Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
- Emily Dickinson
Dear readers, welcome to Art Song Canada’s Spring 2024 edition! My name is Sara Schabas and I’m a Canadian soprano, writer and researcher taking over from Brett Polegato as editor of the Art Song Canada magazine.
In this quarter’s edition, we look at challenges inherent in the art song canon from a 2024 perspective. We begin with seminal works of the past, as tenor Colin Ainsworth shines a trauma-informed light on Franz Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin. Soprano and scholar Meghan Lindsay reimagines Robert Schumann and Adelbert Von Chamisso’s look at a woman’s loves and life from a feminist perspective in Frauenliebe und Leben. Finally, pianist and author Pierre-André Doucet illuminates some meaningful new works as well as his own highly personal contributions to the art song canon (cet article est également disponible en français). At the end of this issue, you’ll find a new Introducing… column where we introduce little-known song cycles to our readers. For this edition, University of Toronto Faculty of Music lecturer and pianist Asher Armstrong introduces us to Regine Poldowski’s settings of the poet Paul Verlaine.
Thank you for reading with us, and if you enjoy this issue, please consider donating to support the Art Song Foundation of Canada’s bursary programs for young Canadian singers and pianists. Allons-y!
PS: this is a long issue, so you may want to click here to read it in your browser!
A trauma-informed look at Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin by Colin Ainsworth
Franz Schubert’s extraordinary song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, is a journey through the tumultuous emotions of a young man grappling with love, loss, and ultimately, despair. Set to text by Wilhelm Müller, it tells the story of an impetuous young man who hopelessly falls in love with a miller’s daughter, who (for her part) falls in love with a strapping hunter. Our young miller is devastated and tragically decides to end his life in his beloved river and is carried out to sea. It is a mammoth cycle full of challenges – not the least, having to learn all twenty songs – and also, containing difficult themes and a vast array of emotions of unrequited love, isolation, anger, depression, and suicide. For a singer who has never taken up the challenge of such a huge work, it can be daunting. The question then is, how do we singers undertake these works or guide students through these large-scale cycles, especially ones with difficult subject matter?
This was the question that Dr. Laura Loewen and I considered as we sought a way to bring this cycle to students. Laura and I have had the privilege of presenting various recitals since 2017 across Canada, enjoying a fantastic singer-pianist partnership. Before the Covid epidemic, our goal was to bring this collaborative experience to groups of singer-pianist duos at the university level working through Schubert’s cycle and, with them, present a final concert.
The pandemic shut down any hope of collaboration until the return to in-person learning, in which we realized how important our project could be, potentially addressing the emotional impact, mental health challenges, and isolation precipitated by the shut down. It struck us that the themes of isolation, depression, lack of community, and connection were not just emotions held uniquely by the young miller but were also being experienced by students, exacerbated by the pandemic. We recognized this was the perfect opportunity to speak about how to tackle these cycles and also, the bigger issue of mental health. But, knowing we were not qualified to speak to the issue of mental health and wellness, we invited Dr. Carol Wiebe, founder of Radical Connections, which strives to improve healthcare and strengthen communities by bringing artists and people together, and Danna McDonald, who works as an embedded counselor at the Desautels Faculty of Music in Winnipeg, to help frame our work through the lens of positive mental health and wellness. We felt that our project could provide help to those who were either dealing with these challenges or give them tools to help someone who was.
We have had the privilege of bringing our DSM workshop to the University of Ottawa, Wilfred Laurier University, and the University of Toronto, (and this March, at Ithaca College, NY) where we explored various techniques of breathing, meditation, exercise, journaling, and self-compassion to help deal with the stresses imposed upon us by us and our world. In our sessions, we objectively examined the miller and his world through the lens of mental health and wellness, seeing how his lack of community, connection, and isolation were contributing factors to his tragic end. We discovered that, when supporting someone dealing with disappointment or hardship, we can be empathetic and compassionate but, when similar situations are thrust upon us, we can be extremely hard on ourselves with negative self-talk, forgetting the compassion and love we would have given to others. We were then able to bring this awareness and empathy to the miller and his story in our coachings and masterclasses which helped to bring another level of depth to all of the students’ interpretations.
It was phenomenal to see the transformational journey of each duo in three short days, witnessing their work in self-compassion and empathy communicated in each of the performances. Even though our miller was unable to have a community and circle of support, his story joined us together as one community, starting with small circles of singer-pianist duos, supported by our workshop team, and ending with the final performance of the larger circle of audience and participants. Instigated by difficult circumstances in our world, the DSM workshop hopes to build community through collaboration, and to instill self-compassion, understanding, and empathy in each student. By combining musical coaching and collaborative performance with a focus on mental health and wellness, our desire is to give students avenues of support for themselves and others, and to demonstrate the critical importance of community and connection.
Canadian tenor Colin Ainsworth is internationally renowned for his performances at the Royal Opera (London), Canadian Opera Company, Chicago Opera Theatre, Glimmerglass Opera, L’Opéra de Français, Opera Atelier, Pacific Opera Victoria, and the Greek National Opera. His repertoire spans from the Baroque to contemporary works and he has especially enjoyed commissioning and premiering numerous song cycles.
Reimagining Frauenliebe und Leben by Meghan Lindsay
For the last fifteen years, much of my effort, time, and energy have been spent on interpreting the works of men. This focus isn't always out of preference but is largely dictated by the established canon—a canon that, despite attempts to challenge or change it, still forms a significant part of the repertoire for many singers. This journey, though full of discoveries, often highlights a conflict: the portrayal of women from an external and sometimes alien perspective. Frauenliebe und Leben is no exception, offering narratives about a woman's life that, while beautifully written, feel like opaque reflections on female identity and experience. The interpretation of works from this era therefore demands a nuanced relationship with tradition, blending interpretation, reverence, politics, and creative agency. It involves a relentless quest to authentically represent female voices in a domain predominantly shaped by men, all while challenging homogenous notions of what it means to be female.
I've always been intrigued by Frauenliebe und Leben. I, too, have been conflicted. How could ‘Süsser Freund,’ with its tenderness and simplicity, coexist with ‘Er, der Herrlichste von allen?’ As an artist and interpreter, I have struggled with how to embrace parts of the cycle I loved deeply while feeling distant from others. Unearthing my relationship with the piece was deeply intertwined with motherhood, a formative time that prompted me to dive deeper into what it means to interpret and to embody. For many in the live arts, motherhood demands flexibility of practice. Balancing the intricacies of caregiving with career demands leads us to reevaluate our autonomy, our connection to our voice, and our body. For me, the vivid, imaginative state of parenthood provided the perfect opportunity to explore something new.
In 2017, I cofounded an interdisciplinary artist collective named New Art/New Media, which enabled us to finance the conceptualization of Frauenliebe as a short film. Collaborating with choreographer/director Jennifer Nichols, filmmaker Zara Saleki, poets Erin Lindsay and Katie Gorrie, pianist Carson Becke, and sound engineer Ross Murray, we aimed to explore the expression of Frauenliebe through film from a feminist perspective. This began with cutting pieces that felt the least reflective of my experience as a woman. Acknowledging expressions of femininity are diverse and not restricted to those that are biologically or born female, I assert that my choices were unique to my experience and may not reflect that of others. 'Seit ich ihn gesehen', 'Du Ring an meinem Finger', 'Süsser Freund', and 'Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan' were selected, while others were left out. Piano improvisations were used to hint at the omitted pieces, creating a cohesive musical experience.
We collaborated on a dramaturgy to the newly imagined piece based on a series of reflections. Tasked to create a series of poems that would weave between the songs, the poets (Erin and Katie) shared prompts that encouraged us to articulate our own interpretations of key themes through both imagery and text. These prompts were designed to elicit diverse and personal responses, through an iterative process that included initial collection of inspiration, followed by the drafting of poetry, and subsequent rounds of feedback and revision. This approach allowed for the poetry to evolve in response to both the visual elements and the collective input of the team. Listening to the music and reflecting on its emotional and sensory impact was an integral part of the process. We were curious about the affective dimensions of listening. What did we feel when hearing this work? What did we feel when reading the text? Our team was prompted to note these emotional responses, the colors and textures we envisioned, and any imagery the music evoked. This exercise is not just about reflection but about how individual perceptions could be woven into the collective narrative.
The project unfolded as a deeply collaborative effort, weaving together poetry, dance, on themes that resonate with our collective responses to Schumann’s work— care cycles, grief, and our intricate relationship with the environment emerged as central themes. With each poem reflecting a specific phase of life or an aspect of the human condition—encounter, union/ritual, birth, death, and the possibility of change or renewal, the structure of our interpretation mirrored the cyclical nature of life. We focused on dimensions of fear, sisterhood anxiety, ritual, and protection. Emotions that speak more vividly to the complexities of the female experience.
When it came to filming, we quickly realized that throwing people together in the woods of rural Quebec resulted in an abundance of ideas. Our storyboard loosened as we adapted to our natural environment. We danced in the middle of bug-ridden fields, ran into each other's arms, swam through lakes in gowns, and lay curled up naked in a hayfield. It was ironic how our interpretation of a piece, originally profound and serious, transformed into a process filled with playfulness and spontaneity.
Our piece is still in process. Honouring a feminist ethic, we are careful and tender to the lives of our team, giving ample space for life to be lived before the film reaches public. I am so grateful for this time. Grateful for these collaborators and their willingness to run through fields.
Soprano Meghan Lindsay is acclaimed for her portrayals with Toronto’s Opera Atelier, Versailles’ Royal Opera House, the Glimmerglass Festival and elsewhere. She is the Co-Director of the Pontiac Enchanté chamber music series and the Co-Founder of Hills Winter Music Festival, as well as a PhD Candidate in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, where her research explores how the social impact of the arts is co-constructed between artists and the mechanisms of public funding.
S’écrire mélodie / Myself, a song by Pierre-André Doucet
Bringing new work to life has always been one of my favourite aspects of song interpretation. To me, it is essential to our lives as performers, in addition to being critical to our discipline’s continued relevance.
Just as in learning more standard repertoire, deciphering a contemporary art song calls upon many of our core skills, including text analysis and score study, technical problem-solving, aural and emotional world-building, and the ability to initiate open and honest conversations with one’s musical partners. Beyond this, however, performing new work offers a unique challenge in bringing us to engage with idioms, colours and texts that are often, paradoxically, both completely novel and viscerally familiar.
In the past few decades, for instance, the song canon has been expanded to include a vast array of modern themes, such as social interaction in the digital age, in Craigslistlieder (Gabriel Kahane / Anonymous authors), gay desire, in Of Passion’s Tide (Jeffrey Ryan / C. P. Cavafy, trans. Rae Dalven), and domestic violence, in Songs for Murdered Sisters (Jake Heggie / Margaret Atwood). Canadian works such as mouvance (Jérôme Blais/ Gérald Leblanc), which delves into the uprootedness that is central to the Acadians’ collective psyche, and Rien ne tuera ma lumière, by Anishinaabekwe composer Barbara Assiginaak and Innu poet Maya Cousineau Mollen, an emotionally charged solo piece on intergenerational trauma which was premiered by soprano Élisabeth St-Gelais to mark last year’s National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, have also complexified and deepened the conversations within and about our field.
While not completely absent from the standard canon, these diverse voices, perspectives and themes have until recently often remained marginalized or under-explored within it. By engaging with them, modern composers, librettists, and performers allow themselves to further develop their vocabulary, expand the scope of their work, and anchor their practices in the present day, all the while broadening audiences’ understanding of the human experience.
Last winter, alongside baritone Geoffrey Schellenberg, I had the privilege of premiering Rémanence, by Canadian composer Matthew Ricketts. Without a doubt, it was one of the most surreal and illuminating experiences of my career thus far, as for the first time, the words that were carefully and vividly set to music in this new song were my own.
The work’s origins can be traced to the premiere of Unruly Sun, a song cycle by Ricketts and librettist Mark Campbell, which chronicles artist and activist Derek Jarman’s final years living with AIDS.
I had spent the months preceding this premiere in a raw emotional state. In the midst of negotiating a post-pandemic return to full-time music-making, I had also recently been diagnosed with cone-rod dystrophy, a degenerative eye condition that was beginning to significantly impact my ability to read and perform music. And so, on the cold December night of Unruly Sun’s premiere, as Ricketts’ restrained setting allowed listeners to witness the progression of Jarman’s disease, including his eventual blindness, I was profoundly moved when I heard tenor Karim Sulayman sing “as I grow old / he will be my eyes.”
The next day, I dove back into the manuscript of my forthcoming poetry collection, which, until then, had been centred on the climate crisis and my relationship to the natural world as a gay man. Thanks to Ricketts’ setting, I was suddenly able to see the relationship between my vision loss and environmental degradation, and I knew that I wanted him to set some of this work to music.
Writers often work in isolation, and we are disconnected from our published works: once they’re printed, our words no longer belong to us. Readers do not contribute to our creative process in the same way that audiences lend their energy to a performance. It was therefore, in a sense, slightly unnatural and unnerving to hear my own words, excavated from the foggy depths of my brain, filtered through a brilliant composer’s pen, and finally sung by an esteemed colleague. It was like seeing them run through a kind of wondrous, delicate and fragile sausage-maker. The process was both challenging and humbling, selfish and selfless. It required a relinquishing of creative control which oddly – or aptly? – mirrored and foreshadowed the loss of autonomy that I might experience in the future. In a way, it was an unexpectedly, almost absurdly cathartic process, a trust fall which allowed all three of us to transform the solitary act of writing into a communal effort of communication.
Art song has always fascinated me through its potential for vulnerability, collaboration, and intimacy. It is a testament to respect, to reverence, even to admiration and love, between poets and composers, between writers and performers, between words and audiences. Inserting myself – my queerness, my ecological anxiety, my vision loss – into the canon, through this project, has only served to deepen my appreciation for our discipline, and for the strength and resilience that lie at its core.
Pianist, writer and cultural worker Pierre-André Doucet has performed throughout Europe, North America, and South Africa, and has been a prizewinner of the Eckhardt-Gramatté, Ibiza International, Knigge and Prix d’Europe competitions. His published works include Sorta comme si on était déjà là (2012) and Des dick pics sous les étoiles (2020), both published by Prise de parole. He is currently the coordinator of the McGill-UdeM Piano-Vocal Arts Residency in Montréal, QC.
Songs by Regine Poldowski (1879-1932) by Asher Armstrong
Soprano Maeve Palmer and pianist Helen Becqué perform Four Songs by Regine Poldowski
Regine Poldowski enjoyed significant success as a composer during her lifetime, seeing works performed across Europe and North America, but she is little-known today. This is a huge shame, as would be evident to anyone who peruses her cycle of sixteen Verlaine settings, which are full of what Graham Johnson calls“fin-de-siècle decadence” and comprise perhaps her most important contribution to the song repertoire.
David Mooney, another scholar, notes that these settings are characterized by “great beauty, intense feeling, vivid colour, and palpable sensuality.” Perhaps most vividly colourful is ‘Columbine’, an exuberantly energetic song in the commedia dell’arte tradition, whose circus-like setting seems to suggest Carmen-esque chromaticism along with insouciantly toe-tapping rhythm. The charm of this song competes robustly with that of the infectious ‘Dansons la gigue,’ which is bursting with Iberian character, even down to “zapateado” and the flourishes of folk dance—also in this list stands her ‘Mandoline’ (famous in previous settings set by Fauré and Debussy—estimable company Poldowski’s song nonetheless deserves).
But her way with the more atmospheric—and voluptuous—texts of Verlaine is equally compelling (‘L’heure exquise,’ for instance, which in Poldowski’s hands becomes a passionate, opulent nocturne), as is the landscape of song repertoire which lies beyond the Verlaine settings. One of many highlights in this oeuvre might be named in ‘Narcisse,’ a singular work for voice and strings which simultaneously encloses the world of the fin-de-siècle and a more modernist expressionistic impulse: this song, which juxtaposes delicate string trelliswork with throbbing, full-throated textures, has something about it that lingers in the mind and the heart long after the last notes sound.
A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Asher Armstrong is Lecturer of Piano and Chamber Music at the University of Toronto. Armstrong has also been published by numerous journals and recently recorded an album of piano music by women including works by Kaprálová, Pejačević, Boulanger, Beach, Leginska, and Eckhardt-Gramatté.