Mezzo-SopranoPatricia GreenLa Voix NueSongs for Unaccompanied Voice by Living Composers

Songs for Unaccompanied Voice by Living Composers It all began at the Dartington International Summer School of the Arts, where I heard an Australian singer perform Judith Weir’s King Harald’s Saga. I was fascinated by this intense narrative with so many characters; all sung by one person, but it was the strong statement of pacifism which necessitated my learning and singing it.

One unaccompanied work led to another, and the immense span of riches for solo voice quickly became evident. The works collected here represent a small sample of this wealth. Written within the last thirty years by living composers from Wales, Scotland, England, Germany and Canada, each maintains a connection to the ancient art of storytelling and poetry; with texts from Shakespeare, Norwegian history, Ovid, Native Indian legend, aphorisms (5th-6th Century) and surrealist French poetry.

Jonathan Dove, b. 1959, London, U.K. Few composers today have been embraced by the modern opera house as consistently and successfully as Jonathan Dove. His catalogue includes more than twenty diverse operatic works. Born in London to architect parents, as a child he played the piano, organ and viola. He studied composition with Robin Holloway at Cambridge and worked as a freelance accompanist, repetiteur, animateur and arranger. In 1987 he joined the music staff at Glyndebourne, where four of his community operas were created. Dove also wrote chamber re-orchestrations of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Verdi’s Falstaff and Rossini’s La Cenerentola for the City of Birmingham

Touring Opera, and a version for 18 players of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle. Glyndebourne commissioned Flight, the airport comedy, garnering 13 productions to date in Europe, the USA and Australia, and a CD (Chandos). Dove’s commitment to community development through innovative musical projects is passionate. The Palace In The Sky (2000) brought together Turkish Saz players side-by-side with a Salvation Army Band, a community choir of elderly singers (Old Spice), children, and professional singers and instrumentalists. The Hackney Chronicles is for schoolchildren to perform and produce. Dove and his librettist Alasdair Middleton have adapted fairy tale sources such as The Enchanted Pig, Swanhunter, and The Adventures of Pinocchio to provide entertainments for children and adults. His Pinocchio has had more than 80 performances in the UK, Germany and the USA, and won a British Composer Award in 2008.

In 1998 Dove was joint winner of the Christopher Whelen Award for his work in theatre music and opera, and received the Ivor Novello Award for Classical Music in 2008. Dove’s song-cycles include Five Am’rous Sighs, Ariel, All You Who Sleep Tonight, Out of Winter and All the Future Days. See also http://www.edition-peters.com/composer/Dove-Jonathan

ARIEL: Jonathan DoveFrom The Tempest: W. Shakespeare

I. Ssshhh! Come unto these yellow sands, andthen take hands. Ssshh! Curtsied when you have and kissed the wild waves whist, come! Come!Foot it featly here and there;And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.

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Jonathan Dove b. 1959Ariel (1998)

1. Come unto these yellow sands 5:182. I boarded the King’s ship! 5:223. O,O,O 2:064. All hail, great master! 2:025. Is there more toil? 3:32

R. Murray Schafer b. 1933

6. Aria of the Princess (1981) 7:09 (Princess of the Stars)

Hilary Tann b. 1947Arachne: A dramatic song cycle for soprano solo with crotale (2002)

7. A Primer For Those Who Have Dealings 2:48 with the Gods 8. Arachne’s Boast 2:469. Athene’s Song 4:4810. The Spider’s Valediction 3:42

José Evangelista b. 1943Exercises de Style (1997) (selections)

11. Recit 1:0612. Analyse logique 1:2813. Négativités 1:1014. Macaronique 1:5315. Italianismes 1:3116. Anglicismes 1:06

Gyorgy Kurtag b. 1926Einige Sätze aus den SudelbüchernGeorg Christoph Lichtenbergs (1996)

17. Ein Mädchen... 0:1818. Geständnis 0:3319. Der gute Ton... 0:2120. Gebet 0:1321. Das Mädchen... 0:1522. Koan 0:3423. Alpenspitzen 0:3024. Eine wichtige Bemerkung 0:4625. ...an die aufgehende Sonne 0:22 Judith Weir b. 1954King Harald’s Saga (1979)

26. Act One 4:3627. Act Two 3:4928. Act Three 4:1429. Epilogue 1:28

Hark, hark! Bow-wow! the watch-dogs bark.Hark, hark! I hear the strain of strutting chanticleerCry cockadiddledow! Ssshhhhh! The never surfeited sea...Ssshhh!

II I boarded the King’s ship! Now on the beak, now in the waist,The deck, in every cabinI flamed amazement!

Sometimes I’d divide and burn in many places.All but mariners plunged in the foaming brineAnd quit the vesselThen all afire with me, I flamed amazement!

III Dong da-dang dong da-da dungFull fathom five thy father liesOf his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyesNothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea changeInto something rich and strange.

Dong da-dang dong da-da dungSea nymphs hourly ring his knell:Hark! Now I hear them…ding dong bell!His tears run down his beard like winter’s drops from eaves of reeds.If you now beheld them, your affections would become tender.Mine would, sir, were I human.

III. O, o, o, o, o, o,

IV. Ah, ah, ah! All hail, great master!Grave sir, hail! I come to answer thy best pleasure,Be’t to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire

To ride on the curled cloudsto thy strong bidding, task Ariel, and all his quality.What would my noble master?I am here. What shall I do? Say what!Do you love me, Master? What’s thy pleasure?My lord, it shall be done.

V. Is there more toil?Since thou dost give me pains, let me remember thee what thou Hast promised, which is not yet performed me. My liberty.

I drink the air before me!Where the bee sucks, there suck I,In a cowslip’s bell I lie;There I crouch when owls do cryOn the bat’s back I do fly after summer merrily.Merrily shall I live now, under the blossom that hangs on the boughI drink the air before me.I go, I go, I go Ssshhhh

R. Murray Schafer, b. 1933, Sarnia, Canada R. Murray Schafer is Canada’s pre-eminent composer, having gained national and international acclaim for his immense achievements as a composer as well as an educator, environmentalist, literary scholar, visual artist and provocateur. After receiving a Licentiate in piano through the Royal Schools of Music (England) in 1952, he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto, followed by periods of autodidactic study in Austria and England encompassing literature, philosophy, music and journalism.

His enormous compositional range and depth is reflected by such works as Loving (1965), Lustro (1972), Music for Wilderness Lake (1979), Flute Concerto (1984), and his engrossing 12-part Patria music theatre cycle. His most important book, The Tuning of the World (1977), documents the findings of his World Soundscape Project, which united the social, scientific and artistic aspects of sound and introduced the concept of acoustic ecology. The concept of soundscape unifies most of his musical and dramatic work, as well as his educational and cultural theories. His other major books include E.T.A. Hoffmann and Music (1975), Ezra Pound and his Music (1977), On Canadian Music (1984), and The Thinking Ear: On Music Education (1986). Look for his autobiography My Life on Earth and Elsewhere (2012).

R. Murray Schafer has received commissions from innumerable organizations and many important awards: the Canadian Music Council’s first Composer of the Year (1977), the first Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music (1977), the Prix International Arthur-Honegger (1980); the Banff National Award in the Arts (1985), the first international Glenn Gould and Molson Award for distinctive service to the Arts. In 2005 the Canada Council for the Arts honoured him with the Walter Carsen Prize. Schafer holds honourary doctorates from universities in Canada, France and Argentina. www.patria.org

Program Note: The Dawn aria is excerpted from The Princess of the Stars (1981), part of the Patria cycle. It was not written to be performed in the concert hall, but at dawn on a secluded lake, where the bird songs and the natural resonance of the water bring about an entirely different listening (and singing) experience. The reverberation provided by a body of water is astounding. The response of the birds is exciting. This recording took place in Lake Lansing Park, East

Lansing, Michigan. The bird songs you hear are those accompanying the singing of the aria. Any low vibrations are the (almost) unavoidable noise of modern life, with apologies to Murray, and to each listener.

The Legend This is the story of the Princess of the Stars, daughter of the Sun-God and herself a Goddess. Her name is in the stars and you have seen it there. Each night she looked down on earth, blessing it with kisses of light. One night she heard a mournful cry coming up from the forest. It was Wolf, howling at the moon, his double. The Princess leaned over the forest to see who was singing, but in leaning down so far she fell from heaven. Suddenly she appeared before Wolf in a great flash of light. But Wolf, frightened to see the stars so close, lashed out at the Princess, wounding her. She ran bleeding into the forest, leaving dew wherever she went, which was nearly everywhere, since she had no idea where to run. By morning she found herself at the edge of a lake and slipped into the water to bathe her wounds. But there something caught her, dragging her down. In vain she struggled. In the end, the waters closed over her. You may see the stars of her crown at the tip of your paddle, but the Princess you will not see. The Three-Horned Enemy holds her captive at the bottom of the lake, and the dawn mist is the sign of her struggling.

Hilary Tann, b. 1947, Wales Through her childhood in Wales, Hilary Tann developed the love of nature which has inspired all her music, whether written for performance in the United States (Adirondack Light for narrator and orchestra, 1992) or her first home (With the heather and small birds, commissioned by the 1994 Cardiff Festival).

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Hilary Tann is the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union College in Schenectady, New York. She holds degrees in composition from the University of Wales at Cardiff and from Princeton University. From 1982-1995, she served in a number of executive committee positions for the International League of Women Composers. Numerous organizations have supported her work, including the Welsh Arts Council, New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and Meet the Composer/Arts Endowment Commissioning Music USA.

Her many commissioned works include Here, the Cliffs (violin; premiere North Carolina Symphony 1997), In the First, Spinning Place (alto saxophone; premiere University of Arizona Symphony 2000), and Anecdote, (cello; premiere Newark (DE) Symphony 2000). In July 2001, The Grey Tide and The Green, was commissioned for the Last Night of the Welsh Proms. Shakkei, for oboe (or sop. sax) and chamber orchestra, (premiered at the Presteigne Festival, 2007) has been performed in Dublin, at the 2008 IAWM Congress in Beijing, in New York City, in Rio de Janeiro, in San Francisco, at the 15th World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok (2009) and at the Eastman Women in Music Festival (2011) where Hilary Tann was guest composer.

A deep interest in the traditional music of Japan led to study of the shakuhachi flute from 1985-1991. Among many works reflecting this special interest is From afar, premiered in 1996 by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. The European premiere was by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in 2000. It was also heard at the opening concert of the 2003 International Festival of Women in Music Today at the Seoul Arts Center, Korea. From Afar is included in an all-Tann orchestral CD by the Slovak Radio Symphony orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor .

Other vocal works by Hilary Tann include Between Sunsets, Songs of the Cotton Grass, Contemplations (for women’s voices), and the vocal duet, The Moor. This beautiful work brought about my interest in this composer. www.hilarytann.com)

Program note: Arachne is a dramatic song cycle for solo soprano. The backdrop for Arachne is the myth as developed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book VI, lines 0-145. Arachne, a mortal, boasts that her skill as a weaver is greater than that of Athene, the divine patron of her craft. Athene challenges Arachne to prove her claim in a weaving contest. Overpowering in this confrontation, Athene transforms Arachne into a spider. This work is in four sections, sung without break. Ritualistic bell sounds signal character changes. The Latin quotation separating the third and fourth songs is an adaptation of the last line of Ovid’s account. The text was commissioned from Guggen-heim Award-winning poet Jordan Smith. Arachne was commissioned in 1987 by Concerted Effort for singer/actress Julie Kabat. It was revised for concert performance in 2000 by Anne Z. Turner, Senior Artist in Residence at Skidmore College, NY.

ARACHNE: Jordan Smith1. A Primer For Those Who Have Dealings With The Gods Say first the cat is stretching in the sun, Kneading her paws. The low sun streaks the table, Gilds the loom, the room where work is done. Tell plainly what you see, the stable

Household. These things are the sunlight’s altars Unaltered and specific, splendid flecks Of constancy. For the gods all this is neither Here nor there. They prefer rhetoric

The breath of force. They take nothing on faith. Here are the slim margins they reserveFor us. We are the stage-set for their play Of metamorphosis. They are all nerve –

The sway of branches in your yard. When they approach, a slipping knot of cunning,Offer what you can least afford, a shard, Some loved thing. Show what can’t be undone.

II. Arachne’s Boast I was a girl when I took to this craft Of thread entwined with thread,Athene’s gift. She taught my weft To follow the shuttle’s lead.I learned too well for her. More deft, Surer in skill and speed,

I no longer weave to her design The landscape where power resides,Our shimmering coast where the divine Ruthlessness, like a tide,Floods and floods. Why waste my fine Talent to praise a lie?

I’ve learned to grasp the moment when The gods’ deceits are made plain,When Zeus’ eagle, bull, and swan Are gone. See what remains:Some tangled girl, like a thread that turns At the selvage, turns again III. Athene’s Song Listen Arachne, my old apprentice Who would reject meBold, so impatient to be the master That you have shirkedThe simplest tasks,-- back to work.

In Circe’s house my loom is busy. Perked ears, broad snoutsOn the crew of Odysseus. Perseus hoists Medusa’s head above the feast.

As my shuttle speeds, and see, Those gluttons sit stone-still,Stare rapt at the Gorgon’s woven hair. So all your habits of greed, desire

Are threads in the web of our greater hunger. Slay the reed, draw the warp tighter,My proud, my greedy Handmaid, my spider. Aranea, exerce antiquas telas.(Translation: Spider, weave at your loom as before)

IV. The Spider’s Valediction At the edge of things, I pull a thread dyed like lichen, like leavesdwindling, as mortal in its unravellings as I know I must be.

Athene’s craft is nothing: a tangled skein. Here in the warp’s tension of drawnStrands, what is her anger to me? She wove me to her design:

A spider. As spider I find the skill to render From nothing my minor necessity.Who else stirs the web’s heart in the sunlit dew? Who spins substance from shadow?

I am Arachne, loom of the gods and the god’s Undoing.

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José Evangelista, b. 1943, Valencia, Spain José Evangelista studied both physics and music (with Vincent Asencio) in Valencia. In 1970, he moved to Montréal to study composition with André Prévost and Bruce Mather, receiving his doctorate in composition from McGill University in 1984. Since 1979, Evangelista has been a professor at the University of Montreal, where he established the Balinese Gamelan Workshop in 1987. From 1993 to 1995 he was Composer-in-Residence for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Evangelista has founded several concert societies, received many awards and commissions for his works, and his music is performed in Canada, the USA, Asia and Australia. Evangelista’s compositions explore ways of making music based exclusively on melody and he has developed a style of writing for small and large groups that is based on this exploration. His music draws on his Spanish cultural heritage as well as on the music of Indonesia and other, contemporary sounds. www.musiccentre.ca Program Note: Evangelista created a melody for nineteen of the ninety-nine Exercises de Style written by Raymond Queneau. This symbolist poet was living in Paris when he first heard the Art of the Fugue by J.S. Bach performed. Hearing this work inspired him to write his own literary permutations on a simple text, (the Récit). Since first composing this work for solo voice in 1997, Evangelista has written a piano part to accompany the vocal line.

EXERCICES de STYLE: Raymond QueneauRécit: Un jour vers midi du côté du parc Monceau, sur la plate-forme arrière d’un autobus à peu près complet de la ligne S (aujourd’hui 84), j’aperçus un personnage au cou fort long qui portait un feutre mou entouré d’un gallon tressé au lieu de ruban. Cet individu interpella tout à coup son voisin en prétendant que celui-ci faisait exprès de lui marcher sur les pieds chaque fois qu’il montait ou descendait des voyageurs. Il abandonna d’ailleurs rapidement la discussion pour se jeter sur une place devenue libre. Deux heures plus tard, je le revis devant la gare Saint-Lazare en grande conversation avec un ami qui lui conseillait de diminuer l’échancrure de son pardessus en en faisant remonter le bouton supérieur par quelque tailleur compétent.

Translation:

One day about noon, near the Monceau Park on the platform behind an almost full bus of the Line S (today 84), I noticed a very long-necked person wearing a soft fedora with a braid around it instead of a ribbon. The individual suddenly accosted his neighbour inferring that the other purposely stepped on his toes each time passengers entered or exited the bus. However, he quickly abandoned the discussion to jump to a newly available seat. Two hours later, I saw him again in front of the Saint-Lazarus station having a big conversation with a friend, who counseled him to diminish the closure of his overcoat by having the top bottom moved by a competent tailor.

Analyse logique Autobus.Plate-forme.Plate-forme d’autobus. C’est le lieu.Midi. Environ. Environ midi. C’est le temps.Voyageurs. Querelle.Une querelle de voyageurs. C’est l’action.Homme jeune.Chapeau. Long cou maigre.Un jeune homme avec un chapeau et un galon tressé autour. C’est le personnage principal.Quidam. Un quidam.Un quidam. C’est le personnage second.Moi, Moi.Moi. C’est le tiers personnage.Narrateur.Mots. Mots. Mots. C’est ce qui fut dit.Place libre. Place occupée.Une place libre ensuite occupée. C’est le résultat.La gare Saint-Lazare. Une heure plus tard.Un ami. Un bouton.Autre phrase entendue. C’est la conclusion.Conclusion logique.

Négativités Ce n’était ni un bateau, nu un avion, mais un moyen de transport terrestre. Ce n’était ni le matin, ni le soir, mais midi. Ce n’était ni un bébé, ni un vieillard, mais un homme jeune. Ce n’était ni un ruban, ni une ficelle, mais du galon tressé. Ce n’était ni une procession, ni une bagarre, mais une bousculade.

Ce n’était ni un aimable, ni un méchant, mais un rageur. Ce n’était ni une vérité, ni un mensonge, mais un prétexte. Ce n’était ni un debout, ni un gisant, mais un voulant-être assis.Ce n’était ni la veille, ni le lendemain, mais le jour même. Ce n’était ni la gare du Nord, ni la gare de Lyon mais la gare Saint-Lazare. Ce n’était ni un parent, ni un inconnu, mais un ami. Ce n’était ni une injure, ni une moquerie, mais un conseil vestimentaire.

Macaronique Sol erat in regionem zenithi et calor atmospheri magnissima. Senatus populusque parisiensis sudebant. Autobi passebant completi. In uno ex supradictis audtobibus qui S denominationem portebat, hominem quasi junum, cum collo multi elongato et cum chapito a galono tressato cerclato vidi. Iste junior insultavit alterum hominem qui proximus erat pietinat, inquit, pedes meos post deliberationem animae tuae. Tunc sedem libram vidente, cucurrit là.Sol duas horas in cœlo habebat descendues. Sancti Lazari stationem ferrocaminorum passente devant, junum surpadictum cum altero ejusdem farinae qui arbiter elegantiarum erat et qui apropos uno ex boutonis capae junioris consilium donebat vidi.

Italianismes Oune giorne en pleiné merigge, ié saille sulla plataforme d’oune otobousse et là quel ouome ié vidis? ié vidis oune djiovanouome au longué col avé de la treccie otour dou cappel. Et lé ditto djiovanouome oltragge ouno pouovre ouome à qui

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il rimproveravait de lui pester les pieds et il ne lui pestarait noullément les pieds, mais quand il vidit oune sédie vouote, il corrit por sedersilà. A oune ouore dè là, ié lé révidis qui ascoltait les consigles d’oune bellimbouste et zerbinotte a proposto d’oune bouttoné dé pardéssousse.

Anglicismes Un dai vers middai, je tèque le beusse et je sie un jeugne manne avec une grète nèque et un hatte avec une quainnde de lèsse tressés. Soudainement ce jeugne manne bi-queumze crézé et acquiouse un respectable seur de lui trider sur les toses. Puis il reunna vers un site eunoccupé.A une lète aoure je le sie égaine; il vouoquait eupe et daoune devant la Ceinte Lazare stécheunne. Un beau lui guivait un advice à propos de beutone.

György Kurtág, b. 1926, Hungary/Romania György Kurtág grew up speaking three languages on a daily basis: Hungarian, Romanian and German. His first significant pedagogical influence was his piano teacher, Magda Kardos. At the Budapest Academy of Music he studied with Ferenc Farkas, Leó Weiner, Lajos Bárdos, and Pál Járdányi, graduating in piano and chamber music (1951) and composition (1955). From 1957-58, Kurtág studied in Paris with the art psychologist Marianne Stein as well as with Darius Milhaud and Oliver Messiaen. As a result, he rethought his ideas on composition and marked the first work he wrote after his return to Budapest, a string quartet, as his opus 1. Compositions before Opus 33, (the orchestral work Stele), consist mainly of vocal solo, choral and instrumental music, ranging from solo pieces to works for ensembles of increasing size. Kurtag has written more than twenty-five works

for voice. Notable among these are: Kafka-Fragmente for soprano and violin (1985-1987), József Attila-töredékek for solo soprano (1981), Három régi felirat for soprano and piano (1986-1987) and Songs to Poems by Anna Akhmatova for soprano and ensemble (1997-2008).

From 1958-80 Kurtág worked as a répétiteur in Budapest. He was appointed professor of chamber music at the Budapest Academy of Music in 1968, teaching until his retirement in 1986, and subsequently until 1993. Since the 1990s he has worked increasingly outside Hungary, as composer in residence with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Konzerthaus, in the Netherlands, and in Paris. Kurtág won the prestigious 2006 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for his work ‘...concertante...’. Most of Kurtág’s music is published by Editio Musica Budapest, some at Universal Edition, Vienna, some at Boosey & Hawkes, London.

Program Note: This work is not a song cycle, but rather a collection of twenty-two musical aphorisms. Some are titled, others are not. The movements appear in the score in the order in which they were composed, but performers are to choose and prepare a set of their own selection for performance. Suitably chosen movements, groups of movements, other works, perhaps by other composers, may play a part in the choices. In any set, one movement may be performed several times. There are optional trombone and double bass accompaniments and interludes.

The texts were written by the poet Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), a German scientist, satirist and Anglophile. He was the first scientist to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental

physics in Germany. He is remembered for his posthumous notebooks, which he called Sudelbücher, or “Wastebooks”, the source of the texts for Kurtag’s composition. Each volume was accorded a letter of the alphabet from A, which was begun in 1765, to L, which broke off at Lichtenberg’s death in 1799. The notebooks were published by his sons and brothers after his death, as the first and second editions of Lichtenberg’s Vermischte Schriften (1800-06 and 1844-53). Since the initial publications, notebooks G and H, and most of notebook K, were destroyed or disappeared. The manuscripts of the remaining notebooks are now preserved in Göttingen University.

Einige Sätze aus den Sudelbüchern, Op. 37 (1996): Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs

Ein Mädchen kaum zwölf Moden alt. A young girl scarcely twelve ‘fashions’ old.

Geständnis ConfessionEs ist nicht der Geist, sondern das Fleisch, Was mich zum Nichtkonformisten macht. It is not the spirit but rather the flesh that makes me a non-conformist. Der gute Ton liegt dort um eine Oktave niedriger. In those parts the right tone lies an octave lower.

Gebet PrayerLieber Gott, ich bitte dich um tausend Gotteswillen. Dear God, I beg you a thousand times, for God’s sake.

Das Mädchen hatte ein Paar sündlich schöne Hände The young girl had a pair of sinfully beautiful hands.

KoanOrdnung führet zu allen Tugenden!Aber was führet zur Ordnung? Order is the source of all virtue, but what is the source of order?

Alpenspitzen näher der Sonne, aber kalt und unfruchtbar. The apex of the Alps is nearer to the sun, but cold and fruitless “Eine wichtige Bemerkung” “An important Remark”Wer in sich selbst verliebt ist, hat wenigstens bei seiner Liebe den Vorteil,dass er nicht viele Nebenbuhler erhalten wird. He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage: he won’t encounter many rivals in his love

…an die aufgehende Sonne …the Sunrise Was hilft aller Sonnenaufgang, wenn wir nicht aufstehn. What use is the sunrise, if we don’t get up?

Translations by Jeff Turco

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Judith Weir, b. 1954, Scotland Judith Weir’s interests in narrative, folklore and theatre have found expression in a wide range of musical invention. She is the composer and librettist of a series of operas: King Harald’s Saga, The Black Spider, A Night at the Chinese Opera, The Vanishing Bridegroom and Blond Eckbert. Folk music from the British Isles and beyond has influenced an extensive series of string and piano compositions written. For many years she has worked with storyteller Vayu Naidu, and she has devised numerous film and music collaborations with Margaret Williams, the most recent being Armida, a one-hour television opera. In the1990s, as resident composer with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, she wrote several new works for orchestra and chorus. The Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned Music Untangled and Natural History, the Minnesota Orchestra The Welcome Arrival of Rain and Carnegie Hall commissioned woman.life.song, a song cycle written for Jessye Norman.

Judith Weir was born into a Scottish family in 1954, but grew up near London. She was an oboist, and had a few composition lessons with John Tavener during her schooldays. She attended Cambridge University, studying with Robin Holloway, and on leaving spent several years as a community musician in rural southern England. She returned to Scotland to teach at Glasgow University and RMSAD. Since the 1990s she has been based in London, and was artistic director of the Spitalfields Festival for six years. In 2007, she was presented with the Queen’s Medal for Music. Over fifty of her works were performed in 2008 during Telling The Tale, a three-day retrospective of her music, hosted by the BBC

Symphony Orchestra. In all, she has written eleven opera and music theatre works, and thirteen chamber works for voice. Her newest opera, Miss Fortune, received its premiere at the Bregenzer Festspiele, Austria, in 2011. Judith Weir’s music is published exclusively by Chester Music Ltd. and Novello and Co. Ltd. www.chesternovello.com

Composer’s note: King Harald’s Saga is a 3-act opera based, as is a good deal of 19th century opera, on an actual historical event; the Norwegian invasion of England in 1066 led by King Harald ‘Hardradi’, which ended in defeat at the battle of Stamford Bridge, 19 days before the successful Norman invasion at the Battle of Hastings. Much of the detail in the libretto has been taken from the account of the invasion in the 13th century Icelandic saga Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241).

The soprano sings 8 solo roles, as well as the part of the Norwegian army; and none of the work’s musical items lasts over a minute. Since it would be difficult to stage a work which progresses so quickly, the soprano gives a short spoken introduction to each act to establish the staging, as might happen in a radio broadcast of a staged opera.

King Harold’s Saga was written in 1979 and commissioned by Jane Manning with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain.

KING HARALD’s SAGA: Judith Weir Act I: Narrator: King Harald’s Saga, act one. It is the year 1066. In the royal palace at Oslo, King Harald of Norway recounts his previous triumphs on the field of battle. To a fanfare of trumpets, Earl Tostig arrives

from England. Tostig is a traitor. He persuades King Harald to invade England.Harald: I, Harald, by the grace of almighty God, King of all the northern lands, mightiest warrior that ever donned a coat of mail and held a sharp edged sword, strongest king that ever strode a long ships prow and sailed the restless sea. Most merciless fighter that ever killed a living man. Whereas my brother the blessed and holy man, Olaf the Saint said: Love thine enemies, I say: sever their limbs until they cause no trouble. When I was young I raided endless Russia, my ship sailed past Byzantium, I scourged the Saracen men in Sicily, I trod the holy ground of Palestine. They knew my justice on both banks of the Jordan; wherever I went, men said: may his soul abide in Christ! All around the orb of the world my name is feared; by this name am I known: Harald the merciless.Fanfare: Hail Tostig. Tell all, Tostig, tell us your tale, tall Tostig. Treat us to the truth, tempt us with a truthless trick, trick us in a trance, tall terse Tostig. Tell us all, tell us all, talk! all hail! hale tell-tale, talk! tall-tale telling Tostig.Tostig: Hail, take, kill, win, sail, fight, go. Go.

Act 2: Narrator: It is the middle of the night. King Harald is asleep. He dreams that he is in Trondheim and meets his dead brother, St. Olaf, who warns him that his expedition to England is ill-fated. King Harald is not afraid of dreams: he leaps from his bed and orders his navy to make for England. The ships sail out of the fjord, into the open sea, and out of sight. Harald’s two wives bid him farewell.St. Olaf: Sleep Harald, sleep on, I fear that death awaits, I hear the wolves cry in the mountains, I see the wolves’ jaws red with blood; I see black ravens, birds of carrion fly to the west. I died at home a holy

man; to my blessed mem’ry be true; trusty hero.Harald: Put out to sea. Put out to sea, sail far over sea.Harald’s wives: Farewell, Harald. Take care, Harald. God bless Harald.

Act 3: Narrator: King Harald’s army lands at Scarborough. A messenger reveals that the English army has been sighted nearby in unexpectedly large numbers. The two armies fight at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. The Norwegians are slaughtered by the thousand. Amongst the dead is King Harald.

The Norwegian Army: We gladly leave for Harald, the land from which we came, beneath his royal standard, his courage and his fame. We gladly fight for Harald, we plunder and we steal, our warriors’ strength is famous, our courage and our zeal. We gladly kill for Harald, we slaughter all his foes. First we beat them to the ground, and then we..Messenger: O Sir! O Harald; I bring fateful news; your army lies in great peril, the sun in bright but the fates are black. We thought to meet no danger; but as we approached the town of York, we saw dust, a cloud of dust, raised by the hooves of horses; and below it the gleam of handsome shields and white coats of mail, and we could see that it was an army, an army of men; and their glittering weapons, sparkled like a field of broken ice.A Soldier: Side by side the armies fought, shoulder to shoulder their men attacked; the storm of arrows raged around the King; and all around the clash of mail, the clang of swords; men running and falling; the crack of blows, bright weapons flying, hewing flesh. Grating, glinting, men flinching, kicking, jolting, flinging axes, breathless they gash and graze and grate. No room to move, tripping, falling, horses rearing, a litter of corpses. They shove and stab

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and stub raining blows without purpose; the leaders cannot command; their shouted orders unheard in the ripping and crashing. Now Harald the Norwegian King felt anger and fury; into the thickest knot of bodies he ran, fighting two handed, swinging weapons aimlessly. Blood pouring, cramp and sweat, shouting, roaring, cutting down, moving blindly. Nearby, a man exhausted fallen in the mud cried; disaster has befallen us! We have been duped! There was no cause for Harald to bring his forces west-ward; we are all as good as dead! At that moment, King Harald was struck in the throat, and drew his last breath, his last gasp.

Epilogue: Narrator: Back in Oslo, an ancient Icelandic sage ponders Harald’s violent end.Icelandic sage: I have seen this all before; ships returning to the harbour, unloading not live men, but corpses. Women weeping, children who have never seen their fathers: it seems to happen often and always they say the same thing: since so many were killed we will never forget and make the same mistake; but they do! and it happens again. Why did Harald bother? He should have stayed at home and made the best of it. I could have told him it would end like this.

Praised for her “warm creamy voice” and “singing with a poignancy and molten resonance”, mezzo-soprano Patricia Green has gained international renown for her remarkable versatility, three-octave range, and exceptional musicianship. Her busy career has taken her to Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, The Kennedy Centre, the National Centre of the Performing Arts in India, Glazunov Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam performing with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, the National Symphony, l’Orchestre de Radio-France, and Northern Israel Symphony. At the Yerba Buena Arts Centre, San Francisco, she sang the role of Marie in Berg’s Wozzeck with Ensemble Parallele and at the Astoria Festival (Oregon).

As a performer of new music, Patricia Green has created more than 30 world premieres working internationally with composers Boulez, Schafer, Ligeti, Dusapin, Laitman, Eggert, Ran, Thoresen, Del Tredici, Tann, Schwendinger, Gonneville, Holliger and Goehr performing with Aventa Ensemble, New Music Concerts, Robert Helps Festival (Florida), Vancouver New Music, Esprit Orchestra, Ensemble Parallele (San Francisco), Cygnus (New York), Theatre Chamber Players (DC), Posthoornkerk concerts (Amsterdam), Musica Festival (Strasbourg), Nouvelles Musiques Montréal and Continuum in London, UK.

In chamber music and oratorio, Ms Green has been a featured soloist with the Manitoba ChamberOrchestra, Cathedral Choral Society, Washington Bach Consort, Library of Congress Concerts, Washington Choral Arts, Bethlehem Bach Society, Soundstreams Canada, Westchester Mastersingers, Russian Chamber Arts, Left Bank Chamber Music, Baltimore Choral Arts, Toronto’s Opera in Concert, the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum Chamber Music series, and at the Wolf Trap Festival, Elora Festival, Fox River Chamber Music Festival, the Scotia Festival of Music, and the Michoacan Tri-National Arts Festival in Mexico.

Her performances have been broadcast nationally on television and radio across Europe and North America. Recently released and internationally reviewed CDs on the Blue Griffin Recording label are: UNSLEEPING – Songs of Living Composers and THE ICE AGE and BEYOND – Works of Canadian Women Composers. She is also featured on six recordings with Newport Classics, Albany Records, and Live Unity Productions. A passionate educator, she is Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Western Ontario. For more information, see www.patriciagreenmezzo.com

Mezzo-SopranoPatricia Green

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