Myth Then & Now

[00:00:01] Speaker A: You're tuning into Salon Era, a series from Les Delices that brings together musicians from around the world to share stories, music and scholarship with a global audience of early music lovers. I'm Deborah Nagy and this is the fourth episode of our fifth season, Myth Then and Now Mythology from any tradition contains messages and lessons for us all. Whether the subject is jealousy or love, whether the characters are gods, monsters or mortals, there is some relatable, even universal message about human nature or the order of things. In this episode, Myth Then and Now, we'll be putting old and new in dialogue together with our guests, mezzo soprano Sophimich, composer Adam Jacob Simon, tenor Nicholas Pan and composer Viet Quang. We'll consider mythology's contemporary resonance in conversations spanning classical mythology, Catholic hagiography and Confucian philosophy. Along the way, we'll sample recent performances of cantatas by Jean Philippe Rameau and Michel Pignolet de Montauclair. Sophie and Adam of Tiny Glass Tavern will share a recent performance centering St. Cecilia, and Les Delices will preview excerpts from a recent world premiere of A Moment's Oblivion by composer Viet Quang featuring Grammy winning tenor Nicholas Pan. But first, a quick word about the cantata, the form that inspired the music in this episode. The secular cantata came into its own in Italy in the late 17th century, and it flourished most especially in Rome, where it was a private and convenient alternative to opera, which was sometimes banished by papal decree. By 1700, Italian cantatas by composers like Bononcini, Carissimi and Caldara were being enjoyed in a different private arena, exclusive Parisian salons, prompting French composers like Montacleair, Rameau, and many others to expand experiment with a form in their native language. The cantata reached the apex of its popularity in France in the 1730s, where these mini dramas were regularly featured on public concert programs and cantata texts were a valued poetic form regularly published in magazines and other periodicals. 300 years later, we continue to be fascinated by the combination of myth and music. Let's begin our episode with an excerpt from Montclair's cantata Le Depis genre. Here a jilted protagonist initially seeks revenge to combat shame and misplaced feelings of guilt. Monticlair's musical setting mirrors the text's psychological turmoil, as impetuous flashes of anger in the violin and viola da gamba melt away to reveal a tearful, chromatic descending bass line that accompanies a series of rhetorical questions. Mais pourquoi sous pire? Pourquoi vercet des l'arme? Why sigh? Why shed tears A mesmerizing lament Arbr follows. Let's listen to this February 2025 performance from Les Delices featuring tenor Nicholas Pan. [00:06:02] Speaker B: Ha sa sh. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Welcome, Sophie. I'm so glad to see you and chat on Salon Era. [00:08:30] Speaker C: So exciting to be here. Thank you for having me. [00:08:34] Speaker A: It's. It's always such a pleasure and a privilege for me to get to spend time with you, let alone perform and make music with you. And before we go any further, I want to congratulate you on a fantastic new CD that was just released with your group, Tiny Glass Tavern. I've been listening to it and enjoying it and I'm very happy to proselytize about it. [00:08:58] Speaker C: It's been such an incredible adventure and I can't believe it's finally out and there's a little bit of everything in that album and I. I'm just. Thank you for, for introducing it. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Well, I have been walking down memory lane revisiting a performance that we did just about a year ago in March of 2024, where Lady Lys presented with you as a special guest a program dedicated to the Orpheus myth. And among the pieces on that program was Rameau's Cantata or F. You know, Orpheus is also the subject of the very first opera. He's a really valuable and appropriate figure to have a story that is set to music because of course he is like the God who was the kind of patron of music, as it were, and he was given the gift of music by the God Apollo. And there are so many different lessons contained in his story. [00:10:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it was such a treat to perform that cantata. Always really, really fun to go back to my native language and perform in French. And it just felt like Ramon had such an incredible way of setting the language that felt like it was very easy to connect to the text just given how well it was set and how many incredible text painting moments there were in there and just, just an incredible variety of emotion in such a small form. And it just felt like we were able to go into the incredible joy of love and the excitement and the, you know, just how quickly the story turns as we, as we know and how well Rameau said that going to really a heart wrenching aria that we will hear and, and then ending the cantata a little bit with you know, the moral of the story and you know, going back, back and forth as both the narrator but also. And also being Orfeo at times allows for the performer, in my case me to really go into putting all these different acting hats on and using vocal, vocal, colors, which is one of my favorite things to do is just bring these characters to life. And Rameau just kind of served it all on a platter for us, setting it so incredibly well. [00:11:44] Speaker A: So, as you mentioned, we're going to actually hear in a moment the big central recitative from Rameau's Orphe in which Orpheus basically falls prey to his own worst kind of inclinations and turns around and looks at Eurydice, which is the thing that he's been told is he absolutely cannot do if. If he's going to save her and bring her out of the underworld. And then what happens? [00:12:20] Speaker C: It's both. Both his worst. The one thing that he's not supposed to do, but one thing that makes him so human is to, of course want to. Even though he has all these magical, you know, powers and, you know, being so moving, so moving that he can enter the underworld, but then his human, the side of his humanity comes over just wanting to look at his love. [00:12:48] Speaker A: And this is followed, this reset by a beautiful aria that was so fun to do with you and have our voices intertwine in which suddenly we're in the first person. You're speaking in voice of Oreo and he says, it wasn't my fault. It was all Cupid or Amuro's fault. Let's listen to this beautiful performance from March 2024 with Sophie and L. [00:13:28] Speaker B: Rasp SA alone. RA SA. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Thanks for watching today's episode of Solanira, which features recordings by Les Delices and Sophie Michaud's tiny Glass Tavern. Each and every episode of Solanira is unique and we are proud to share little known histories, tell inspiring stories, and introduce amazing performers to you, our listeners. That's why we want to remind you that all of our Season 5 episodes will be available on YouTube until June 30, 2025. If you've missed an episode or you want to enjoy them before they disappear, now's your chance. And if you want to enjoy episodes from past seasons, consider becoming a member of Solan Era. You'll gain access to every episode in the Solanira archive and provide vital support that enables us to to continue producing the show. In a moment, we'll return to our conversation with Sophie and Adam, but in the meantime, I hope you'll consider making a tax deductible gift in support of Solanira. With your support, we can continue to collaborate with engaging guests from across the country and around the world. You can support Solanira by subscribing to this podcast and by donating at select salon era.org your donations make every episode possible. Thanks again for supporting Les Delices and Solanira by watching, listening and subscribing. Welcome back. And welcome, Adam. It's great to have you join us. [00:20:53] Speaker D: Great to be here. Thanks for having me. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Thank you. Well, I'm really excited about the next segment and the piece that we're going to introduce this episode is called Myth Then and Now. We just experienced some gorgeous Remo, which obviously is then, and we're going to segue now to talking about myth and music in the 21st century. What inspires us about it and what keeps it interesting and relatable for not only us as musicians and composers, but also for listeners. I think it's fun also to consider that we're moving from the Orpheus myth to mythology around St. Cecilia. And how do you see that relationship? [00:21:44] Speaker D: Yeah, I confess one of the biggest inspirations for writing the piece wasn't Cecilia herself, but it was wanting to have this larger art song suite. We wanted something that had a large grand chorus that could be sung along to because Sophie and I were organizing a concert. So we had a lot of very performative art song pieces. And then we had a lot of group singing and, you know, everything in between. So, like, there was a sea shanty, there was a pub song, there was a purcel. It was just that grand chorus jumped out at me. The last stanza of the. Of the Dryden poem starts by saying, orpheus, who could lead beasts and rocks and trees with his amazing lyre playing. And I remember that being one of the first lines I read, really grabbing my attention. It's so. It's so evocative and so you can really see it. That leads into the grand chorus. All this is to say, I didn't really wake up one morning and say, I want to write a St. Cecilia piece, but I just kind of found that poem and it was like, oh, that grand chorus is perfect. And then I'm sort of like, who's this Cecilia lady? You know? And after that, really, the text sort of did most of the work for me. I just sort of tried to. Tried to grab each little. Each little movement as, like, a miniature song. What's very different about the recording of the snippet you'll hear today is the original version I wrote for piano and harpsichord and congregational singing, and then Sophie as a soloist for the stanzas. And that had a really. I think they work in very different ways, and I think they both work well, but the Piano, harpsichord offered this very obvious sort of back and forth between, oh, this is a little modern art song and this is a little quasi baroque. Exactly. That was very, that was very prominent to the audience, I think. [00:23:34] Speaker C: And I think. I think that then and now comes back really well with this new orchestration because it being for baroque band, but the sounds are so modern and you know, the harm the harmonic language is, is. Is so much really plays around with. With the baroque traditions, but also has some very new energy and sounds that I think works very well for the then and now. And one thing I wanted to add to what Adam was saying was that the congregational singing with the grand chorus that you hear a total of three times in the piece allows the audience to join in musically, but also because they're engaged in the music making, then their attention is. Is heightened during the rest of the piece. It's almost like because they're experiencing the music in different ways, then all of a sudden they're, you know, they're done with the chorus and they're like, oh, what's, what's the next verse? And, and in some ways it brings the audience really brings the, the, the, the, the attention. This new, this new energy of who is Cecilia? This is not just this beautiful thing that we see. It's something that we experience this, this myth in that way. [00:24:46] Speaker A: I know that you mentioned being inspired by Benjamin britten's Ode to St. Cecilia and you referenced the poem by John Dryden and you mentioned the stanza that mentions Orpheus as something that kind of came alive in your imagination. But are there other aspects to St. Cecilia's kind of mystique, as it were, that makes her an appealing character for. [00:25:18] Speaker D: Either of you in the Dryden poem? Anyway, I feel like St. Cecilia is painted as this. So in that seventh stanza, after all seven stanzas you're going through, it talks about universal harmony. And then that references Jubal, this very obscure figure from Genesis, who supposedly invented music by stringing up a turtle shell or something. The trumpet's loud clangor with warfare, the soft complaining. It goes through the violins and then the organ and the voice and finally Orpheus, it mentions Orpheus. Could, could do all this stuff, could make music so beautiful and so compelling. And it finishes but bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher when to her organ vocal breath was given. An angel heard and straight appeared, mistaking earth for heaven. So this idea that Cecilia is sort of like the ultimate holy music, you know, I'm not Christian, but I can still tune into the sense of like when, when music is like, truly transporting and truly just otherworldly. That Cecilia is sort of can be everyone's unique window into that. Into that space. And, yeah, I don't. I don't. It doesn't have to be Cecilia, but is for me. I don't know why. Maybe. I think it's the. [00:26:39] Speaker A: I think it is for a lot of people and a lot of people through history. I think one of the things that's interesting is, like, you know, yeah, Cecilia is. Is a saint. She is a part of, you know, the kind of Catholic echelon, as it were. But. But actually, when you read about her and these words that are used to describe her, you realize that she's inhabiting this, like, very nebulous state. But, you know, that evokes the music of the spheres and science and mysticism and all these different things that are not necessarily exclusive to God or Deism. Thank you so much, both of you for talking with me and for sharing your music and, of course, this beautiful performance with our audience in Solan era. And I'm excited to experience Adam Simon's St. Cecilia. Thanks so much. [00:27:35] Speaker D: Thank you. [00:27:51] Speaker B: And the trumpet on high the what passion cannot music raise and quell? When Jubal struck the corn in a. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Shell. [00:28:57] Speaker B: His listening reverend stood around and wondering on their faces fell to worship them Sinless new sound less than a God they thought there could not dwell within the hollow of that shell that spoke so sweet what passion cannot music raise and crown? The trumpets loud clangor the trumpets loud clangor the trumpets loud clangor Excites us as t excites us to arms with shrill notes of anger and mortal Our trumpets loud clang the trumpets loud clang the trumpet's loud clangor Excites us excites us, excites us to arms which will not on anger and when you told our the l the double, double, double beat of the thundering drum cries short. [00:31:49] Speaker A: It'S too late to retreat. [00:31:55] Speaker B: The double, double, double beat all the thundering drum cries too late to retreat. [00:32:32] Speaker E: It. [00:33:23] Speaker B: Soft complaining flute the soul complaining flute who's doing which is whispered by the morning lute Their jealous pangs and desperation Fiorifrentic indignation Death are the pains and hold passion for the fair disdainful day O your God. Lo that with heaven to mend the choirs above notes that Orpheus could lead the savage race and trees unrooted had left their place the wonder the h when to the vocal breath was given an angel hood and straight up for heaven Sa Ra. [00:40:14] Speaker A: We just heard adam Jacob Simon's St. Cecilia in a live performance recorded March 15, 2025 in Somerville, Massachusetts. Next we'll hear from Nicholas Pan and Viet Quang, who discussed Viet's new cantata, a Moments of Libyan inspired by an ancient Confucian myth. For me, this has been an amazing week and a very momentous occasion. What we are seeking to do with the Mythology project is expand the repertoire and bring the cantata into the 21st century in a variety of different ways. I'm pleased to introduce Nicholas Pan, tenor, and also Viet Quang, our composer. Nick, I wanted to ask you first of all how this collaboration came about and how you came to select the myth that we're going to present for everyone today. [00:41:09] Speaker E: Well, this collaboration came about because you were very kind to invite me to join you, so thank you, Deborah. And you know, we've been collaborating on Bach actually a lot over the last few years. And so when you had this project, you described it to me and I was really excited. What a wonderful opportunity to branch out into mythology of other cultures. And incidentally, I'm half Greek and half Chinese and. And when I get to do some of these cantatas, it's not uncommon that I'm dealing with Greek mythology and the tales that I heard in my childhood of Greek mythology in that part of my culture. But never, ever have I had the opportunity to delve into the Chinese half of my heritage. When we were talking about this, I actually happened to be spending a lot of time at home in my childhood bedroom because my parents health was declining. And so I had all of my childhood mythology books right there at the ready. And I found this very tattered book of Chinese myths that I used to read when I was a kid and a teenager. And I started thumbing through it and I came across this wonderful myth, the loss of memory. And I suggested it for a whole slew of very boring reasons. It's short, it has a very finite number of characters. It's a story we could tell in detail in 12 to 15 minutes. So there was a lot of practical reasons to choose this story, but also, and I think maybe this is also partly because of what I was going through my own life and dealing with parents with declining and failing health and suddenly being a child who now has to. To parent my parents in a way, I thought, oh, wow, there's something here for a lot of people to resonate with and relate to. When we have these opportunities to kind of expand into other cultures and uplift other cultures, it can be very, in a way, isolating. And one of the Things that I really wanted to achieve with this, when we were talking about it, was finding something that not only uplifted this other non European culture, but also had something in it that really got to the core of the human experience across the board. And so it's a really special thing to be thinking about these people hundreds and hundreds of years ago on the other side of the planet, contemplating something that all of us contemplate now in our plan. Present DAY Hwat Du in the State of Song, suffered a loss of memory in his middle years. Whatever he took in the morning was forgotten by evening. Whatever he gave in the evening was forgotten by morning. On the road, he would forget to move ahead Indoors, he would forget to sit down. Here and now he is forgotten. Then later he will not remember here and now. His whole household was plunged into confusion by his ailment. Finally, he sought the help of an astrologer, but divination provided no answer. He sought the help of a medium, but prayer could not control the problem. He visited a physician, but the treatment brought no relief. In the State of Lu, there was a Confucian scholar who claimed he could cure the disease, and Hwatzu's wife paid him half their estate to do it. No sign or omen said the Confucian can solve this. No prayer can preserve him. No medicine will work. I must try to transform his mind and alter his thinking. Then there may be hope. The scholar stripped Hsu, and the naked man demanded clothes. The scholar starved Hoatsu and he demanded food. He locked Hsu in a dark room and he demanded light. The delighted Confucian said to Hwatzu's son, this illness can be cured, but my remedy is a secret. I must ask you to dismiss all your father's attendants so he can live alone with me for seven days. The son agreed. No one knows what methods the scholar used, but Hwazu's ailment of many years cleared up. When Huazu realized he was cured, he went into a tremendous rage. He chastised his wife, punished his son, and drove off the confusion with weapons. People seized Huazu and asked him why he did this. He said, in my forgetfulness, I was a free man, unaware if heaven and earth existed or not. But now I remember all that has passed, all that remains or has perished, all that was gained or lost, all that brought sorrow or joy, all that was loved or hated, the 10,000 vexations of my decades of life. And I fear that these same things will disturb my mind no less in times to come. Where shall I Find another moment's oblivion. [00:46:16] Speaker A: So we have heard the story, we've heard a little bit about what interested Nick in it. And yet I'd love to turn to you and talk about this honestly, amazing and extraordinarily moving composition that has resulted. How were you thinking about responding to or expanding on or ignoring the cantata genre in creating it? [00:46:42] Speaker F: You know, I've written a lot of like kind of one off songs for voice, but not ever a larger form like a cantata. The cantata seems like a nice in between because it's a lot more succinct, obviously. And only having to write for one singer and having one singer inhabit many characters was really fun. [00:47:06] Speaker A: What would you like our audience to be looking, listening for or noticing in the work? [00:47:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:13] Speaker F: So the piece is in five movements and it's a sort of symmetrical piece. The outer movements are the scholar kind of telling the story of what's happening. The middle movement is also the scholar, sort of this jig almost healing the father. And then there's the second movement is the son movement where the son is pleading to the scholar, please bring back the father. We recall. And then the fourth movement, after the father is healed, he is, like Nick said, is not happy with the situation and is pleading to let him forget. Throughout the piece, you'll hear the music kind of set into motion. And then as we get into the fourth movement, you start to hear music from the first two movements. Almost like the piece is remembering itself. And it's almost like a scrapbook of memories. And so when I say it's symmetrical, it really does have this arc to it. [00:48:21] Speaker A: There's so many things that I love about this piece, but I do feel that in a very natural and unselfconscious way, it responds to what I think of as baroque idioms. The symmetry is an important one. There are also a few other things that I love. The music is full of echoes. I know you describe that as delay pedals. Delay pedals. And for me it's like the message and the music sort of reverberating, you know, through time and through space, which is extra powerful. There are all kinds of opportunities for me to echo Nick's voice or where the violin and viola da gamba are echoing the primary melodic line. All of these things are of a piece and it is both of this moment and totally a contemporary work of music. Thank you guys so much for all that. It's going together. [00:50:09] Speaker B: Us. Remember how this fall began. Your father, whom you know to be a man of so renown and steady soul, attempt has lost himself, unable to. [00:50:42] Speaker E: Remember. [00:51:28] Speaker B: Here and now he has forgotten. Tomorrow he will not remember when, and no astrologer, nor priest, nor see us, returns him to himself. This mystery confounds you all. So you have come to me, and yet I call your father fortunate for and it is wretched to forget. Sa is this succulent I was free my cares for God. I did not care for heaven or earth, not scandal nor forfeit, not anything but breath to breathe. You drag me back to one and what 10,000 troubles might find you are, you are no wife, you are no son, there's no life, you are no healer, you are no wife, you are no son. This is a life you call forgetting, Richard, but to remember he's famous to me. Let me, let me forget, let me, let me that. [00:56:58] Speaker A: Now available from Les Delices as a Virtual Concert A Moment's Oblivion is a thought provoking and deeply moving concert experience that offers the opportunity to contemplate universal themes of community, love and healing. At the heart of the program is a new cantata by composer Viet Quang and librettist Dave Lucas. Framing this world premiere are French bro cantatas by Michel Pinole de Montauclair that posit forgetting as a balm, as well as Marin Marais's famous labyrinth for Viola da Gamba and Francois Couperin's Trio sonata La Visionnaire. Featured artists include Grammy winning tenor Nicholas Pan, myself oboist Deborah Nagy, violinist Shelby Yamin Bjolre, Gamma player Rebecca Landell and harpsichordist mark Edwards. A Moment's Oblivion is available on demand on Vimeo from March 28 through April 13. See ldmusic.org for more information and to purchase access. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Salon Era. This episode was created by ME Executive Producer Deborah Nagy, Associate Producer Shelby Yaman and Hannah Depriest, our script writer and Special Projects manager. Our guests were Sophie Michaud, Adam Simon, Nick Pan and Viet Quang. Support for Solanira is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Ohio Arts Council and audience members like you. Special thanks to Solaniera's seasoned sponsors Deborah Malamud, Tom and Marilyn McLaughlin, and Greg Nosen and Brandon Rood. This episode featured musical performances captured in concert by Les Delys with tenor Nicholas Pan and with Sophie Michaud. A full film of of the performance with Nicholas A Moment's Oblivion is available to watch On Demand on Vimeo from March 28 through April 13, 2025. See ldmusic.org for more information and to purchase access A one hour filmed version of this episode is available on salonera.org through June 30, 2025, where you can also get full performance details and learn more about the music and information shared in this and any episode. Please subscribe and leave a review it really helps the show. [00:59:59] Speaker E: It.