BRATTLEBORO — On Sunday, April 7, at 4 p.m. at Centre Congregational Church, the Brattleboro Music Center presents “Dolce Conforte” (Sweet Comfort).
The community is invited to share in a rich afternoon of vocal duets and more, featuring Margery McCrum, soprano; Jennifer Carol Hansen, mezzo-soprano; and Hugh Keelan, piano; with Kathy Andrew, violin.
“I think it is safe to say that some of the most magical and memorable moments in music arise from the seamless movement of two harmonious voices blended together in song,” McCrum says. “The recital program, conceived by Jennifer and me, has grown out of sharing many delicious hours of singing, experiencing pure delight bringing our voices together. The end result is altogether more wonderful – a marriage of sorts – of timbres and nuances, of depth and richness of sound.”
Hansen and McCrum collaborate with Keelan as their pianist for this concert. Not only is Keelan a gifted musician and conductor, he is also an exceptional and sensitive interpreter of vocal music. Keelan has a particular generosity of spirit and talent of coaxing and caressing the music to reveal its essence, and of inspiring the singer to find the essential core and beauty in her voice.
From Bach to Tchaikovsky, Mercadante to Dvorák and Britten, the program for “Dolce Conforte” reflects the musicians' deep love of a broad range of composers, eras, and musical genres.
From the baroque period, homage is paid to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), drawing on his rich sacred canon. The setting of “Domine Deus” to be performed is from Bach's Mass in G, BWV 236, a less well known work that was somewhat eclipsed by his beloved B Minor Mass.
Moving along chronologically, from Italian composer Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (1795-1870)'s opera “Il Giuramento” (The Oath), a duet between Elaisa and Bianca is performed. The opera was first performed at La Scala in March 1837.
The program includes a selection of six folk song duets from Czech composer Antonín Dvorak's (1841-1904) “Klänge Aus Mähren” (Echoes from Moravia), Op. 32. This selection exemplifies Dvorak's nationalistic spirit and devotion to the music of Moravia and his beloved Bohemia.
Further to the east, in Russia, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was born one year earlier than Dvorak. A figure of much controversy, both during and after his lifetime, Tchaikovsky is probably best known for his ballets, “Swan Lake” and the “Nutcracker Suite.” The five duets to be performed in this concert are from “Six Duets,” Op. 46, which were written for a high and medium high voice, though the sweeping vocal lines are often equally shared by both voices.
English composer Edward Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), probably best remembered for his operas and choral works, is arguably the single most influential British composer of the 20th century. His style reveals complex interlacing of vocal lines with independent soaring melodies, tight tonal and intervallic structures, which often set up a seeming dissonance that with time becomes more and more delicious as one experiences Britten's music.
The piano and orchestral components of his music explode with depths and heights, beautiful harmonies and dissonances, thrilling rhythms, innuendoes and ironies. The duet “Two Ballads” will be performed drawing on texts by Montagu Slater and W.H. Auden, monumental British literary figures in their own right. The solo pieces are from Britten's extensive collection of folk song arrangements in six volumes, published between 1943 and 1961, featuring well known and beloved works mostly from the rich tradition of the British Isles.
Volume 4 is taken exclusively from Moore's Irish Melodies. Though the melodies are simple folk songs and ballads, Britten's arrangements are extremely complex and expressive, but without sentimentality, and often with a bit of witticism and wry social commentary.