Vincent Wakes Subtler Dreams

Youth and ambition can create striking semi-failures, and none are more consistent in failure than the christening of a new art genre.  One of American music's great Deans, Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987) pioneered three genres for himself, the most well known of which is the 24 Parables for various instruments.  He also wrote 12 Serenades, and much like the Parables they have only a loose set form: a Serenade is a suite of short pieces with a semi-light atmosphere, and a Parable is a single, dramatic movement of pure abstraction.  The third form is confined to his early years and appears in three volumes of piano works - the Poems.  While none of these genres traversed farther than his own scores, the Poems are the most worthy of revival and analysis, and the most ignored.

The term was used for many decades before him to musically mean all sorts of things, but with Persichetti it would take a unique and serviceable form.  Each Poem uses a single line of an existing poem as a starting point, crafting an abstract miniature to fit the moods and meanings of the fragment.  At no point does he attempt traditional prosody*, but rather pays the poems proper respect by leaving them alone, letting his piece roam free in the wilds of a singular and powerful sentence.  His sources span the breadth of great Anglo-American poetry from the late 19th century to the Imagists and beyond.  Though they are all short, most no more than three pages, the three volumes (opp. 4 & 5 (1939) and 14 (1941)) contain only two leaves.  All the Poems were recorded by Mirian Conti, as well as works by Gould, Diamond and Bloch, on an album released by Albany Records in 1998, and as I established in my Harold Brown article they tightly control which tracks of theirs escape into the aether.  Keeping that in mind, one leaf has escaped, diffuse, alluring and touching nigh to tears.

(Click for larger view)

Persichetti's language, at least for the mature works of his that get performed, went through many styles and techniques but always maintained an acidic atmosphere of dissonance, eschewing sentimentality and predictability.  The Poems reflect this as well but, unlike his more famous works, most often written in a sophisticated and layered modality, inhabit a language unto themselves.  Impressionism never became a real force in America, despite the best efforts of the likes of Charles Griffes and Quincy Porter, so the elusive, smoky harmonies that float off this leaf are a sound to behold.  Taking its cue from a line from William Watson's "The Fronteir", "Wake subtler dreams, and take me nigh to tears" swoops through a close-voiced internal logic to gaze on the valleys of pan-tonality.  Extended tertian sonorities abound, and the asymmetrical rhythmic structure mirrors the pulsing landscape of dream.  The performance by Mirian Conti is excellent, sensitive to a dramatic texture both dense and fragile.  As with each poem Persichetti is careful with attribution and got permission from the publishers for the single lines from which he launched.  In 1939 he felt the need to ask for the 1894 poem; in 2013 Watson's copyright is a moot argument, so I've reprinted the whole poem below.  The YouTube video spans the whole first volume, and "Wake" begins at 3:37 if you wish to skip to is, though I'd recommend hearing it in the context of its delicious siblings.  The other two volumes are equally accomplished, so track down the CD (such as in the Naxos Music Library for those with a subscription) if you're so inclined.  To paraphrase an entry from volume II, the Poems stand as a testament to Persichetti's ability to capture dust in sunlight, and memory in corners.

At the hushed brink of twilight - when, as though

Some solemn journeying phantom paused to lay

An ominous finger on the awestruck day,

Earth holds her breath till that great presence go, -

A moment comes of visionary glow,

Pendulous 'twixt the gold hour and the grey,

Lovelier than these, more eloquent than they,

Of memory, foresight, and life's ebb and flow.

So have I known, in some fair woman's face,

While viewless yet was Time's more gross imprint,

The first, faint, hesitant, elusive hint

Of that invasion of the vandal years

Seem deeper beauty than youth's cloudless grace,

Wake subtler dreams, and touch me nigh to tears.

("Wake" starts at 3:37)

~PNK

*The art of setting words to music.