 Schubertiade (1896), by Julius Schmidt This Sunday we celebrate the birthday of Viennese composer and songsmith extraordinaire Franz Schubert. As a pioneer of the song cycle genre with over six hundred songs written for solo voice and piano to his credit, he has clearly earned a place in the art song pantheon. The music of Schubert has naturally found a home on many Fourth Coast concerts. ‘Die Forelle’, heard here in an arrangement for vocal quartet and piano, kicked off our ‘What a Zoo!’ program, which I had the pleasure of curating two seasons ago.  Elliot Mandel Photography Composed in 1817 when Schubert was barely twenty years old, the song tells the tale of the titular trout and a meddlesome fisherman. The cheerful melody in the piano depicts the lively fish swimming about in the clear water as the fisherman attempts to catch it. The fisherman grows impatient and muddies the waters in order to trick the trout; the fish is caught! Here Schubert likewise muddies the musical waters with thick, crunchy chords in the left hand of the piano, returning to the original theme as the trout emerges from the water hooked on the fishing line. I am always struck by the imagery that jumps off the page in a Schubert song. Using only the keys of a piano and the voice of a singer he is able to conjure vivid depictions of nearly any subject; from the pounding of horses’ feet in ‘Erlkönig’, to the incessant turning of the spinning wheel in ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, to the lively antics of the trout in ‘Die Forelle’. To think that he achieved this in only thirty-one short years of life makes one wonder what could have been. Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Herr Schubert! This performance was recorded live on June 2, 2019 at the Logan Center for the Arts in Hyde Park with pianist Kuang-Hao Huang. Audio by Joshua Sauvageau.
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by Ace Gangoso Today I bring you footage from my own personal archives: a performance of “Litany” by John Musto, self-recorded around the beginning of last summer. In his setting of this Langston Hughes poem, Musto managed to make a song in a major key sound deeply mournful, a trick straight out of Franz Schubert’s playbook. During the long piano intro, the tonality shifts and wanders as the meter changes almost every bar. The vocal line lilts about and floats above the piano hauntingly, often entering and moving off beat. Yet all of the harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic quirks somehow take place without drawing excess attention to themselves. The song doesn’t sound as jarring and amorphous as one might expect given its qualities on paper. Instead, what emerges is a sound world that evokes feelings of longing, searching, and unsettledness—feelings which we are wont to experience in our current physical world.  Panel #40 from "The Migration Series" by Jacob Lawrence (1941) As much as we had hoped that January 1, 2021 would magically free us from the woes of the previous year, deep down we knew (or were quickly reminded) that things are rarely that simple. Similarly, we know that, even as new national leadership takes office, the substantive change that many hope for will take time. Some voice their eagerness for things to “go back to normal,” but my hope is actually that this doesn’t happen. The “old normal” was wrought with ignorance and complacency toward inequality and injustice, and I like to think that, overall, we have grown as a society in our consciousness and compassion. We have seen and felt suffering and hopelessness more plainly than ever, and have made sacrifices for the greater good. But what I hear wrapped into the great beauty of this song is a call for even more—to not let “we’re all in this together” to be a mere cliché, to identify and actively seek out the people and things in our lives that we habitually ignore or put off, and to listen more closely for (and respond to) the cries for help around us. Do you hear a similar call? Does this music speak to you in a different way? What are you most hopeful for this year? Feel free to use the comment section or reply to the emails with these blog entries to engage with us and let us know your thoughts! We have enjoyed staying connected with you this way and look forward to bringing you new content and performances soon.
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SUBSCRIBEAboutHello, and welcome to the blog! We are Fourth Coast Ensemble, Chicago's classical vocal quartet. Join a different member of our ensemble each week for insights into our favorite art songs, links to archival and new recordings, and reflections on why we value and continue to come back to this musical medium. We proudly present, your weekly #artsongfix! Archives
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Website photography by Elliot Mandel Photography