Classical Music | Mezzo-Soprano

Recorded on 05/21/1994, uploaded on 09/04/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Departures, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano. William Zucker, composer, words by Paul Zweig.  Live recording.

I.     Life and Vitality
    1.    Bless the Earth, Bless the Fire
    2.    Birth
    3.    Running
II.    Vista
    4.    Walking over Brooklyn
    5.    Looking out at Night over Rooftops
    6.    Waiting for the Storm
III.    Unsettlement
    7.    Lightning Flashes over the Palisades
    8.    Answering the Storm
IV.    Spectre
    9.    My Unfilled Spaces
    10.    Terror
V.    Purge
    11.    I Pay with Hunger
    12.    Night
VI.    Sanctuary
    13.    Listening to Gregorian Chant in San Marco, Venice
    14.    Listening to Bells
VII.    Crepuscule
    15.    The Perfect Sleepers
    16.    Early Waking
VIII.    Of Love
    17.    Snow
    18.    Losing Track
IX.    Final Sentiments
    19.    A Song
    20.    And Yet

Notes by William Zucker:

I was watching a program on the now defunct television station WNYC-TV Channel 31, which was entitled "First Reading," a discussion of various literary works that come up for review.  Under discussion was a collection of poems by Paul Zweig.

The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, and when at one point, the rear cover of the paperback was held up to the camera, showing the poet's photograph, and the poet's birthplace and location where he grew up was mentioned, I knew beyond any doubt that this was a classmate of mine.  Sadly, it was also mentioned that he had died of lymphatic cancer the year before.

I had remembered that his mother had taught in the same school that we both attended, and I remembered her with affection, as she had a high regard for me as well.  I determined to contact her, firstly to express my feelings of sympathy regarding her son, and also was planning to write a song cycle based upon his poems, as I had written another song cycle some years before (on verses by miscellaneous poets).

I contacted the television station, which in turn referred me to the Book of the Month Club, and they in turn provided me with the name of the organization handling Mr. Zweig's effects.  This organization suggested that I post the letter to Mrs. Zweig to them, which would then be forwarded.  This I did, and allow me to say, that to write such a letter after forty years had passed was no easy matter.

Three weeks had passed and I heard from Mrs. Zweig, advising me that as long as I went through the trouble I did, we would definitely have to meet.  An appointment was arranged, and I stated both my sentiments and my wishes to write a new cycle.  And I allowed her to listen to the previous cycle I had written, which she seemed pleased to hear.

It was a period of five years, from this meeting until the work was finally premiered, that I was examining three collections of poems of Paul Zweig to determine which ones to use, as well as for my own part, going through many rejected drafts for the various songs as I had written them.  I am happy to say that Mrs. Zweig did express her pleasure with what I had turned out.

As for the work itself, which as noted consists of twenty songs or as I prefer to designate them, movements, was written for mezzo-soprano, my own choice for an ideal voice, with piano.  And I must say that, although many of the poems did directly inspire me as to the type of music I used, once the music was set down, for me at least it tended to detach itself from its original inspiration and suggest to me its own images.

For one thing, the verses were excerpted from three different collections of Mr. Zweig's poems, but the music maintains its own narrative quality from beginning to end, meant to be heard as a continuous, almost symphonic affair, with its own agenda.

I have found no need to "invent" any novel language to express any ideas that came to mind, as my primary purpose in writing this work was that of communication to the listener.

William Zucker