On Main Street in Amherst
Judith Carman · Journal of Singing · 2012
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.) _____. ON MAIN STREET IN AMHERST (Brian Ford and Larry Alan Smith), for Soprano and Piano. Tallow Tree Music Publishing, 2006 (CVR). Tonal-traditional keys; D^sub 4^-B[musical flat]^sub 5^; Tess: M-H; mostly regular meters with changes; slow-fast; V/M, P/M; 12 pages. Soprano. I. Napping at (Brian Ford). Tonal; E[musical flat]^sub 4^-B[musical flat]^sub 5^; Tess: mH-H; 5/4, 3/4, 4/4, Deliberamente ... = 63; V/M, P/M; 4+ pages. II. She sat at the top of the (Larry Alan Smith). Tonal-F minor/G minor; D4-B5; Tess: M-H; 9/8, 6/8, 3/4, 4/4, Con movimento ... = 132; V/M, P/M; 8 pages. The composer's visit to Dickinson's home in the summer of 2005 produced his poem about the experience, and as he already knew about Brian Ford's poem, it seemed natural to set the two poems together. These two songs are settings of those poems that reflect the sense of Dickinson's presence that still lingers in her house, and especially in the room where she wrote most of her poems. Napping at describes the poet's lying down on the lawn of the Dickinson house to take a nap and being visited in light sleep by the ghosts of those who knew the poet. At awakening, the ghosts drift off like ghosts of birds/ Whose calls anoint the dead. The piano opens with a widely spaced rolled chord in the bass and open octaves in a motive of alternating minor thirds in the treble that will be heard throughout the song. After the vocal entrance, a triplet-quarter-quarter motif begins in the left hand in treble clef under various forms of the octave motive in the right hand. These two in combination create the feeling of light dreaming that permeates the song. The vocal line floats above this texture and motion, painting the hovering ghosts and the eerie feeling of their presence. The song ends with a repetition of the opening measure a step lower. She sat at the top of the imagines Emily sitting at the top of the stairs and listening to music from below, but too afraid or shy to come down. The voice enters unaccompanied for the first phrase, followed in the piano by a single-voice, rising rapid staccato eighth-note pattern in the bass clef, divided between the hands. This figuration continues through the end of the first stanza, where it disappears into four-voice chords (with some melodic material) that accompany the poet's ascent of the stairs to Emily's room. The sense of her lingering presence again calls forth the rapid eighth-note pattern, as the poet says, She is there,/ And it takes my breath away. Again the chordal pattern returns, dissolving into a melodic two-voice pattern as the poet recognizes A soul,/ Defying time and death that lingers in the room. The last vocal phrase is unaccompanied, followed by a small coda of the staccato eighth-note pattern. …