Artist's Statement

Central Question & Project Description:

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As a music major, I wanted to focus my capstone on some sort of issue in the singing world today. I was introduced to the obscure and less well known Proses Lyriques by my studio professor and was inspired to complete the entire cycle. There is a lot of history, context, poetry, and musical complexity in this work, so I combined my love of singing with my passion of learning for my capstone. My central question was: What difference is made in compositions when the composer writes their own poetry? I went even deeper once I got closer to the event and had a secondary more insightful question: What is the value of underperformed music?I had a lecture recital (first half lecturing about the piece, second half performing it) about the work. I researched for months, studied, polished and memorized the songs, and even collaborated with the School of Music to ensure I performed at the Clarice. 

Literature:

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The cycle has recently become popular amongst researchers in the last decade due to the arising interest in performing less popular works. Not a lot of artists have performed this cycle, so I didn’t really have many artists to look towards for the performance aspect. However, I did find two artists that affected my ideas for what I wanted to convey in my singing and in the accompaniment. 

Sandrine Piau is a French opera singer who has an entire album of Debussy melodies. In this album, is the entire Proses Lyriques cycle. She is a native French speaker so I paid close attention to her diction and gullotoral r’s. I took some ideas from her tempo, and inflection. 

My pianist performed the cycle with a DMA student in the fall. Luckily enough, I was able to see the performance in person. Hearing another soprano work with the same pianist I was going to have for my recital made me realize what I wanted more of in the music, and which ideas I wanted to stray from. 

I researched the history, context, and background of the piece by searching through scholarly databases such as JSTOR and Britannica. One source that was fundamental in guiding my lecture was a dissertation paper on the relationship between text and music in Proses Lyriques (Peiser). It was a 98 page essay so I spent a lot of time reading it and gathering notes. I noticed the author didn’t discuss a couple excerpts that I thought were necessary in the lecture, so I gathered inspiration from her structure in order to guide my own lecture.

I also received book recommendations form my professors about my capstone. Two significant sources I used were “The Singer’s Debussy” and “The Interpretation of French Song”. “The Singer’s Debussy” was a great resource for better French diction pronunciation as well as summaries of each movement. “The Interpretation of French Song” had more music theory related tidbits that I could use in the lecture. It also discussed the performance history and what was generally accepted music wise in this cycle.

Methods:

The way I curated this capstone wasn’t necessary all chronological. A lot of methods overlapped when I was putting this together.

The very first step was to learn the music of all four movements. I learned pitch and rhythm, then put the words together. I began to stage it with my interpretation and run it with my accompanist. I spent many rehearsals and lessons perfecting the cycle. After I had the performance part mostly done, I researched the cycle, and began to piece together my lecture. Once I had the lecture done, I made the slides to go along with it. While I was curating this I was also in communication with the staff of the Clarice so I could reserve the recital hall space and figure out the livestream. I memorized the piece and then I had a dress rehearsal a week beforehand. During the last week, I made last minute edits that I noticed needed fixing from the dress rehearsal. I practiced delivering the lecture more, and showed my dress rehearsal recordings to my voice teacher and vocal coach for additional feedback. When the day came, I did my best to stay calm and be performance ready. I was definitely more nervous in the morning so I played piano and walked around to counteract that. When it was finally time to get on the stage, I was ready to go!

Audience:

I did not curate my capstone for one sole audience. I think everyone is able to press a link and watch the performance. However, I did stress in my first/second look presentations that my project would be better received by music lovers (especially classical music lovers), French speakers, poetry lovers, and those interested in the Symbolism and Impressionism historical art movements. My goal was for each member of my audience to learn something new, no matter the capacity. I wanted my musician audience to find another underappreciated work and work on them. That goal was successful: one of the SOM administrators emailed me and told me she did not know about the cycle before and she was now interested in also singing Proses Lyriques.

Over the course of this capstone I learned so much from a number of different fields. From a technical standpoint, I learned about how to coordinate events, live streaming technology, and market the event. As a performer, I definitely grew because the entire cycle challenged me as a musician. It is a huge accomplishment that I was able to perform this difficult work memorized. My writing skills improved after working on my lecture for a long time and making countless edits.

References:

Bernac, Pierre. The Interpretation of French Song. Kahn & Averill, 1997. 

Claude Debussy . “Proses Lyriques.” IMSLP, 1893, 
imslp.org/wiki/Proses_lyriques_(Debussy%2C_Claude). 

Debussy, Claude, and Marie-Claire Rohinsky. The Singer's Debussy. Pelion Press, 1987. 

Dworak, Paul. “Proses Lyriques in Context.” Semantic Scholar, 2014, 
pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5646/07892a1e26b3145a80755b4a709467e1de14.pdf?_ga=2.78498583.264290208.1607309352-37858467.1607309352. 

Herlin, Denis, and Peter Bloom. “FROM DEBUSSY'S STUDIO: THE LITTLE KNOWN AUTOGRAPH OF ‘DE RÊVE’, THE FIRST OF THE ‘PROSES LYRIQUES’ (1892).” JSTOR, 2014, 
www.jstor.org/stable/43672861?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.

Kurland, Dan K. “Uncovering a Debussy Song’s Secret History.” The Juilliard Journal, 
2014, journal.juilliard.edu/journal/1402/debussy-songs-secret-history.

Lieder, Oxford. “Proses Lyriques Song Cycle.” Oxford Lieder, 2020, 
www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/2834

Peiser, Sacha Alexandra Grace. “Les Mains Désenlaceuses: Unlocking the Relationship of Text and Music in the Proses Lyriques.” Louisiana State University, LSU Master's Theses, 2009, pp. 1–98.
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3927&context=gradschool_theses

Acknowledgements:

The people listed below had a huge impact on the recital. Thank you.

Carmen Balthrop
Rhys Burgess
Theodore Guerrant
Shari Feldman
Heather-Erin Bremenstuhl
Aaron Muller
Diba Alvi
Mae McDermott
Kailee Goldberg
Mihika Kulkarni