MIT Music and Theater Arts
In conjunction with
The New England Chapter of the Music Library Association
Presents
Music by Charles Shadle
THREE SOUTHERN FABLES (2017)
- How the ‘Possum Lost His Tail-Feathers
- Madame Moonbeam and the Bootlegger’s Handsome Son
- How Granny Folsom Got the Rural Electrification
Anne Black, Viola & Kathy Matasy, Clarinet
EINSTEIN AND MUSIC (2016)
Concert Aria for Baritone and Piano (Words by Albert Einstein, adapted and arranged by Michael Ouellette)
Bradford Gleim, Baritone & Charles Shadle, Piano
Program Notes
Three Southern Fables
Just one day after the U.S. election in November of 2016, I had the pleasure of having a piece played on a concert of American Music in London. A friend, the distinguished composer Elena Ruehr, was also premiering a new work that evening, and she asked if I had ever written a piece of “program music”. I immediately said “no”, and instantly wondered why that was the case. Certainly I had written plenty of pieces with extra-musical associations, but never one that told a story in any specific way. This was something to mull over, to be sure. When I got home, I started to work on a new piece for the remarkable Boston-based new music ensemble, Dinosaur Annex. This commission was arranged by the Dinos’ brilliant flutist, Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin--always a friend to composers and their music. The new piece was to be performed on a concert of mostly solo pieces, and Sue-Ellen asked me to compose a duo for two of those soloists: clarinetist Katherine Matasy, and violist Anne Black. I was intrigued by the challenge of combining these two favorite instruments, vastly different from one another, but in some sense occupying the same sonic space. The process of composition was strenuous but satisfying, and in mid January I had completed Three Southern Fables. I was more than a little amused to find that I had written something very close to program music, though each movement seems to occupy a slightly different notch along that continuum.
In the interest of full disclosure I should say that my Southern Fables are complete fabrications, and no genuine folklore was harmed in their making. But they do resonate with regional elements both cultural and musical, and with Classical mythological traditions too.
The first, “How the “Possum Lost His Tail-Feathers” reimagines the story of the musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas. Like that pipe tooting satyr, my ‘Possum is a creature with artistic aspirations, and when he tries to rise beyond his humble station, the powers-that-be are happy to put him in his place. Don’t get uppity!
I call the second of my fables, “Madame Moonbeam and the Bootlegger’s Handsome Son”. It occupies a precarious position somewhere between the myth of Endymion and The Dukes of Hazzard. I hear the purr of a well-tuned engine running throughout the piece, as my moon-goddess cloaks her mortal lover in the safety of impenetrable night. Moral: Everybody loves a good-looking rascal, though a homely one is just a criminal.
The final movement, “How Granny Folsom Got the Rural Electrification” is a classic trickster tale. Think of Hermes or his New World cousin, Coyote. Granny is an old Choctaw lady, and she is happy to play the stoic Indian-music card, indeed she takes considerable pleasure in her performance. The authorities, of course, are stupid and easily duped, and Granny’s stratagems are ever effective. One should always remember that “the government” is out to get you, though it is a tree that can be shaken to considerable remunerative effect.
So you see there is just a trace of bite to the satire of my Three Southern Fables. But in spite of that, I hope that you will hear the great affection with which traditional musical ideas are refracted through a modern lens.
Einstein and Music
In early 2016 the distinguished pianist Paula Fan asked me to compose a piece for voice and piano intended as a sort of memorial to her father and sister, both Scientists by profession and devoted music lovers. In particular she wanted the work to set texts by the iconic physicist, Albert Einstein. I agreed, not without a certain trepidation, and soon received a lengthy packet of texts. Many of these scattered sentences were moving and even funny, but I had no idea how to organize them into a coherent whole. Fortunately my friend and colleague Michael Ouellette took the texts in hand and produced a kind of prose poem both humane and inspiring. I particularly like the fact that Einstein posits music as indispensible to his thought process, and not just a decorative adjunct to the work of the Scientist. In a culture in which the Arts and Humanities are so often assailed, based cynically on the perceived need to prioritize the sciences and mathematics, it feels essential to share Einstein’s understanding that “musical perception” was central to his achievement. I share his belief that it will prove just as critical for future generations.
Einstein and Music was composed during Spring Break of 2016 and received its first performance in October of that year with Professor Fan and baritone Jeremy Huw Williams.
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.
I often think in music.
I live my daydreams in music.
I see my life in terms of music….
Mozart is the greatest composer of all.
Life without playing music is inconceivable for me.
My parents had me study the violin from the time I was six.
I cannot tell if I would have done important work in music,
but I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin.
The only escape from the miseries of life is music…and cats.
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.
It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
The greatest scientists are artists as well.
The theory of relativity occurred to me by intuition,
and music is the driving force behind this intuition.
My new discovery is the result of musical perception.
Mozart is the greatest composer of all.
His music is so pure and beautiful
that I see it as a reflection of the beauty of the universe itself.
A universe in which Nature continues to shine in everlasting loveliness,
and one is so happy with one’s precarious existence
that the human dilemma is forgotten.
One feels reduced to the level of an innocent animal.
Dare I hope you share this feeling?
Does music still belong in that untouchable sphere?
I believe so, I believe so,
Adapted from the words of Albert Einstein
by Michael Ouellette
About the Performers
Bradford Gleim: Hailed for his “brilliant delivery” and described as “rich and easy” by the Boston globe, baritone Bradford Gleim performs opera, oratorio, and chamber music in the United States and abroad. With a flexible, burnished baritone praised as ‘reliable and resonant”, Gleim excels in repertoire spanning from the Renaissance to the present. Specializing above all in Baroque and classical music, Mr. Gleim has been soloist with the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music and Boston Cecilia. Highlights of Bradford Gleim’s 2016-17 season include Ravel’s Chansons Madecasses with the Cape Cod Symphony’s chamber ensemble the Nth Degree, King Arthur with the Henry Purcell Society of Boston, a concert of beloved Bach Christmas Cantatas with Handel & Haydn Society, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Portsmouth Symphony. An active recording artist, Mr. Gleim was featured with Conspirare on The Sacred Spirit of Russia which won a Grammy in 2015. He can be heard on Harmonia Mundi, Coro, and Linn Records, as well as on an album of fifteenth-century chansons by Busnoys and Ockeghem with the incisive Renaissance ensemble Cut Circle (Music en Wallonie, forthcoming 2017). In addition Mr. Gleim is an active proponent of the solo song recital. Bradford Gleim is a passionate teacher: he serves as Assistant Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music and runs a private voice studio at his home in Jamaica Plain. For more information visit bradfordgleim.com.
Katherine Matasy: One of the Boston area’s most versatile musicians, Katherine Matasy has been described by the Boston Globe as “a musician of depth and refinement” with “technique to burn,” other reviewers have praised her performances as “riveting,” “ravishing,” ”brilliant,” and “a rare feat”. As clarinetist and bass clarinetist in chamber music and orchestra settings, she has performed with most of the regions major musical organizations, including the Boston symphony orchestra, Boston Pops, Boston Symphony chamber Players, Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Lyric Opera, Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, among others. Highly regarded as an interpreter of new music, she is a founding member of Dinosaur Annex and a frequent performer with Boston’s many new-music groups. Matasy currently teaches at Wellesley College, New England Conservatory, and the Community Music Center of Boston. She can be heard in recordings of orchestral and chamber music on CRI, Newport Classics, Centaur, Northeaster, Erato, Albany, Bridge, Naxos, and RCA. Matasy received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from New England conservatory.
Charles Shadle: Charles Shadle teaches composition, music theory, and music history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he serves as a Senior Lecturer in Music, and as Theory Coordinator. Numerous institutions, including SUNY Buffalo, Longwood Opera, The Lake George Opera Festival, Intermezzo, The Newton Choral Society, The Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and Lontono (UK) have commissioned his work. For the National Film Preservation Foundation he has composed six film scores, all of which are available on DVD. Dr. Shadle collaborated with MIT colleague and librettist Michael Ouellette on three operas, Coyote’s Diner, A Question of Love, the critically acclaimed A Last Goodbye, as well as the cantata, A New England Seasonal. Major recent works include the song cycle Primordia for Baritone, Jeremy Huw Williams, a Missa Brevis Sanctii Oswaldi for the Schola Cantorum of St Stephen’s Providence, and Nocturne: On the River as well as the Third Symphony for the MIT Symphony Orchestra. On June 3rd 2017 the Rockport Chamber Music Festival will give the premiere of a newly commissioned piano quartet, Dogtown Common. Dr. Shadle received his Ph.D. in Composition and Theory from Brandeis University and counts among his teachers Cecil Effinger, Richard Toensing, Barbara Jazwinsky, Martin Boykan, Yehudi Wyner, Edward Cohen, Harold Shapero and Eloise Ristad. He is enrolled Oklahoma Choctaw.
