Mating Poetry to Music But Not to the Audience

Elliott Carter's Syringa, with the text's poet-creator in attendance.

The Ensemble Sospeso attracted a substantial number of listeners to Gould Hall on Thursday, and many presumably came for the rare opportunity to hear a touchstone work by Elliott Carter, Syringa of 1978. The faint of heart missed a fine performance of Mr. Carter’s bracing setting of John Ashbery’s poetic vision of the Orpheus legend, with Lucy Shelton and Andre Solomon-Glover as the vocal soloists. Mr. Ashbery’s appearance beforehand, to read the poem and a few other brief items, was a welcome bonus.

[The other] musical offering was La Rose des Langues de Paris, by Joshua Cody, co-founder of the ensemble, or rather three of the work’s five movements, running some 40 minutes. It was preceded by another 40 minutes devoted to Mr. Cody’s poet, Michel Deguy:  an extended introduction by Christopher Elson, to go with his printed one; readings of poems in French by Mr. Deguy and English translation by Mr. Elson.

Mr. Schiff suggested figuratively of Syringa that Mr. Carter’s music, which sets craggy Greek Orpheus texts against Mr. Ashbery’s limpid English, was an assault on the poetry.  The same might be said more literally of Mr. Cody’s creation: an assault generally well carried through by the ensemble, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky, with the same singers.

Da Camera of Houston, led by Sarah Rothenberg (who was diehard member of the audience here), and others have shown that music can be successfully mated to literature in a concert setting, and an audience developed over time. 

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