Marilyn and Me (5/30/15)

Horne, not Monroe. And the connection is pretty tenuous at best, but here goes.
On Saturday I heard two song performances — John Brancy, baritone, with
Peter Dugan, piano; and Julia Bullock, soprano, with Renate Rohlfing, piano. The first was outdoors on Governors Island while the second took place at
St. Michael’s Church on the Upper West Side. Here’s the Marilyn Horne connection:
Mr. Brancy is a winner of the 2013 Marilyn Horne Song Competition and
Ms. Bullock’s concert was part of the Marilyn Horne legacy at Carnegie Hall, presented by Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts. Ms. Horne has attended some of the Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts but was not in able to be there this past Saturday.

Mr. Brancy began with popular music, then went classical on us, finishing with some Broadway fare. Night and Day (Cole Porter) was launched by solo piano to start, and then Mr. Brancy entered on stage and added vocals with a gentle jazz touch. As he went into some patter after the song, I got the feeling that I was seeing a breezy outdoor lounge act. But a somewhat classy one. He sang with a nice easy sound, with a bit of power when needed. The rest of the opening set included Nice Work If You Can Get It (George Gershwin), Fascination (Marchetti), Let Me Sing and I’m Happy (Irving Berlin), Stay in My Arms (Marc Blitzstein), and The Nearness of You (Hoagy Carmichael). His patter before Fascination (which he sang in French) recounted a story that Maurice Ravel had written the tune originally, but I did a little internet searching that points to that probably not being the case.

The classical set included Nachtstuck (Schubert), La Barchetta (Reynaldo Hahn), and Mé srdce často v bolesti (Antonin Dvořák). While all three were nice, the piano accompaniments came across a little less clearly than in the earlier popular songs. My best guess is that Mr. Dugan had more leeway there, and that the classical accompaniments were just more subdued, as written. Mr. Dugan played a solo next, a Chopin Revolutionary Etude mashup with the Beatles’ Yesterday. There seemed to be less mashing and just the two pieces side by side, with little interplay.

The Broadway fare consisted of Some Enchanted Evening (Richard Rodgers), Maria (Leonard Bernstein), and Soliloquy (Richard Rodgers). One of the problems with singing outdoors is that, as a singer, you don’t get any real sense of your sound filling the space. As a consequence, some of the high points (range-wise as well as dramatically) were slightly forced. Still, Mr. Brancy is a singer with a fine voice, and it was a fun concert that was well received by the appreciative audience.

Later in the afternoon, Ms. Bullock, a winner of the 2014 Naumburg International Vocal Competition, gave a very well sung concert. Here’s the bare bones of the program (i.e., not every song title mentioned).

She Is Asleep (1943) – John Cage (1912–1992)
La courte paille (1960) – Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
Selections from The Nursery (1872) – Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881)
Three songs dating from 1968–1969, 1947, and 1927 – Samuel Barber (1910–1981)
Drei Lieder der Ophelia (1918) – Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Deep River, arr. Jeremy Siskind (1917) – Harry T. Burleigh (1866–1949)
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (1952) – Billy Taylor (1921–2010)

The Cage was a slightly odd choice for an opener, with vocal melismas (basically just vowel sounds—no real words) and the piano strings being brushed (with fingernails? I really couldn’t see), plus the pianist making some kind of knocking sound. Not my cup of tea. The first of the seven short Poulenc songs had simple, clear vocal lines, and the piece was very pretty and soothing. The next six alternated between brisk and lyrical, with three sets of each.

The Mussorgsky had a more dramatic setting of the texts, with phrases that were short and choppy at times. I particularly enjoyed Going to Sleep, a take on a child’s bedtime prayers with an appropriate sing-songy setting.

After intermission came the three Barber songs. The third, The Daisies, was my favorite with its clean, clear, and straightforward setting. With the Strauss songs, it was slightly odd to be hearing German translations of Shakespeare texts. Interesting, but slightly odd. Deep River was a nice setting, including slight variations to the recognizable tune, and I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free was a strong example of a Civil Rights era song. Ms. Bullock sang an encore which was (I think—she announced it, but her speaking voice did not carry as well as her singing voice) a Josephine Baker song. Mr. Brancy did not sing an encore, since his entire concert was going to be repeated later in the afternoon.

So, on a busy day, I got to hear songs in English, German, French and Czech. And two different, but interesting, concerts. Most enjoyable!

ConcertMeister