American composers, poets at NCMC concert
BY MARLI GUZZETTA
When Robert Frost was alive - observing, composing and reciting in New England - he would often read his poetry at church meetings on Sunday nights.

Celebrate fall in New England at the NCMC's "American Composers and Poets" concert this Saturday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 19 at 4 p.m., at The Coffin School, 4 Winter Street. There are no advance reservations; the Saturday performance is apt to be less crowded. The suggested admission is $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and free for those under 12.

"People would have a communal dinner together at church, like a potluck dinner, and he would stand up and read," according to Barbara Elder, conductor of the Nantucket School of Music's chorus.

Elder mentioned these images of Frost reading amid his softly turtlenecked fraternity during a New England fall because she thinks they typify the mood established by the show "American Composers and Poets," going up this week.

"The concert has that homey, folksy feel to it," she said. "The feel of a good New England tradition, in good, old white churches with potluck dinners: that kind of thing."

The show will be a choral presentation of poems by Frost, e. e. cummings, Sara Teasdale and Emily Dickinson set to music written by Randall Thompson, Elliot Z. Levine, Frank Ticheli and Aaron Copland.

Like the traditions of fall, the songs are familiar even in this go-round to many of the chorus members. Last performed by the NCMC chorus in 1983, Thompson's "Frostiana" is the concert's feature. Thompson composed the "seven country songs" with Robert Frost in 1959. Chorus members like Susan Robinson, Grace Noyes and Elder's husband, Jim Sulzer, sang "Frostiana" with the chorus over 15 years ago. Elder noted that the piece, which made Thompson a well-known composer, had been commissioned by the town of Amherst to celebrate the 200th anniversary of its incorporation. Thompson created musical settings for several Frost poems that celebrate New England country life - "The Road Not Taken," "The Pasture," "Come In," "The Telephone," "A Girl's Garden," "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "Choose Something Like a Star."

"Randall Thompson and Robert Frost were friends, and Frost loved the musical settings," Elder elaborated. "At the end of the premiere concert, Frost stood up and said, 'Play it again!'"

Aaron Copland composed musical settings for 12 poems by Emily Dickinson (who was also, coincidentally, from Amherst). He dedicated each piece to a composer friend. The NCM chorus will perform two of these: "The World Feels Dusty" and "Heart, We Will Forget Him."

A new addition to the chorus and to the island, Helen Didriksen wrote about the Copland song cycle while earning her master's degree from New York University, and then again for a scholarly publication in 1991, just after Copland died.

"This is a song cycle I know well, and it ranges from the dramatic to the humorous to the lyrical; both of the songs we will be performing happen to be lyrical," she said, adding that Copland meant for them to be sung consecutively, as the fourth and fifth pieces in the cycle.

"'The World Feels Dusty' is about dying, but it's beautiful. It's about bringing moisture to the dying one," she said. "'Heart, We Will Forget Him' is a dialogue between a woman and her heart, and she assigns her heart various characteristics of a man to forget. ...For Emily Dickinson, they're pretty basic emotions and I hope the audience will feel them too." (Didriksen will be singing "The World Feels Dusty" as a solo.) The pieces run a gamut of emotions, according to chorus member Grace Noyes: "Each piece is a separate piece with its own mood."

Elder, who selected the music, conceived of the show in part because of her love of the American aesthetic, specifically as it pertains to New England. She pointed to "Frostiana" as an excellent example.

"It definitely has an American sound," she said. "There's something rugged, primitive and outdoorsy to it. And I think that comes from the spaciousness in his voicing of chords. ... Someone from California would never have written these pieces."

She added that adapting poems as lyrics is a "win, win" for the ears. "Lyrics that are written specifically for a piece - when you take the music away, sometimes the lyrics don't stand as well on their own," she said. "But when you're coming to piece of writing that's already great in its own standing, you appeal on two levels."

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