Setting poetry by
Emily Dickinson
(or perhaps
Walt Whitman
) is almost de rigueur for young American composers who write for the voice. This 2023 release, though, featuring soprano
Tony Arnold
and baritone
William Sharp
(with pianist
Seth Knopp
), is something different. It is based on excerpts from the long correspondence between
Dickinson
and the abolitionist, military commander, and general
backer
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
. Woven into the text are various
poems. The text thus contains various layers of significance and discourse, which are deftly handled in composer
Eric Nathan
's setting. The letters are set essentially as recitative, with key ideas highlighted by musical emphasis. The
poems have a more melodic texture, akin to that of traditional art song. The text in itself holds the listener's interest, for
Higginson
's letters refer to the changes sweeping 19th century America, to war and abolition. An essay by
also laments the position of the female writer ("The most gifted woman / Is like a single plant / Where the soil is not yet fitted for its reception, / And it is only in some favored nook / That it manages to exist at all.").
and
met only once, in 1870, and the work builds toward this moment. The performances are ideal, with clear diction and a good sense of how to approach the epistolary medium. The sound achieved by
Nathan
, acting as producer, is ideal. He records in a small studio in southern Vermont, not far from
's home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Aficionados of contemporary American song should definitely hear this unusual release. ~ James Manheim