Joyce DiDonato: EDEN

EDEN
ONE SONG · ONE SEED
I don’t know yet if it’s simply the general times we are living in, or if the “Great Pause” alone has given rise to ever deepening and restless queries within, but as Gene Scheer perfectly captures in the text of “The First Morning of the World”: I am filled with nothing but questions.

EDEN has emerged as an integral part of the journey towards finding answers. You see, I’m a problem solver, a dreamer, and (yes!) a belligerent optimist who believes in the incredible power of the human spirit to overcome, and—more and more with each passing day—the perfect balance, astonishing mystery, and guiding force of the Natural World around us. How much Mother Nature has to teach us through her awe-inducing majesty, her staggeringly complex simplicity, and her ever-present patience. It’s almost as if She has all the time in the world….

EDEN is an invitation to return to our roots. To remember. It is an overture to contemplate the sheer perfection of the world around us, and to explore whether or not we are connecting as profoundly as we can to the pure essence of our being. It is a clarion call to consider if our collective suffering and confusion isn’t perhaps linked to the aching separation from something primal within and around us.

During the pandemic, I closely observed the flowers that emerged from the ground as the “real world” went quiet. Despite our pressing issues of shutdowns and closures, these wondrous miracles arrived—unassuming and unheralded—bursting out of their seed coverings after the long winter’s sleep, modestly employing the water and soil at hand to reach ever upwards towards the sky, soaking up the full glory of the sun. All were in service of fulfilling their destiny: simply to bloom in their singular incarnation, nourishing the bees and butterflies dependent on them, asking for nothing in return. When their job was done, almost imperceptibly and without fanfare, they dissolved back into the earth to nourish the soil and rest well before they would be needed again.

The trees, dormant over the dark and cold winter of isolation, still found the way to blossom, bearing fruit and giving welcome shade without any expectation of bonus or reward: they simply fulfilled their natural objective and then gently let go of their fading leaves to prepare for a well-earned rest, completing the inexorable Circle of Life.

When I stop to truly look around, and I dare to connect with this world of wonder rather than the harsh, lifeless one of cement, wires, and industry, I am transported to a place that seems to exist simultaneously both in the stars and deep within. I feel connected. I begin to break free of the cables and waste around me, and sense that I’m an integral part of something bigger. A seed is awakened within me.

But the doubt persists, often in the darkest hours of the night: What can I alone do? What difference can I possibly make?

And the truth is, I’m not at all sure of the answer. The immense, deafening pain and destruction of the world at large often overwhelms me. Any hope of “saving it” seems to float farther and farther away.

This is precisely when I seek out the comfort and connection of Music: with each passing day, I trust more and more in the perfect balance, astonishing mystery, and guiding force of the Musical World with which we are blessed. Storytellers and creators from Handel to Ives, from Rückert to Portman, who have so much to teach us as they sort through the simple complexity of our human dilemma and search for universal truths, give us guidance and wisdom to aid us in our questioning.

Time often seems to stand still when absorbed in the integrated harmonies and rich poetry of great music, and in this beautiful suspension we are afforded the gift to examine, expand, and feel. We connect. The painful separation begins to dissipate, and we are empowered to act.

EDEN itself is a call to action to build a paradise for today. To fertilize, nourish, and protect the pure bliss that the deepest part of us knows and yearns for: the unpolluted perfume of a linden branch; the comforting shade of an old tree; the breathtaking sanctity of pure love; the generosity of the endless light that breaks open for us every single morning; the dying to the world we once knew, only to embrace and live alone in our heaven, our love, and our song.

The way I look at it, this is the precise moment in time when each of us is called to participate in the nourishing and healing of our world and our hearts: repairing where broken, rebuilding where barren, replenishing where exhausted. Both Nature and Music are showing us the way. Will we answer the call?

With that in mind, I ask you: In this time of upheaval, which seed will you plant today?

—Joyce DiDonato

Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question
Charles Ives was an American original whose musical style was far ahead of his times. Although The Unanswered Question was probably written in 1906, it was not premiered until 1946, when composer Elliott Carter (a great fan of Ives’ music) arranged for its performance at Columbia University’s Second Annual Festival of Contemporary Music.

Ives was also a religious man of transcendentalist leanings. His first title for this work was “A Contemplation of a Serious Matter or The Unanswered Perennial Question.” Its unusual ensemble combines strings, a solo trumpet—here replaced by Ms. DiDonato’s wordless voice—and an atonal flute quartet. In a note, Ives shed light on its meaning:

The strings play ppp throughout with no change of tempo. They are to represent “The Silences of the Druids—who Know, See, and Hear Nothing.” The trumpet [or voice] intones “The Perennial Question of Existence,” and states it in the same tone of voice [and notes] each time. But the hunt for “The Invisible Answer” undertaken by the flutes and other human beings becomes gradually more active, faster, and louder.… “The Fighting Answerers”…seem to realize a futility, and begin to mock “The Question.”… After they disappear, “The Question” is asked for the last time, and the “Silences” are heard beyond in “Undisturbed Solitude.”

 Rachel Portman
The First Morning of the World
In British composer Rachel Portman, Joyce DiDonato has found a kindred spirit who is equally stirred by the beauties of the natural world. Best known as a composer of scores for more than 100 films and television programs, in 1996 Portman became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Score for Emma. More recently, she has turned to orchestral and chamber music that reflects her life living in the English countryside near London. “I had spent a lot of time immersed in nature,” she says, “and I wanted to try [to] express the beauty of what I see.… We’re increasingly unconnected to the natural world. We don’t seem to be part of the land; we seem to use it as a resource instead.”

Portman’s collaborator for “The First Morning of the World” is American com­poser/writer Gene Scheer, who has created librettos for Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick, Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, and many other operas. “The First Morning of the World” was commissioned by Linda Nelson in memory of Stuart Nelson.

Breathing in the fresh air of that first morning in Eden, this beautiful song introduces this program’s themes and poses the questions of how to recover the peace of an untouched paradise. The predominance of woodwinds and, especially, flutes evoke the birdsongs of that long-ago world while the clarity of the vocal lines throws emphasis on the eloquent text. Magically, Portman and Scheer pull us into a state of being completely in the moment, absorbing “the language of the trees…the grammar of the earth.”

Gustav Mahler
“Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft” from Rückert-Lieder
After Gustav Mahler had exhausted the naive folkloric poetry of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection in his earlier songs, he turned with equal passion to Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866), a sophisticated Franconian poet and scholar whose verse was refined, delicately beautiful, and often given to word-play.

In 1901–02, Mahler set five Rückert poems for voice and orchestra—and simultaneously for voice and piano—while com­posing his Fifth Symphony. They were united by their introspective moods and their intimate connection with Mahler’s personal experiences and philosophy. Joyce DiDonato has chosen two of them to be sung at different moments in this concert. First comes “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft” (“I breathed in a delicate scent”) from Rückert’s series of spring poems. The poet plays with the different meanings of two similar German words, linden (delicate) and Linden (lime tree). Mahler described this song as “the feeling one experiences in the presence of a person one loves…two minds communicating without any word needing to be spoken.” It also perfectly captures the wondrous scent of the linden blossom.

Marco Uccellini
Sinfonia à 5, Op. 7, No. 3
Though we don’t know the exact year, Mar­co Uccellini was born into a noble Italian family and probably received his musical education at the seminary of Assisi. His skills on the violin as well as his expansive creative powers led him to serve long periods at the Este court in Modena—where he also served as maestro di cappella at Modena’s cathedral—as well as at the Farnese court in Parma. He was especially renowned for his instrumental music, which made new technical demands on the violin, including the extension of its range into higher registers, the employment of virtuosic runs, and the first use of scordatura tunings.

From Uccellini’s seventh book of instrumental music published in 1668, we will hear this sonata for violin and organ. In many sections of contrasting tempos and meters, it resembles a Baroque dance suite more than a sonata. Its fourth section is built around a tuning challenge for the violinist that was a Uccellini specialty: a slow theme of chromatically descending scales that are later sped up and reversed to ascend chromatically.

 Biagio Marini
“Con le stelle in ciel che mai” from Scherzi e canzonette
A prominent composer of the Italian early Baroque period, Biagio Marini was also a virtuoso violinist who joined Claudio Monteverdi’s orchestra at San Marco in Venice in 1615. He subsequently led a peripatetic career performing and composing for most of Italy’s princely courts, as well as in Belgium and Germany. Marini was best known for his innovative instrumental music, but he also wrote light-hearted, dancelike vocal music, and a splendid example is the stro­phic song “Con le stelle in ciel che mai” (“Who has ever seen the Sun?”) from his Scherzi e canzonette of 1622. Though the author of its text is unknown, the elaborate imagery is obviously the work of a court poet. Though it speaks of the “chaste Cupid,” this poem is about the birth of the Christ child on a winter night during the reign of Augustus, which brings sunlight to the darkest night and blossoming flowers to the barren earth. Its infectious triple-meter pace is set by the chitarrone, an Italian bass lute much loved in this era.

Josef Mysliveček
“Toglierò le sponde al mare” from Adamo ed Eva
Listeners will probably detect a resemblance in Czech opera composer Josef Mysliveček’s aria “Toglierò le sponde al mare” (“I’ll loose the sea from its shores”) to Mozart’s music of the 1770s, for during that decade he and the considerably younger Mozart, who had met Mysliveček in Bologna in 1770, were close friends. Mozart in one of his letters home described the Czech as “full of fire, spirit, and life,” and frequently borrowed themes from him for use in his own compositions.

Though born in Prague, Mysliveček spent his entire musical career in Italy, where he was a prolific composer of opera seria. And that is the style we find in his oratorio Adamo ed Eva, premiered in Florence in 1771. This work does not take place in the bliss of the Garden of Eden, but after Adam and Eve’s expulsion during which they are guided by the Angel of Mercy and the Angel of Justice. Sung by the more exacting Angel of Justice, “Toglierò” is a dramatic da capo aria full of the vocal virtuosity that was a Mysliveček specialty and driven at a ferociously unforgiving pace.

Aaron Copland
“Nature, the gentlest mother” from Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson
His creativity rooted in instrumental music, Aaron Copland had composed few songs before writing his vocal masterpiece, Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, between 1949 and 1950. While searching anthologies of verse, he encountered a poem by Dickinson (1830–1886), the reclusive genius of Amherst, Massachusetts, and was immediately captivated. “There was something about her personality and use of language that was fresh, precise, utterly unique—and very American,” he wrote. “The more I read, the more her vulnerability and loneliness touched me. The poems seemed the work of a sensitive yet independent soul.”

Copland’s own musical style—by then as spare and incisive as Dickinson’s verse—was an ideal match for his chosen poet. In 1958, he began orchestrating the Dickinson songs and finally published those that best-suited this medium as Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson.

The exquisite “Nature, the gentlest mother” is the cycle’s first song. As in Portman’s “The First Morning of the World,” its scoring is dominated by woodwinds, which imitate the fluttering of wings and the trilling of birds to begin the song. Arcing over a broad range, the vocal line, nevertheless, illuminates every word and phrase of this enchanting poem to perfection.

Giovanni Valentini
Sonata in G minor, Enharmonic
A slightly younger contemporary of Monteverdi, the composer and poet Giovanni Valentini was probably born in Venice and studied music there under Giovanni Gabrieli. He became a virtuoso keyboard artist, specializing in the enharmonic clavicymbalum, a large harpsichord with a keyboard of 77 keys spanning four octaves. Valentini’s multiple talents won him important positions in Poland, Graz, and finally at the Viennese court of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. His music is often daring in its harmonies and makes much use of chromatic half steps that could be readily produced on his enharmonic harpsichord. We will hear his intriguing Sonata in G minor, Enharmonic, which is an antiphonal dialogue between two instrumental groups. Its brooding motive, repeated many times at the beginning, gradually becomes more elaborate and animated.

Francesco Cavalli
“Pianti ombrosi” from La Calisto
Joining the choir of Venice’s San Marco as a boy soprano in 1616 and tutored by Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli in time became his successor in translating the new form of opera from a courtly pastime to a popular entertainment for paying audiences in Venice’s public theaters. Twenty-seven of his operas survive, and their combination of melodious arias with risqué plots have made them very appealing today. Perhaps the most often performed is La Calisto (1651), the tale of the beautiful nymph Calisto who is wooed by the amorous Jupiter, come to earth to restore order after a devastating war. Since Calisto is a follower of the virgin goddess Diana, he disguises himself as Diana to get past her defenses. The poignant air “Pianti ombrosi” (“Shade-giving plants”) is sung by Calisto in Act I as she mourns Nature’s beauty that has been destroyed by the recent war.

Christoph Willibald Gluck
“Dance of the Furies,” from Orfeo ed Euridice
“Misera, dove son!… Ah!, non son io che parlo” from Ezio
Christoph Willibald Gluck’s prominent place in musical history was secured by his opera Orfeo ed Euridice of 1762, in which he reformed the excesses of high Baroque opera by stripping away its elaborate vocal virtuosity and placing the musical emphasis on a clear and streamlined expression of the drama’s text. First we will hear one of Orfeo’s most famous excerpts, the “Dance of the Furies,” when Orfeo is opposed at the gates of Hades by the infernal spirits, who refuse him entrance until enchanted by his song. Here furious strings are lashed by terrifying dissonances.

The recitative and aria “Misera, dove son!…Ah!, non son io che parlo” comes from an earlier period of Gluck’s career when he was still wedded to the conventions of opera seria and wrote for Prague the opera Ezio to a popular libretto by Pietro Metastasio about the last years of the Roman Empire. Flavia, the daughter of a Roman aristocrat is in love with the general Ezio, but is thwarted by her father’s hatred of her lover. In this dramatic scena consisting of recitative and da capo aria, she bewails her entrapment, caught between warring father and lover. The spare eloquence of the recitative and the beautiful and much slower B section of the aria preview the reform style Gluck would soon adopt.

George Frideric Handel
“As with rosy steps the morn” from Theodora
Despite the fact that it was unpopular with audiences at its 1750 premiere, Handel’s penultimate oratorio Theodora was his personal favorite and now is one of his most admired late works. The aging composer selected a radically different text for this work: the tragic story of the early Christian martyrs Theodora and Didymus, who died in Antioch in 304 AD during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. With a subject closer to the Catholic than to the Protestant tradition, he took a huge gamble and unfortunately paid the price for it at the box office. The beautiful aria Ms. DiDonato has chosen, “As with rosy steps the morn,” is sung by Irene, the leader of the Christian community and Theodora’s confidante; its text employs metaphors from Nature. A calmly majestic da capo aria enriched by a subtly active bass part, it reflects Irene’s character, firmly grounded and never shaken in her faith. The contrasting B section grows bolder and more radiant as she addresses her Savior.

Mahler
“Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” from Rückert-Lieder
The program closes with “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (“I have become lost to the world”), considered by many to be the greatest of Mahler’s songs. It was composed just after he moved into his tranquil lakeside “composing cottage” at Maiernigg in the Carinthian Alps and seems an expression of his contentment creating in that life-giving setting. The music embodies a sublime calm, expressed mostly in simple diatonic harmonies, like “the repose of a Zen garden,” in Henry-Louis de La Grange’s words. The seamless sharing of the melodic line between singer and piano achieves the quality of a vocal duet.

—Janet E. Bedell
© 2023 Carnegie Hall
Reprinted with permission.