1986*
Michael Capps
Michael Capps is a native Texan and composer of numerous solo, chamber, choral and orchestral works. Recent compositions include a collaboration with the poet Jeanne Murray Walker for the cantata And He Shall Dwell With Them premiered by Seattle Pro Musica, and The Christmas Revels written for baritone Nicholas Newton and the Las Colinas, Garland, and Arlington Symphonies. A Dallas resident, Capps founded and conducted the chamber choir Sacred Concert in 1990, and he currently co-directs the liturgical chamber choir Nova. Capps studied composition and orchestration with Robert X. Rodriguez.
Michael Capps is a native Texan and composer of numerous solo, chamber, choral and orchestral works. Recent compositions include a collaboration with the poet Jeanne Murray Walker for the cantata And He Shall Dwell With Them premiered by Seattle Pro Musica, and The Christmas Revels written for baritone Nicholas Newton and the Las Colinas, Garland, and Arlington Symphonies. A Dallas resident, Capps founded and conducted the chamber choir Sacred Concert in 1990, and he currently co-directs the liturgical chamber choir Nova. Capps studied composition and orchestration with Robert X. Rodriguez.