Exiles

15 min.

February 4, 2001
First and Second Church, Boston
Paul Sperry tenor; Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, conducted by Scott Wheeler

Commissioned by Paul Sperry for performances with the Da Capo Chamber Players, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

Conrad Aiken and Hart Crane

These settings of poems by Conrad Aiken and Hart Crane mirror the texts in depicting a sun and moon of loneliness. Exile, for Aiken, is the absence of lifeblood, a denuded and bleached landscape. For Crane, it is intimacy denied, nocturnal, cold, and bright. These poems first appealed to me fifteen years ago, when I lived briefly in England and identified romantically with the poems. But sometimes poems stick with you until you set them, or account for them some other way.
 
The music was commissioned by Paul Sperry for performances with Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble in Boston, the Da Capo Chamber Players in New York, and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in San Francisco.

“To these ears Harold Meltzer scored something of a triumph with Conrad Aiken’s long and intense poem ‘Exile’ — you had the sense that his setting of it was patiently growing into completeness at the same tempo as the poem was as you read it, heard it, and thought about it. High marks to Meltzer not only for shrewd psychological pacing but for an almost homeopathic use of restricted tone colors. Whether it was oracular declamation or drained- dry neutrality that was demanded, veteran tenor Paul Sperry came through with total understanding. ‘Exile’ goes immediately onto this year’s must-hear-again list.”

 
 
“Entertaining? How can you do that with contemporary music? By trying your damnest to communicate. That’s exactly what’s missing from academic and in-your-face music — the commitment to speak to the audience, with music, in words, in intention. That’s exactly what was present Monday night… Communication in music doesn’t necessarily mean easy accessibility and the West Coast premiere of Harold Meltzer’s Exiles was a good case in point…. Exiles uses the text of two poems by the same name, by Conrad Aiken (abut a desolate landscape) and Hart Crane (about the “voiceless” endurance of denied love), material — according to the composer himself — that’s “pretty sad,” and yet the music is rather robust and energy-filled. It has a stunning opening, the voice appearing as a string instrument and the strings playing individual “voices” until they meet in a rather operatic ensemble.”

• February 4, 2001: Paul Sperry, tenor with Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble conducted by Scott Wheeler, First Church Boston, Massachusetts
• November 9, 2001: Paul Sperry, tenor with the Da Capo Chamber Players, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
• November 11, 2001: Paul Sperry, tenor with the Da Capo Chamber Players, Sonic Boom Festival, New York City
• March 28, 2002: Paul Sperry, tenor with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble conducted by the composer, Green Room, War Memorial Performing Arts Center, San Francisco
• March 31, 2003: Eilen Strempel, soprano with the Syracuse Society for New Music conducted by Heather Buchman, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
• March 27, 2005: Richard Lalli, baritone with Sequitur conducted Paul Hostetter, Music on the Edge, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• March 29, 2005: Richard Lalli, baritone with Sequitur conducted Paul Hostetter, Barnes Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• March 31, 2005: Richard Lalli, baritone with Sequitur conducted Paul Hostetter, Merkin Concert Hall, New York City
• January 24, 2010: Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano with the Argento Chamber Ensemble conducted by Jonathan Yates, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
• April 11, 2011: Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano with the Da Capo Chamber Players, Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival, Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, New York City
• August 4, 2011: Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano with an ensemble conducted by James Baker, Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts