STANLEY GRILL
Rustling Flights of Wings
NANCY ALLEN LUNDY | STEPHEN GOSLING | RALPH FARRIS
Innova 019
A COLLECTION OF SONGS TO POEMS BY C.F. CILLIERS
01 Out of Season 2:05
02 The Nymph 1:08
03 The Owl People 4:25
04 Angels 3:13
05 Time 1:34
06 A Game 1:50
07 Our Lives Grow 4:09
08 Who Would Not Gladly 1:06
09 Finally 3:31
THE VIOLIN SINGS IN A COMMON LANGUAGE
10 Der Nachbar (R.M. Rilke) 4:05
11 Chanson d’Automne (Verlaine) 3:24
12 Casida del llanto (Lorca) 3:46
13 Kreisler (Sandburg) 2:52
14 Haiku (C.F. Cilliers) 1:26
4 SONGS TO POEMS BY HART CRANE
15 At Melville’s Tomb 3:43
16 Interior 2:32
17 Exile 3:32
18 A Name for All 2:47
6 SONGS (W.B. YEATS)
19 The Rose of the World 2:42
20 The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water 1:34
21 He Hears the Cry of the Sedge 3:47
22 Two Songs of a Fool (I) 1:26
23 Two Songs of a Fool (II) 3:40
24 The Cat and the Moon 3:22
—67:41—
Nancy Allen Lundy, soprano; Stephen Gosling piano; Ralph Farris, violin
© Stanley Grill. All Rights Reserved. 2018.
innova® Recordings is the label of the
American Composers Forum.
www.innova.mu www.stangrillcomposer.com
STAN GRILL
Raised in the Bronx, Stan has been obsessed with music since the age of six, when his mother took him to Carnegie Hall and he was astonished and awestruck by a performance of “La Mer.” While that obsession first took the form of playing piano at every possible moment (when not otherwise engaged in activities typical of a kid growing up in the Bronx of the 1950’s and ‘60s), it was Stan’s music theory studies at the Manhattan School of Music that converted that obsession to writing music – and to finding his own musical voice.
He learned the craft from extraordinary musicians: among others - Robert Helps, Leon Kushner, Ursula Mamlok and Joseph Prostakoff. Stan’s passion for medieval and Renaissance music has greatly influenced his writing - a contemporary expression of ageless techniques based on melody, modal harmonies, and contrapuntal, extended, interweaving lines. Two main themes permeate many of his works - music composed in an attempt to translate something about the nature of the physical world, and music composed to inspire and promote world peace.
Stan’s music has been performed the world over – from Ecuador to Poland; Toulouse to Tokyo; Brooklyn to Vienna – by such artists as Camerata Philadelphia, Camerata Arkos, Englewinds, the Pandolfis Consort, the Bronx Arts Ensemble, One World Symphony, violists Brett Deubner and Ralph Farris, and violinist Jorge Avila.
While always inspired by great poetry to compose songs, Stan is also a prolific composer of chamber music. Several of his string quartets are also available from Innova Recordings in a brilliant recording by the Diderot String Quartet.
“As I see it, as much as we strive to find reason and purpose in our having been born into this amazing, mysterious and awe-inspiring universe, that attempt is largely futile. It is however, the best part of our nature that obliges us to make the attempt, though the most we can hope for is to gain some small degree of understanding of the world around us, and, more importantly, of ourselves. To achieve this, we each approach the problem in our own way, uniquely shaped by our cultural background, innate talents and abilities, education and so on. For some, science may be the window through which they best perceive and interpret the world, for others, religion. For those to whom the world seems to express itself most clearly and beautifully through sound, music is the voice that speaks to us and through which we, in turn, most effectively express ourselves. The best of my music has arrived, rather inexplicably, as part of a personal effort to understand the world and myself. It is, in a way, an act of translation. The world says something, I try to understand it, and then translate it into musical language. The particular musical language which I speak, is, of course, a product of my conservatory training and personal musical tastes, but hopefully, the outcome, imperfect a translation as it may be, will convey to others something of its original intent.”
— Stan Grill
THE ARTISTS
Nancy Allen Lundy has earned critical acclaim for her unique vocal beauty, skillful musicianship and theatrical prowess in a variety of classical and contemporary styles. Engagements with opera companies and festivals include English National Opera, Netherlands Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Hawaii Opera Theater, Minnesota Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Portland Opera, Spoleto, USA, Teatro Municipal de Santiago (Chile), Bregenzer Festspiele (Austria), Festival Euro Mediterraneo (Rome), and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). Her operatic repertoire encompasses more than thirty roles, of which she has earned particular acclaim for her portrayals of Curley’s Wife in Of Mice and Men, Gilda in Rigoletto, Musetta in La Bohème, Ann Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Cunegonde in Candide.
Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun began writing for Ms. Lundy following her success in his Peony Pavilion, directed by Peter Sellars at London’s Barbican Center with subsequent performances in Rome and Paris. With her skills in mind, Tan Dun scored the role of Juliet in his Orchestral Theater IV: The Gate, which she premiered with the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo). She has sung The Gate and Orchestral Theater III: Red Forecast with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, London’s BBC Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, as well with orchestras in Lyon, Paris, Shanghai, Lisbon, Sapporo (Pacific Music Festival), and New York (Brooklyn Academy of Music). 2002 saw the world premiere in Tokyo of Tan Dun’s Tea for which Ms. Lundy created the role of Lan under the direction of Pierre Audi, a production which was later reprised in Amsterdam. She has sung Tea in Stockholm and in a concert version at Teatro Carlo Felice (Genova), Lawrence Renes conducting. Other contemporary opera roles she has interpreted include Claire in the American premiere of Peter Bengtson’s The Maids, Caroline Gaines in Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner, Pat Nixon in Nixon in China, Singer #1 in Conrad Sousa’s Transformations, and Water in Tan Dun’s Marco Polo.
Stephen Gosling enjoys a varied career as soloist and chamber musician with a particular focus on the music of our time. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at The Juilliard School, where he was awarded the Mennin Prize and Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship, and appeared as concerto soloist on an unprecedented four occasions. He is a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, Talea Ensemble Orchestra of the League of Composers, as well as pianist with the New York City Ballet, and has appeared as guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, eighth blackbird, American Composers Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, among many others. He frequently performs in the Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart, and June in Buffalo festivals. Mr. Gosling has collaborated with composers including Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough, Oliver Knussen, Steve Reich, Poul Ruders, Charles Wuorinen, and John Zorn, with whom he has performed worldwide over the past several years and released several recent recordings (including the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-nominated Hexentarot); and John Psathas, whose music he has recorded on two award-winning albums and whose concerto Three Psalms he premiered with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
Ralph Farris is a Juilliard-trained conductor, multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and record producer. He is a tireless collaborator, whether working as an individual, or as a founding member and Artistic Director of ETHEL, the genre-bending string quartet described by The New York Times as “indefatigable and eclectic,” and by The New Yorker as “vital and brilliant”. That spirit has led to work with a who’s-who of rock stars, filmmakers, choreographers, educators, stage directors and poets.
Ralph has taken part in major collaborations with ETHEL, Robert Mirabal, Molissa Fenley and Frank Cassara, Annie-B Parson, Vijay Iyer, Stewart Copeland, Martin Scorsese (on the short The Key to Reserva), and Kurt Elling (on the GRAMMY®-winning album Dedicated to You: the Music of Coltrane and Hartman); toured extensively with Roger Daltrey (as Music Director and lead fiddle), Todd Rundgren, Joe Jackson, Ensemble Modern, Bang On A Can, Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Ensemble, and Kaki King; performed in concert with Seiji Ozawa, John Williams, Leonard Bernstein, David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Tom Verlaine, Jill Sobule, Andrew Bird, Fernando Otero, Jake Shimabukuro, JP Jofre, Pete Townsend, Alice Cooper, Sinead O’Connor, Lou Reed, and Trey Anastasio; conducted The Lion King and Annie on Broadway; composed for film (Noelle Brower’s short Everything Is Ordinary; Anika Burt’s short Begin Again; Susan Todd’s short The Mother Is the One Who Stretches (with ETHEL); Danièle Wilmouth’s feature Eleanore And The Timekeeper (with ETHEL); Jehane Noujaim’s industrial Pangea Day), for dance (Monkeyhouse), and for the stage (Aquila Theatre’s productions of A Female Philoctetes and The Tempest, Jarrett & Raja, Lawler & Fadoul, the Jerome Foundation, BRIC Arts Media, Arts Brookfield, OZ Nashville, BAM, and the NEA); arranged music for Five For Fighting (the GRAMMY®-nominated hit “Superman (It’s Not Easy)”), Dishwalla, Chantal Kreviazuk, Room 11, Pound, Dayna Kurtz, Lord Graham Russell (of Air Supply), and the University of Michigan; recorded with Paul Simon, Depeche Mode, Ivy, Fountains of Wayne, Regina Carter, Clay Aiken, Rod Stewart, Natalie Merchant, Better than Ezra, and Harry Connick, Jr.; and produced records for ETHEL and the Hevreh Ensemble.
Currently, Ralph is composing a full-length musical, a ballet based on Snow White for Pineapple Dance, performing in his new all-viola quartet Firewood with Gallim Dance in their production of Stone Skipping, touring as part of ETHEL’s production of CIRCUS – Wandering City, which premiered at The Ringling Museum of Art, and producing a series of contemporary classical recordings for composer Stanley Grill.
THE MUSIC
A COLLECTION OF SONGS (C.F. CILLIERS)
We live in a world governed by incidental collisions – and such incidents are greatly multiplied by the technology of the internet. How else would a poet living in South Africa and a composer sitting in his attic writing music in New Jersey ever have crossed paths and begun to share our work? Having accepted a “friend” request on Facebook from Charl, without having any idea of who he was, or where he was from, I began to read – and love – the poems he occasionally posted. Amongst all of the ignorable nonsense that people post, these stood out as gems – demanded my attention – and some seemed to cry out for music. Having set one poem, then another, from Facebook, I reached out to Charl directly to ask for more – and he sent me volumes. This collection is a beginning, as I’m sure Charl will keep on writing words – and I will continue to write notes.
THE VIOLIN SINGS IN A COMMON LANGUAGE
The first song in this cycle, Der Nachbar, was composed for Ursula Fiedler, soprano and violinist. At the time, I had intended to set other songs for soprano and violin, but years went by without my getting around to it. Recently, finding several other wonderful poems which employ the violin as a central image, it seemed that combining these poems, each written in a different language, in a single group accompanied by the violin, conveyed something important about the nature of music as a universal language that can bond people together, despite our many differences.
4 SONGS TO POEMS BY HART CRANE
Not daring to begin setting his masterpiece, The Bridge, to music, I settled instead on four lovely poems with startling imagery.
6 SONGS
Of all poets in the English language, I always found W.B. Yeats to be the most musical. English, after all, is not a beautiful singing language – but somehow, he was able to make it so. These 6 songs, taken from poems spanning his output, are some of my favorites.
THE POEMS
A COLLECTION OF SONGS TO POEMS BY C.F. CILLIERS
Out of Season
sunlight out of season
in an empty crystal vase
has burst into flower
colours of the rainbow
that a short shift of time
will soundlessly erase
The Nymph
Clothed in grey
the garden nymph
stood all day
on a concrete plinth.
Dull and drab
as ashen granite
she stood, stone slab,
silent, inanimate.
Till that one
day I saw her wear,
in the dazzling sun
as she stood there,
a crimson butterfly in her grey hair.
The Owl People
They who are hidden, from afar
can hear
what no one else hears.
For longings larger than grief
theirs are wings softer than fur
sight boundless as belief.
They sit in the sunlight of stars
till a sound’s shape appears.
Then, in the spark of an eye,
seize the shape, take it apart
only to find grief’s tiny cries lie
in the tree-hollow dark of the heart.
Angels
Colder and fainter are they
than the extinguished light
of comets that burn
in the cold space of night.
No warmth pulses
in their hearts like a star.
Their shape is dust.
And yet they are.
They sometimes hover, haloed
in light from afar,
as if seeking the warmth
of something familiar
something so intimate
we almost feel
the magic of a world
that thought has made unreal.
Time
sand
in the hollow
of your hand
sky
in the depth
of your eye
death in each
breath taken
and time
ticks by
A Game
Down by a once and bitter sea
joy was a game we used to play.
Once was a bitter and bright day
for you and for me.
Our castles against the slow waves
stood – crumbled and were caves
again. In our laughter then we knew,
I think, that joy would always be
a game we played beside the sea.
Our Lives Grow
Our lives grow golden in our leaves,
and leaving we are moulded into earth
and air, though no one grieves
our true going for what its worth.
Grief only stays for loss beyond release.
And going, we cannot show ourselves
again to others loved, except where we’ve ceased
to live, framed on desks or shelves.
We are in their tears, blurred ghosts
speaking into dreams where they still live,
eager, ineffectual hosts
whispering love to souls to which they cannot give
a body’s substance. So as we are
we shine on, exploded, like a star.
Who Would Not Gladly
Who would not
gladly cast off
like a chrysalis
this obtect body
hard and stiff
with the formality
of customary years
if they could know
there was
in them all
ready rustling flights of wings.
Finally
Our first loves are fairytales.
Before we can speak words
needing to be said, before us lie worlds so frail
with wonder – magical, urgent and absurd –
that a single loss shatters them to tears:
but words we learn for love and loss
grow closer with encroaching years
as familiarity obscures the gloss
until with the futility of one last breath
love and loss are finally one in death.
THE VIOLIN SINGS IN A COMMON LANGUAGE
Der Nachbar (Rilke)
Fremde Geige, gehst du mir nach?
In wieviel fernen Städten schon sprach
deine einsame Nacht zu meiner?
Spielen dich hunderte? Spielt dich einer?
Gibt es in allen grossen Städten
solche, die sich ohne dich
schon in den Flüssen verloren hätten?
Und warum trifft es immer mich?
Warum bin ich immer der Nachbar derer,
die dich bange zwingen zu singen
und zu sagen: Das Leben ist schwerer
als die Schwere von allen Dingen.
The Neighbor
Strange violin, are you following me?
Already, in how many distant cities
has your lonely night spoken to mine?
Are hundreds playing you? Only one?
Are there such men in all great cities,
who without you would already
have lost themselves in the rivers?
And why does it always hit me?
Why am I always the neighbor
of those who anxiously force you
to sing and to say: Life is harder
than the heaviness of all things.
Chanson d’Automne (Verlaine)
Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone.
Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l’heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure;
Et je m’en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m’emporte
Deçà, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.
Autumn Song
The long tears
Of Autumn’s
Violins
Wound my heart
With a monotonous
lethargy.
All suffocating
And pale when
The hour strikes,
I remember
The old days
And I cry…
And I am going away
On an ill wind
That carries me
Here, there,
Just like a
Dead leaf.
Casida del llanto (Lorca)
He cerrado mi balcón
porque no quiero oír el llanto
pero por detrás de los grises muros
no se oye otra cosa que el llanto.
Hay muy pocos ángeles que canten,
hay muy pocos perros que ladren,
mil violines caben en la palma de mi mano.
Pero el llanto es un perro inmenso,
el llanto es un ángel inmenso,
el llanto es un violín inmenso,
las lágrimas amordazan al viento,
no se oye otra cosa que el llanto.
Casida of the Weeping
I’ve closed my balcony
for I don’t want to hear the weeping,
yet out beyond the grey walls
nothing is heard but weeping.
There are very few angels singing,
there are very few dogs barking,
a thousand violins fit in the palm of my hand.
But the weeping’s a dog, immense,
the weeping’s an angel, immense,
the weeping’s a violin, immense
the tears have silenced the wind,
and nothing is heard but weeping.
Kreisler (Sandburg)
Sell me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood.
Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights
on the forehead where men kiss sisters they love.
Sell me dried wood that has ached with passion clutching
the knees and arms of a storm.
Sell me horsehair and rosin that has sucked at the breasts
of the morning sun for milk.
Sell me something crushed in the hearts blood of pain
readier than ever for one more song.
Haiku (C.F. Cilliers)
In die herfs
Huil viooltjies
In die wind
4 SONGS TO POEMS BY HART CRANE
At Melville’s Tomb
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.
Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.
Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.
Interior
It sheds a shy solemnity,
This lamp in our poor room.
O grey and gold amenity, --
Silence and gentle gloom!
Wide from the world, a stolen hour
We claim, and none may know
How love blooms like a tardy flower
Here in the day’s after-glow.
And even should the world break in
With jealous threat and guile,
The world, at last, must bow and win
Our pity and a smile.
Exile
My hands have not touched pleasure since your hands, --
No, -- nor my lips freed laughter since ‘farewell’,
And with the day, distance again expands
Voiceless between us, as an uncoiled shell.
Yet, love endures, though starving and alone.
A dove’s wings clung about my heart each night
With surging gentleness, and the blue stone
Set in the tryst-ring has but worn more bright.
A Name for All
Moonmoth and grasshopper that flee our page
And still wing on, untarnished of the name
We pinion to your bodies to assuage
Our envy of your freedom—we must maim
Because we are usurpers, and chagrined—
And take the wing and scar it in the hand.
Names we have, even, to clap on the wind;
But we must die, as you, to understand.
I dreamed that all men dropped their names, and sang
As only they can praise, who build their days
With fin and hoof, with wing and sweetened fang
Struck free and holy in one Name always.
6 SONGS (W.B. YEATS)
The Rose of the World
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna’s children died.
We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.
Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.
The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
I heard the old, old men say,
‘Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away.’
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
‘All that’s beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.’
He Hears the Cry of the Sedge
I wander by the edge
Of this desolate lake
Where wind cries in the sedge:
Until the axle break
That keeps the stars in their round,
And hands hurl in the deep
The banners of East and West,
And the girdle of light is unhound,
Your breast will not lie by the breast
Of your beloved in sleep.
Two Songs of a Fool
I
A speckled cat and a tame hare
Eat at my hearthstone
And sleep there;
And both look up to me alone
For learning and defence
As I look up to Providence.
I start out of my sleep to think
Some day I may forget
Their food and drink;
Or, the house door left unshut,
The hare may run till it’s found
The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
I bear a burden that might well try
Men that do all by rule,
And what can I
That am a wandering-witted fool
But pray to God that He ease
My great responsibilities?
II
I slept on my three-legged stool by the fire,
The speckled cat slept on my knee;
We never thought to enquire
Where the brown hare might be,
And whether the door were shut.
Who knows how she drank the wind
Stretched up on two legs from the mat,
Before she had settled her mind
To drum with her heel and to leap?
Had I but awakened from sleep
And called her name, she had heard,
It may be, and not have stirred,
That now, it may be, has found
The horn’s sweet note and the tooth of the hound.
The Cat and the Moon
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet.
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
THE RECORDING
Produced by Ralph Farris
Recorded by Ryan Streber at Octaven audiO, Mount Vernon, NY. oktavenaudio.com
Edited and mixed by Ryan Streber and Charles Mueller
Additional editing by Corin Lee
Mastered by Randy Crafton, Kaleidoscope Sound, Union City, NJ. kaleidoscopesound.com
Stan Grill’s Publishing: SG Music Publications
ASCAP: #572328152
Poems by C.F. Cilliers are by permission of the author.
Poems by R.M. Rilke, W.B. Yeats, Hart Crane, Carl Sandburg, Verlaine and Lorca are in the public domain.
Photo Credits:
Lundy: Masataka Suemitsu
Gosling: Michael Benabib
Farris: Peter Gannushkin downtownmusic.net
Stan Grill gratefully acknowledges those who helped make this recording possible:
Ralph Farris, Nancy Allen Lundy, Stephen Gosling, Philip Blackburn, Chris Campbell, Renee Alberts, Christine LeBeau, and everyone I know of loving and kind spirit who kindles my faith in music.
On the Web:
stangrillcomposer.com
facebook.com/stanley.grill.9
nancyallenlundy.com
facebook.com/nancy.allenlundy
facebook.com/goslingpiano
ralphfarris.com
facebook.com/TheRalphFarris
Innova is supported by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation
Philip Blackburn, director, design
Chris Campbell, operations director
Tim Igel, publicist
OTHER VOCAL MUSIC BY STAN GRILL
To a Child (W.B. Yeats) soprano & string quartet, 1987
Crazy Jane Sings (W.B. Yeats) soprano, strings, piano, flute, 1999
Two Sad Songs (W.B. Yeats) soprano, string orchestra, 2002
Thinking of You (John MacKenzie) soprano, cello, harp, 2005
Love’s Little Pleasures (various) soprano, string orchestra, 2008
5 Rilke Songs (R.M. Rilke) soprano, viola d’amore, cello, 2009
Mystical Songs (Fernando Rielo) soprano, viola, string orchestra, 2009
Song of Loss and Remembrance (R.M. Rilke) soprano, viola d’amore, viola, cello, 2012
Sonnets to Orpheus (R.M. Rilke) tenor, piano, 2012
Rozmowa z kamieniem (Szymborska) soprano, 2 violins, cello, 2013
La selva de los relojes (Garcia Lorca) mezzo, cello, piano, 2018