Premiere: 19 October 2013 at Razzo Hall, Clark University, Worcester, MA
Jan Zimmerman, soprano; Ian Watson, piano
Duration: 10’
Instrumentation: Voice and piano
Performance Note:
My Four Italian Folksong Arrangements were written in the early weeks of 2013, again for my friend, the mezzo-soprano Jan Zimmerman. Jan requested them for her graduate recital at the University of Connecticut and I was very happy to comply, having, in the six years since writing “To Anacreon in Heaven…”, become familiar with a series of marvelous folksong arrangements by various composers, including Brahms, Dvorak, and Britten.
I selected four texts and three tunes from a book called Songs of Italy, published by G. Schirmer in 1904, and added a tune of my own to fill out my text selections. In writing these Arrangements, I found myself employing references to various composers and pieces that I’ve long admired into my settings: the spirit of Benjamin Britten makes something of an appearance in the first, “La Savoyarde”; my favorite Schubert song, Im Frühling, turns up in the second, “La Pastorella”; the accompaniment to the Fischenpredigt from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn kicks off (and closes) the third, “Coraggio, ben mio”; and there’s at least a little hint of Verdi in the finale, “A la Fiera de Mast’ Andrea.”