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Song of the Stars – An Interview with Artistic Director Tom Morgan

Former Ars Nova Singers soprano Andrea Weidemann is also the group’s communications coordinator. Currently living in Dallas, Andrea had a chance to catch up with Tom Morgan to learn more about how our upcoming Lost/Found project came to be.

Andrea Weidemann: I’m so interested to learn about how and why you chose to program this unusual piece by Granados, Song of the Stars. Can you tell us about your inspiration?

Tom Morgan: Granados’ Cant de les Estrelles is a masterpiece with a fascinating and complex history. Granados completed writing it and presented the premiere in Barcelona in March of 1911, playing the quite challenging piano part himself. After the premiere, the score sat on his shelf until he died 5 years later (drowned in the English Channel after a German submarine attack in World War I). The piece remained in his family archive until 1938 when his son Victor brought it (and other works, published and unpublished) to New York. But Victor was not the sole heir to his father’s music and was not authorized to have it published in the US. This, and the intervention of World War II, meant the works languished unseen and unheard for yet more years. In 1964 the archive in which they were stored was damaged by fire and most of the pieces were feared to be lost. In 2004, an agreement was finally reached. Despite fire, water, and mold damage, the Song of the Stars was able to be restored.

Spanish composer Enrique Granados

Like many others, I first became aware of this piece in 2007, when it was resurrected by the contemporary pianist Douglas Riva, and performed in New York by my friend and colleague Dennis Keane with his professional choir, Voices of Ascension. They recorded their performance and it was subsequently released on CD and then nominated for a Grammy award, which brought the piece much larger exposure. Riva has described the piece as “comparable to a piano concerto with chorus and organ rather than an orchestra.”

Though I was intrigued by the piece, it wasn’t really in the forefront of my mind when programming for Ars Nova Singers.

AW: Why was that?

TM: It’s been very rare for Ars Nova Singers to perform with piano accompaniment. Mostly this has been due to the fact that we frequently present our concerts in a variety of locations, and sometimes it’s difficult to ensure that there is a quality well-tuned piano available. Also, voices naturally gravitate toward a tuning system called “just intonation” while the piano is tuned in “equal temperament.” It’s a subtle difference, but it’s a sound world that we prefer to inhabit.

Pianist David Korevaar

But then came the opportunity to collaborate with David Korevaar, a brilliant virtuoso pianist, and this brought in another factor: in many accompanied choral works, the piano parts are just supportive of the choir; they don’t stand out as particularly challenging or creatively written for the piano. So, my challenge in this program was to find choral pieces with piano writing worthy of a virtuoso such as David. Each piece of the program accomplishes this magnificently!

AW: Going back to the Granados piece, I see that the subtitle on the score is “Poem for piano, organ and voices inspired by a poem by Heine.”

TM: And it’s even more out there than that: the voices are distributed among three choirs: two antiphonal ones in the front of the hall, and one “echo” choir from a distance. The piece opens with an extended piano solo of considerable virtuosity which lays out the musical themes. Then the organ joins into a duet with the piano; our organist is one of Colorado’s finest players, our longtime friend, collaborator, and Ars Nova baritone Brian du Fresne. Only then does the choir enter.

The source of the poetry is unclear; as it says it was “inspired” by the German lyric poet Heinrich Heine. We’ll be singing the poetry in its original language, Catalan. It’s a love poem which, according to Heine expert Peter Shea, is a response to one or more Heine poems that deal with love and the stars, but in this case written from the point of view of the stars. “When in the still of the night, we wait and watch from out of the deep blue distance…” So we have this wonderful, uplifting text, supported by the power and drive of the organ, and decorated with beautiful Romantic (with a capital R) flourishes and post-Wagnerian harmonies, with definite touches of Spanish passion and flair.

AW: It sounds really fun! How is the choir receiving it? What’s the biggest challenge?

TM: I think they’re really enjoying it, and we haven’t yet put it together with David, which will take it all to a whole other level. The biggest challenge in the piece is presenting the Catalan language correctly and agreeing on all of the vowel shadings. The music is quite accessible, so finding the notes is not hard, unlike in the Argento piece we’re also performing. But that’s another story (coming soon!).

Join Ars Nova Singers for Lost/Found on February 7 in Boulder and February 8 in Cherry Hills Village. Purchase tickets here.