In a popular culture almost overrun by blaring rock and thumping rap, it may seem hard to believe a successful composer would sit down to write a song cycle based on Franz Schubert`s epic ”Die Winterreise” (”The Winter Journey”).
Surely the contemporary audience would not be large for a 35-minute group of songs performed by one singer, accompanied by a lone pianist and written in a 19th Century form.
”But I didn`t write a 19th Century form-I wrote a one-woman musical without a book,” protests composer-lyricist Maury Yeston, whose hit shows
”Nine” and ”Grand Hotel” must have given him tremendous self-confidence.
How else to explain his most recent venture, ”December Songs,” an unabashed revisiting of Schubert`s ”Winterreise” receiving its Midwest premiere Monday night at the Goodman Theatre. The piece, commissioned by Carnegie Hall (for its recent centennial) and written specifically for the gifted cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci, defies conventional wisdom regarding popular music and contemporary theater.
In other words, there are no deafening electronic sounds, no hammering drum machines, no spectacular lighting effects or ingenious scenic displays. Instead, Marcovicci simply walks onto a darkened stage-like a 19th Century lieder singer or a modern-day classical recitalist-and sings 10 pieces describing an often searing inner journey.
Like its model, ”December Songs” deals with a troubled soul grieving for a lost love. And also like ”Winterreise,” its central metaphor is a solitary walk through a cold winter`s day. Along the way, the protagonist comes perilously close to suicide, the journey ultimately resolving itself in an ingenious way that will not be given away here.
But why did Yeston, whose ”Grand Hotel” makes him a formidable name in modern musical theater, venture something so far from the commercial arena in which he has thrived?
”I always had this fascination with `Winterreise,` ” explains Yeston, who taught music at Yale University before his success in musical theater.
”And the centerpiece of the song course that I taught at Yale was, of course, `Winterreise,` which I`ve always considered the greatest song cycle ever written.
”But the amazing thing was that my students always responded best to
`Winterreise,` because its lyrics (from poetry by Wilhelm Muller) remain utterly contemporary.
”I mean, in `Winterreise` a man loses his love and wanders in search of it in utter desperation. So what`s more modern than the subject of lost love? That`s Top 40.”
Perhaps, but there remains one critical difference between
”Winterreise” and ”December Songs”: Schubert`s protagonist was a man, whereas ”December Songs” was commissioned for a woman.
”That`s just the point,” says Yeston. ”I found that whenever I would hear a woman sing `Winterreise,` it just didn`t land quite right.
”So I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to write a
`Winterreise` for a woman-but a contemporary `Winterreise.”`
Enter Marcovicci, who had been invited by Carnegie Hall to pick a composer whom the institution would commission to write new work.
”When I thought about it, I asked for Maury, because I always thought there was something melancholy and enormously emotional about his writing,”
says Marcovicci, who hopes to record ”December Songs” later this year.
”So we got together and began to discuss it, and then one day I suddenly get a call from Maury saying: `I`ve got it-”Winterreise.”`
”Well that was news to me, because I didn`t know what he was talking about-I had never heard of the piece.”
After she listened to it, Marcovicci says she ”became truly haunted by the piece” and eager to see how Yeston would respond to it.
But wasn`t Yeston a bit awed by the prospect of attempting to write his own ”Winterreise”?
”Absolutely not,” says Yeston, ”Remember, I`m the guy who took Fellini`s `8 1/2` (a revered film) and made it into `Nine.` I am not afraid.” So he forged ahead, the new work having received its world premiere last April in Carnegie Hall. Because it received only one review (a positive one from USA Today), its future will depend, to some extent, on how it is received from here on.
Judging by an informal audio tape of that performance, ”December Songs” is a remarkable cycle. Though it will take Monday night`s live performance to fully perceive how it works, there`s no question the piece genuinely refers to Schubert while addressing life in America in the 1990s as well.
The very setting of the pieces is unmistakeably Schubertian, with descriptive piano accompaniments suggesting a burbling river, a whirling wind and the like.
But the harmonies and the lyrics of this song cycle speak in a more modern way.
”Even though this is a subtle piece that, I hope, moves people without hitting them over the head, the music is enormously accessible,” says Marcovicci, who`s right on that point.
”To me, `Bookseller in the Rain` (one of the cycle`s more poignant numbers) sounds very close to Joni Mitchell. `What a Relief` (the clever, trick finale) sounds like an 11 o`clock Broadway musical number. And `I Had a Dream About You` clearly is a pop song.
”So it`s not as if we`re asking people to sit through something really difficult and unpleasant,” adds Marcovicci, whose concert is a benefit for the Aids Legal Council of Chicago. ”I really believe that if this were the score to one of Maury`s musicals, he`d have a hit.”
As for how Yeston altered the male viewpoint of ”Winterreise” to the female counterpart in ”December Songs,” it`s worth noting that he did not do it by putting in ”she” instead of ”he.” On the contrary, the cycle uses the word ”she” in only two songs.
Rather, he chose a subtler method, as in ”My Grandmother`s Love Letters,” in which the song cycle`s heroine stumbles across yellowed letters from a distant past.
”I suppose a man could sing that song,” says Marcovicci, ”but the images are so womanly-the bow that wraps the letters, for instance, is a womanly image.”
Adds Yeston, ”Images and scenes like that that make this a woman`s song cycle. Because in spite of all political correctness, there are certain ancient themes that belong to women.
”A woman`s romantic loss, the idea of holding on to a relationship that`s gone, the very idea of a woman being jilted-these are the things that make `December Songs` a woman`s cycle.”
More important is the sweet fact that a composer of Yeston`s stature has bothered to write something as literate, intelligent and seemingly
uncommercial as ”December Songs.” Perhaps there`s hope that a quiet, thoughtful voice can be heard beyond the din of most pop and rock.
”As far as I`m concerned, this is just the beginning,” says Yeston, who adds that he is eager to write another cycle.
”Something like this, a modern song cycle, could be a whole new musical form for us.”
Surely we need one.
