Five Night Songs

"Five Night Songs" is a set of five songs for soprano, tenor and piano--two songs are for soprano, two are for tenor, and the last is a duet.

The first song, “This Is Thy Hour, O Soul,” contains only the pitches found in the octatonic collection containing C-sharp and D. C-sharp is treated as a central note in the piece. Several times throughout this song, as well as the other four songs, the piano part includes include double-octave figures; this sonority represents the “star” imagery that is found in most of these poems.

The second song, “Prairie Waters by Night” is in a ternary form; the initial A section is from mm. 1-34, the B section is from mm. 39-62, and the A’ section is from mm. 70-98 (with transitions between the three sections). The harmonic and melodic material of the outer A sections is taken from the A Lydian mode, with a few “chromatic” notes. The B section is less firmly planted in any specific key or mode, as it begins in F Lydian but quickly moves to other pitch areas.

“The Night is Calm and Cloudless,” the third song, is in a double binary form (ABAB). As in “This Is Thy Hour, O Soul,” the opening soprano motive forms a basis for the rest of the piece. The first interval of this motive, the fifth, is also an important element; in fact, the chords of the A section (mm. 1-35) are based entirely on quintal harmonies. The B section (mm. 36-62) takes its pitch material from the B Lydian mode. At measure 42, the B section is briefly interrupted by a restatement of the A section material, to accompany the text “And sadly and unceasing, the mournful voice sings on,” only to return to B section material once again at measure 54.

The fourth song, “Silence and Whirling Worlds,” is in a ternary form, and the entire piece is based on the A-flat Lydian mode. The outer A sections (mm. 1-19 and 33-43) incorporate “whirling” sextuplets in the right hand, along with material in the left hand that imitates the tenor line. The B section (mm. 22-32) replaces the sextuplets with rolled chords in the right hand and longer, sustained chords in the left hand. The tenor line “And wing’d, we leave the sod” ushers in the return of the A section for the song’s closing.

The final song, “Watchman, Tell Us of the Night,” is set as a conversation between the Watchman (tenor) and the Traveller (soprano). The harmonic material of the song is fundamentally triadic, although most of the chords contain added notes. The song begins in an F minor tonality; however, the harmonic material quickly moves away from F minor and through various distantly related keys. The tenor and soprano voices are kept separate, until the climax of the song, measure 48, where they sing together. The two voices conclude the song as it began, in an F minor tonicity.

These songs haven't been performed yet (a performance is scheduled for April 11), so I've uploaded Finale MIDI playbacks.

Five Night Songs

This is beautiful music! I get the feeling of each one as an individual piece, so I'm not sure how effective they are when considered as a "song cycle," if that's the aim at all - but as individual concert pieces/lieder/what-have-you, they are each extremely successful. When I listened last, I recall mentioning the final high C for the tenor in "Silence and Whirling Worlds" - same thing I mentioned before still stands in re: the timbre. In addition, the rest of the tessitura lies quite low for the tenor throughout, and while leading so beautifully to the high C will help, it will still be more difficult for the singer at that point because he hasn't had to stretch upwards very often. Again, I hold Puccini (or Donizetti) as an example: his tenor lines will routinely sit in the treble octave for a little bit before extending up that high.

I very much like the final duet. The construction of the dialogue is solid, and leads very naturally into the duet at the end. I look forward to hearing a performance recording of this piece - I imagine the singers will do it great justice.

Thanks for listening again. As far as the high C goes, I've been working with the tenor who's going to be singing in the recital, and he doesn't seem to have much trouble with it... (Granted, he is a pretty outstanding singer though...I'm lucky to have such great singers) Definitely something to consider though for the future. Thanks again!

wah! this is great man! i loved the second song, with the constantly changing metres and ambiguous tonality- it sounds to me a little like Schoenbergs vocal works, only pleasant to listen to :-]

You've got a good grasp on atonality i think- i occasionally pick up on some unusual sounding ocatonic/pentatonic scales in there to reestablish tonal centre- really makes for a satisfying listen. a nice balance between stimulating and pretty. thanks for sharing!

Beautiful! I *love* the second piece. With that range it could almost be for baritone, except for the high A, but I realize that's a timbral difference.. In the third piece, I feel like you need some space or something where the new section starts in measure 26 to set it apart as a "beginning". I remember listening to the fourth piece in the past at some point, and it's a great piece, too. The meter changes in the fifth piece are fascinating to me, for some reason, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is about them. They're brilliant, though.

I wish I was a tenor so I could sing that second piece...haha. It really is great!