An Evening with Emily

Featuring
Susanne Mentzer, mezzo soprano
with piano accompaniment and the
option of a guest speaker

This concert explores musical settings by living American

composers of Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters. The most known
settings of her poems are five songs by Lee Hoiby (b. 1926), Thomas
Pasatieri (b.1945) eleven songs, Arthur Farwell (1872-1952) over thirty,
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) the popular Twelve Poems of Emily
Dickinson (1950), John Duke (1899-1994) nine songs and Ernst Bacon
(1898-1990) at least 22 songs.
The works this evening introduce settings that are not as well
known. They are chosen so as to not repeat any of the texts, except in
the case of Ned Rorem, who set the poem twice at different times of
his life. At the end of the first setting of Love’s Stricken “Why” he
notes, “ 29 April 1947 (2 A.M.) Revised 26 Dec. 1962”, and after the
second version “9 Dec. 1962”. The first would have been during his
time as a student at Juilliard.

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 Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830. She

attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but severe
homesickness led her to return home after one year. Throughout her life, she
seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she
did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her thoughts and
poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth,
whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly
after a visit to her home in 1860, and some critics believe his departure gave
rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed.
While it is certain that he was an important figure in her life, it is not certain
that this was in the capacity of romantic love—she called him "my closest
earthly friend." Other possibilities for the unrequited love in Dickinson’s
poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge, and
Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.
By the 1860s, Dickinson lived in almost total physical isolation from the
outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read
widely. She spent a great deal of this time with her family. Her father, Edward
Dickinson, was actively involved in state and national politics, serving in
Congress for one term. Her brother Austin attended law school and became
an attorney, but lived next door once he married Susan Gilbert (one of the
speculated—albeit less persuasively—unrequited loves of Emily). Dickinson’s
younger sister Lavinia also lived at home for her entire life in similar isolation.
Lavinia and Austin were not only family, but intellectual companions during
Dickinson’s lifetime.
Dickinson's poetry reflects her loneliness and the speakers of her
poems generally live in a state of want, but her poems are also marked by
the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are decidedly life-
giving and suggest the possibility of happiness. Her work was heavily
influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well
as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New
England town which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative
approach to Christianity.
She admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as
well as John Keats. Though she was dissuaded from reading the verse of her
contemporary Walt Whitman by rumor of its disgracefulness, the two poets
are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a
uniquely American poetic voice. While Dickinson was extremely prolific as a
poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly
recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published
posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.
Upon her death, Dickinson's family discovered 40 handbound volumes
of nearly 1800 of her poems, or "fascicles" as they are sometimes called.
These booklets were made by folding and sewing five or six sheets of
stationery paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems in an
order that many critics believe to be more than chronological. The
handwritten poems show a variety of dash-like marks of various sizes and
directions (some are even vertical). The poems were initially unbound and

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published according to the aesthetics of her many early editors, removing her
unusual and varied dashes and replacing them with traditional punctuation.
The current standard version replaces her dashes with a standard "n-dash,"
which is a closer typographical approximation of her writing. Furthermore, the
original order of the works was not restored until 1981, when Ralph W.
Franklin used the physical evidence of the paper itself to restore her order,
relying on smudge marks, needle punctures and other clues to reassemble
the packets. Since then, many critics have argued for thematic unity in these
small collections, believing the ordering of the poems to be more than
chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson
(Belknap Press, 1981) remains the only volume that keeps the order intact. –
from The American Academy of Poets

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 About the Composers

Montana native Richard Pearson Thomas wrote the six song

Dickinson cycle “At last to be identified” in 1992. The composer and
pianist is a recipient of an American Composers' Forum Continental
Harmony commission. His work Race for the Sky, which was
commissioned as a commemoration of the events of 9/11, has been
performed with orchestra and in recitals nationwide. Mr. Thomas is
currently on faculty at Teachers College/Columbia University. He is
composer-in-residence of the Gold Opera Project, Young Audiences/New
York. In that capacity, he has composed more than 85 operas with
students in New York City public schools. His work with children was
featured on CBS's "The Early Show," and singled out for praise by
President Clinton when Young Audiences/New York was awarded the
National Medal of Arts. His original music for In Thinking of America:
Songs of the Civil War has been heard in more than 140 cities.

The two songs by Jake Heggie performed this evening are taken
from a cycle of seven songs, “The Starry Night”, inspired by Vincent
Van Gogh’s painting of the same title and commissioned in 2001 by the
presenter Evolutions in Song, for mezzo-soprano Kristine Jepson and
pianist John Churchwell. The painting holds special significance for
Heggie because his father painted a copy of it shortly before he took
his own life in 1972 when Heggie was 10 years old. Today the copy
hangs above Heggie's piano. He was inspired to write the song cycle
when he discovered a poem by Anne Sexton that was inspired by the
same painting at the same time that he was reading Van Gogh’s
letters. Mr.Heggie also has set other texts by Dickinson individually. An
ardent champion of writers, most of his operas and stage works feature
libretti written by either Terrence McNally or Gene Scheer; while
sources for song texts and poetry have also included Maya Angelou,
Charlene Baldridge, Raymond Carver, Emily Dickinson, John Hall, A.E.
Housman, Vachel Lindsay, Philip Littell, Armistead Maupin, Edna St.
Vincent Millay, Sister Helen Prejean. The composer’s numerous songs
and cycles, include The Deepest Desire, Statuesque, Here & Gone,
Rise & Fall, Songs & Sonnets to Ophelia, Facing Forward/Looking Back,
Friendly Persuasions, and Songs to the Moon.

Lori Laitman calls herself the ‘Accidental Art Song Composer’.

From a musical family she writes, “My mom says that when I was very
young I was always making up songs…but, of course I have no memory
of this. I began studying piano at age 5 and flute at age 7, and was
very intent on becoming a professional flutist. I remember being
amazed by composers -- it was beyond my comprehension that people
could make up music, and certainly this was something that I never
thought I could do.” After attending Yale, Laitman married and became

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the composer for the Dick Roberts Film Company, writing scores for
films produced by Psychology Today, and Camera Arts Magazine. In
1980, she wrote the score to The Taming of the Shrew at the Folgers
Theatre in Washington, DC. After becoming a mother she focused on
composing chamber music and raising her kids. A friend asked her to
compose some songs premiering "The Metropolitan Tower" at Merkin
Hall in New York on December 16, 1991. After the recital, tenor Paul
Sperry (known for commissioning and promoting art songs) hosted a
party. This was her introduction to the art song world. Laitman was the
Featured Composer on Thomas Hampson’s Song of America website
and her works are featured on his timeline of American song.

Two songs this evening are excerpted from Tom Cipullo's

song cycle “A Visit with Emily” for two baritones and a soprano.
According to the composer, the idea came to a member of the Mirror
Visions Ensemble, which commissioned and premiered the work. The
work is part song cycle and part opera because it has many
ensembles. Cipullo dedicated the Epilogue to his mother. Cipullo's
works have been heard at major concert halls on four continents, from
San Francisco to Tel Aviv, from Stockholm to LaPaz. The New York Times
has called his music "haunting," and The Boston Globe remarked that
his work "literally sparkled with wit." The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has
called him "an expert in writing for the voice." Recent honors include
the National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Award (2008)
for the song-cycle Of a Certain Age, the Aaron Copland Award from
Copland House (2007), and the Phyllis Wattis Prize for song
composition from the San Francisco Song Festival (2006-07). He
studied composition and orchestration with David Del Tredici, Elie
Siegmeister, and Albert Tepper. Mr. Cipullo is a founding member of
Friends & Enemies of New Music, an organization that has presented
more than 80 concerts featuring the music of over 200 different
American composers.

Ned Rorem’s songs this evening come from the unusually

pyramid-structured Poems of Love and the Rain, a cycle of 17 songs
set to texts by American poets. It was commissioned by the Ford
Foundation and premiered by mezzo soprano Regina Safety in 1962.
Rorem set the same text (eight poems) twice, but in a contrasting
manner. Each poem of the first half of the cycle receives a different
setting in the second half and the poems appear in reverse order in the
second half. The ninth poem is the central song and is set only once. A
prolific song composer, for his early songs he selected poetic texts
from different literary periods, but after the mid-1950s he preferred the
poetry of Walt Whitman and of 20th-century American poets such as
Howard Moss, Paul Goodman, Theodore Rothko, and Kenneth Koch. In
his vocal writing Rorem shows a keen awareness of the capabilities of

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the human voice, and his melodies generally lie comfortably in the
range of voice for which they were written. "Write gracefully for the
voice - that is, make the voice line as seen on paper have the arched
flow which singers like to interpret" was one of his mottoes for song-
writing. In his melodies he was also able to capture the essential mood
of the text.

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Doubt me! My Dim The Gem was gone --
Companion And now, an Amethyst
set by Richard Pearson Thomas remembrance
Is all I own –
Doubt Me! My Dim Companion!
Why, God, would be content
With but a fraction of the Life --
Poured thee, without a stint --
The whole of me -- forever --
What more the Woman can,
Say quick, that I may dower
thee
With last Delight I own!

It cannot be my Spirit --
For that was thine, before --
I ceded all of Dust I knew --
What Opulence the more
Had I -- a freckled Maiden,
Whose farthest of Degree,
Was -- that she might --
Some distant Heaven,
Dwell timidly, with thee!

Go thy great way

set by Jake Heggie

Go thy great way!

The stars thou meetst
are even as thyself.
For what are stars but
Asterisks to point a human life?

An amethyst remembrance
set by Lori Laitman

I held a Jewel in my fingers --

And went to sleep --
The day was warm, and winds
were prosy --
I said "'Twill keep" --

I woke -- and chid my honest

fingers,

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Cantilena II Unto my Seeming -- make?
set by Tom Cipullo - his title
How well I knew the Light before
As imperceptibly as Grief --
The Summer lapsed away-- I could see it now --
Too imperceptible at last 'Tis Dying -- I am doing -- but
To feel like Perfidy— I'm not afraid to know –
Love's Stricken "Why” #4
A Quietness distilled set by Ned Rorem
As Twilight long begun
Or Nature spending with Herself Love's stricken "why"
Sequestered Afternoon— Is all that love can speak --
Built of but just a syllable
The Dusk drew earlier in, The hugest hearts that break.
The Morning foreign shown
A Courteous, yet harrowing She died
Grace set by Lori Laitman
As Guest, that would be gone—
She died -- this was the way she
And thus, without a Wing died.
Or service of a keel And when her breath was done
Our Summer made her light Took up her simple wardrobe
escape And started for the sun.
Into the Beautiful. Her little figure at the gate
The Angels must have spied,
The sun kept setting Since I could never find her
set by Jake Heggie Upon the mortal side.

The Sun kept setting -- setting -- Love's Stricken "Why” #14

still set by Ned Rorem
No Hue of Afternoon --
Upon the Village I perceived Love's stricken "why"
From House to House 'twas Is all that love can speak --
Noon -- Built of but just a syllable
The hugest hearts that break.
The Dusk kept dropping --
dropping -- still
No Dew upon the Grass --
But only on my Forehead
stopped --
And wandered in my Face --

My Feet kept drowsing --

drowsing -- still
My fingers were awake --
Yet why so little sound -- Myself

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Epilogue She turns as long away
set by Tom Cipullo - his title As will suffice to light Her lamps
--
Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is, Then bending from the Sky --
Impatient of no Child --
The feeblest -- or the With infinite Affection --
waywardest -- And infiniter Care --
Her Admonition mild -- Her Golden finger on Her lip --
Wills Silence -- Everywhere –
In Forest -- and the Hill --
By Traveler -- be heard --
Restraining Rampant Squirrel -- I never saw a moor
Or too impetuous Bird -- set by Richard Pearson Thomas

How fair Her Conversation -- I never saw a moor,

A Summer Afternoon -- I never saw the sea;
Her Household -- Her Assembly Yet know I how the heather
-- looks,
And when the Sun go down -- And what a wave must be.

Her Voice among the Aisles I never spoke with God,

Incite the timid prayer Nor visited in heaven;
Of the minutest Cricket -- Yet certain am I of the spot
The most unworthy Flower -- As if the chart were given.

When all the Children sleep --

Carlisle Floyd- Citizen of Paradise

In 1983 I was asked by Carlisle Floyd to premiere Citizen of Paradise which

was commissioned for the opening of a recital hall at Dickinson College in
Carlisle, PA (a coincidence but no relation). Carlisle envisioned the piece as a
monodrama in a spare setting - writing table, chair, window and side chair.
He also directed the work. The original version was with piano and later was
transcribed for chamber orchestra, which I also premiered with the Texas
Chamber Orchestra. Barely out of the Houston Opera Studio in 1983 I was
incredibly honored to work with this amazing man. Each day he came in with
another song he had thought of during the night. His wife was a Dickinson
scholar so he was quite informed and enthusiastic about Emily Dickinson. He
set not only poems, but also letters, in a type of journey through various
topics addressed by Emily Dickinson in her writing. He often referred to the
work as being similar to the filmed theater piece “The Belle of Amherst”.
Citizen of Paradise was recently edited and released by Boosey and Hawkes.
Carlisle Floyd will be 85 in 2011. He is, of course, best known for his operatic
output and has also written song cycles and vocal works with orchestra.

PROLOGUE
(partial poem)

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 This is my letter to the world that never wrote to me...

SELF
I
(excerpted from a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, April 1862)

"I went to school but in your manner of the phrase (I) had no
education.
When a little girl, I had a friend, who taught me immortality but
venturing too near, himself, he never returned. You ask me of my
companions: Hills, sir, and the Sundown And a Dog, large as myself.
They are better than Beings, because they know, but do not tell. I have
a Brother and a Sister. My Mother does not care for thought. And
Father, too busy with his Briefs, to notice what we do.
He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, Because he
fears they joggle the Mind. They are (all) religious, except me, and
address an Eclipse, ev'ry morning, whom they call 'Father'. But I fear
my story fatigues you.
I would like to learn, Could you tell me how to grow, or is it
unconveyed, like Melody, or Witchcraft? I could not weight myself
Myself, My size felt small to me. Is this, Sir what you asked me to tell
you?"

II

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY

III
To see her is a Picture --
To hear her is a Tune --
To know her an Intemperance
As innocent as June --
To know her not -- Affliction --
To own her for a Friend
A warmth as near as if the Sun
Were shining in your Hand.

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 IV
(from a letter to Susan Huntington Dickinson, Feb. 1852)

"Thank you that you never weary of me, or never tell me so, and that
when the world is cold, and the storm sighs e'er so piteously, I am sure
of one sweet shelter, one covert from the storm!
The bells are ringing, north, and east, and south, and the people who
love God are expecting to go to meeting; don't you go, not to their
meeting, but come with me this morning to the church within our
hearts, where the bells are always ringing, and the Preacher whose
name is Love shall intercede for us!"

V
(from a letter to Samuel Bowles, August 1860)

"I am much ashamed. I misbehaved tonight. I would like to sit in the

dust. I am sorry I smiled at women. Indeed I revere holy ones, like Miss
Nightingale. I will never be giddy again. I am gay to see you because
you come so scarcely. Else I had been graver. Goodnight, God will
forgive me. Will you please to try?"

VI

What Soft -- Cherubic Creatures --

These Gentlewomen are --
One would as soon assault a Plush --
Or violate a Star --

Such Dimity Convictions --

A Horror so refined
Of freckled Human Nature --
Of Deity -- ashamed --

It's such a common -- Glory --

A Fisherman's -- Degree --
Redemption -- Brittle Lady --
Be so -- ashamed of Thee --

LOVE
VII
( from a letter to Otis P. Lord, about 1878)

“I confess that I love him I rejoice that I love him I thank the maker of
Heaven and Earth that gave me him to love the exultation floods me. I
cannot find my channel the Creek turns Sea at thought of thee.”

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 VIII

Heart! We will forget him!

You and I -- tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave --
I will forget the light!

When you have done, pray tell me

That I may straight begin!
Haste! lest while you're lagging
I remember him!

IX

Empty my Heart, of Thee --

Its single Artery --
Begin, and leave Thee out --
Simply Extinction's Date --

Much Billow hath the Sea --

One Baltic -- They --
Subtract Thyself, in play,
And not enough of me
Is left -- to put away –
"Myself" meant Thee --**

(** line not included in this song setting)

There is a pain -- so utter --

It swallows substance up --
Then covers the Abyss with Trance --
So Memory can step
Around -- across -- upon it --
As one within a Swoon --
Goes safely -- where an open eye --
Would drop Him -- Bone by Bone.

NATURE

XI
(from a letter to Mrs. J.G.Holland, late summer 1856)

"If roses had not faded, and frosts had never come, and one had not
fallen here and there whom I could not waken, there were no need of

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 other Heaven than the one below and if God had been here this
summer, and seen the things that I have seen I guess that He would
think His Paradise superfluous. Don't tell him, for the world, though for
after all He's said about it, I should like to see what He was building for
us, with no hammer, and no stone. I love tonight fading things and
things that do not fade!"

XII

I taste a liquor never brewed --

From Tankards scooped in Pearl --
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air -- am I --
And Debauchee of Dew --
Reeling -- thro endless summer days --
From inns of Molten Blue --

When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee

Out of the Foxglove's door --
When Butterflies -- renounce their "drams" --
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats --

And Saints -- to windows run --
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the -- Sun --

XIII

Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy,

And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men --
Ill it becometh me to dwell so wealthily
When at my very Door are those possessing more,
In abject poverty --

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 DEATH AND SOLITUDE

XIV

It's coming -- the postponeless Creature --

It gains the Block -- and now -- it gains the Door --
Chooses its latch, from all the other fastenings --
Enters -- with a "You know Me -- Sir"?

Simple Salute -- and certain Recognition --

Bold -- were it Enemy -- Brief -- were it friend --
Dresses each House in Crape, and Icicle --
And carries one -- out of it -- to God –

XV
(from a letter to Mrs. J.G.Holland Nov. 1882)

"The dear mother that could not walk, has flown. It never occurred to
us that though she had not Limbs, she had Wings And she soared from
us unexpectedly as a summoned Bird. She had a violent cold, but her
trusted physician was with her and he felt no alarm. She seemed
entirely better the last Day of her Life and took Lemonade, Beef Tea
and Custard with a pretty ravenousness that delighted us. After a
restless Night, complaining of great weariness, she was lifted from her
Bed to her Chair, when a few quick breaths and a "Don't leave me" And
her sweet being closed. She slipped from our fingers like a flake
gathered by the Wind, and is not part of the drift called "the infinite".
"Mother!" What a name!”

XVI
(from a letter to Susan Huntington Dickinson 1885?)

"Emerging from an Abyss and reentering it that is life, is it not? Though

the first moment of loss is eternity, other eternities remain. The small
heart cannot break The Ecstasy of its penalty solaces the large."

XVII

There is a solitude of space

A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself --
Finite infinity.

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 EPILOGUE
(complete poem)

This is my letter to the World

That never wrote to Me --
The simple News that Nature told --
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed

To Hands I cannot see --
For love of Her -- Sweet -- countrymen --
Judge tenderly -- of Me

A special thanks to
Professor Dorothy Z. Baker, University of Houston
Dr. Joseph Campana, Rice University
Rice University Humanities Research Center Poetry and
Poetics Workshop
Shepherd School of Music Opera Theater Department

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