Paul Marbach

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Vois-tu, là-haut, ces alpages des anges
entre les sombres sapins ?
Presque célestes, à la lumière étrange,
ils semblent plus que loin.

Mais dans la claire vallée et jusques aux crêtes,
quel trésor aérien !
Tout ce qui flotte dans l'air et qui s'y reflète
entrera dans ton vin.

from Les Quatrains Valaisans
Rainer Maria Rilke

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Written for All Saints' Episcopal Church choir for Christmas Eve, 2011, this setting of Adam Lay Ybounden is rowdy and rambunctious, with an extended, almost jazz-like a cappella section in the middle. Punctuated rhythm and mostly homophonic textures make this anthem a lively part of a reverent service.

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Adam lay ybounden,
Bounden in a bond;
Four thousand winter,
Thought he not too long.

And all was for an apple,
An apple that he took.
As clerkes finden,
Written in their book.

Ne had the apple taken been,
The apple taken been,
Ne had never our ladie,
Abeen heav'ne queen.

Blessed be the time
That apple taken was,
Therefore we moun singen.
Deo gracias!

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Requiem: an embrace is an 11 movement a cappella requiem dedicated to the memory of LGBT youth who commit suicide at the hand of bullying. Written in response to the death of Tyler Clementi and the It Gets Better Project, the piece seeks to both eulogize the victims of bullying and to provide hope through the usage of texts by Rumi, Harvey Milk, and even from an It Gets Better video by Rev. Meg Riley.

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1. Introit
2. Kyrie
3. Every Day
4. Psalm 23 / It Gets Better
5. Pie Jesu Domine / A Seed Named Human
6. Harvey Milk
7. Sanctus
8. Benedictus
9. Agnus Dei
10. Lux Aeterna
11. In Paradisum / Orange and Pink

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In der tiefen Höhe finde ich dich schon. Dort wo das Glatte sticht Dort wo das Scharfe nicht schneidet. Du hältst den Ring in der linken Hand. Ich halte den Ring in der rechten Hand. Keiner sieht die Kette. Aber diese Ringe sind die letzten Glieder der Kette.

Der Anfang.
Das Ende.

"Später", from Klänge
Wasily Kandinsky

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Written for All Saints' Episcopal Church choir for the occasion of Advent, the piece is a setting of the classic Picardy hymn tune. Well-suited for church performance, this piece employs two soprano soloists, with one offstage.

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Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood;
he will give to all the faithful
his own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth
from the realms of endless day,
that the powers of hell may vanish
as the darkness clears away.

At his feet the six-winged seraph,
cherubim, with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

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Dorian Gray’s dark dual life and his constant search for “a world in which the past would have little or no place” is what makes The Picture of Dorian Gray so simultaneously full of allure and terror. This particular passage, with its florid, poetic language, jumped out at me as I recently read the work for the first time. The Pierrot ensemble, with its ability to create sharp piercing tones one moment and dark, luscious ones the next, was the perfect chamber ensemble for this work. The Sopranos dialogue together, sparring and harmonizing much like the spheres in which Dorian lives. A major Chopin quotation late in the piece (Nocturne No. 2, Op. 9 ) is altogether programmatic – Dorian, a piano player himself, is described in one pivotal chapter as playing Chopin, so it seemed fitting to accompany his “wild longing” with the lush Nocturne, but to also distort and twist it, hinting at his dark secret.

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from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

“There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself... Gradually white fingers creep through the curtains, and they appear to tremble. In black fantastic shapes, dumb shadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there. Outside, there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from her purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. The wan mirrors get back their mimic life. The flameless tapers stand where we had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often. Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known. We have to resume it where we had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain.

It was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray to be the true object... of life.”

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Commissioned by CaitlinMarie Anderson-Patterson (soprano), this five-song cycle sets the French poetry of Rilke and creates new arrangements for English folk songs. Each song opens a window into the romantic notions we humans place on the natural world, for both better and for worse.

Writing of the apple tree, Henry David Thoreau says: "It is as harmless as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, and as valuable as flocks and herds. It has been longer cultivated than any other, and so it is more humanized..." The frequent appearance of the apple tree and the orchard in folk song, poetry, and other avenues of human communication all beg the question: why this fruit? What is it about the apple, the sturdy rows of apple trees in an orchard, which has drawn generations of great minds to reflect and muse?

The Rilke poems are selected from Verger ("orchard"), a set of poems renowned for their understated elegance and which approach largely naturalistic themes. The concept of memories, love, and joy in Rilke are set against an alternate form of simplicity, strophic folk songs, in the intermittent movements. The flute acts as commentary - the voice of passion, whispering through the leaves, guiding the singer along a walk through a familiar place.

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I. Les anges qui se souviennent

1. from Vergers by Rainer Maria Rilke

Ce soir mon cœur fait chanter
des anges qui se souviennent...
Une voix, presque mienne,
par trop de silence tentée,

monte et se decide
à ne plus revenir;
tendre et intrépide,
à quoi va-t-elle s’unir?

II. I will give my love an apple

traditional English folk song

I will give my love an apple without e’er a core
I will give my love a house without e’er a door
I will give my love a palace wherein she may be
and she may unlock it without any key.

My head is the apple without e’er a core,
my mind is the house without e’er a door,
my heart is the palace wherein she may be
and she may unlock it without any key.

III. Heureux verger

29.vii. from Verger by Rainer Maria Rilke

Heureux verger, tout tendu à parfaire
de tous ses fruits les innombrables plans,
et qui sait bien son instinct sèculaire
plier à la jeunesse d’un instant.

Quel beau travail, quel ordre que le tien!
Qui tant insiste dans les branches torses,
mais qui enfin, enchanté de leur force,
déborde dans un calme aérien.

Tes dangers et les miens, ne sont-ils point
tout fraternels, ô verger, ô mon frère?
Un même vent, nous venant de loin,
nous force d’être tendres et austères.

IV. The Black Oak Tree

lyrics and melody by John Jacob Niles

Make me a bed in a shady little dell
Where the wild birds cry and the flowers smell,
Oh make me a bed where I quiet be,
'Neath the ash and the elm and the black oak Tree.

If you should die 'twould be for love,
And all the bluest skies above,
And all the stars and the moon and the sun
Would know my heart had been undone.

You took my heart, and you took my hand,
And you left me here, love, where I stand,
So I'll shed my tears in misery
'Neath the ash and the elm and the black oak tree.

Oh dig me a grave in a shady little dell
Where the wild birds cry and the flowers smell,
Oh, dig me a grave where I can quiet be,
'Neath the ash and the elm and the black oak tree.

Recitative: Un beau bas-relief de nuages

21. from Les Quatrains Valaisans by Rainer Maria Rilke

Aprés une journée de vent,
dans une paix infinie,
le soir de réconcilie
comme un docile amant.

Tout devient calme, clarté....
Mais l’horizon s’étage,
éclairé et doré,
un beau bas-relief de nuages.

V. La Pomme

5. from Verger by Rainer Maria Rilke

Tout se passe à peu près comme
si l’on reprochait à la pomme
d’être bonne à manger.
Mais il reste d’autres dangers:

celui de la laisser sur l’arbre,
celui de la sculpter en marbre,
et le dernier, le pire:
de lui en vouloir d’être en cire.

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program notes

Each movement of this suite responds to a particular event in my life over the course of the summer in 2010. Between the pulsing, rhythmic notions of "Lambda" (which uses the inherent rhythm of the Greek alphabet as its skeleton) and the twisted scorn of young love gone awry in "Laura Lee," the piece provides four very different sounds from the wind quintet.

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1. Pentecost (May 31)
2. Romp (June 17)
3. Laura Lee (July 3)
4. Pentecost (August 11)

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The Four Fountains is a programatic piece based on the four large fountains that pepper the University of Texas at Austin. Each with its own distinct character and attitude, the piece portrays the dialoguing Winship and LBJ Fountains, the frequently empty Union Fountain, and the majestic Littlefield Fountain. The famous UT Tower makes an appearance as well, chiming the Carillon on a quiet evening, while the fountains burble to life and then crawl back into the night.

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And Then Came Tango, a hybrid play/ballet for young audiences written by Emily Freeman, is the touching true story of Roy and Silo, two male penguins that fell in love, incubated an egg, and successfully raised a baby fledgling, Tango. Poetry, dance, and music unite to tell this children’s story, celebrating modern families of all shapes and sizes.

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The music for And Then Came Tango was awarded with the 2011 Roy Crane Award in the Performing Arts. The 2011 UT New Works Festival premiere of the work was named honorable mention in the "Top 10 Theatrical Wonders of 2011" by The Austin Chronicle.Tango will also be staged as the Fall 2012 touring production for the University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance.

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Marvelous Things is a play by Lindsey Greer Sikes, premiered at the Blue Theatre in Austin, Texas in October 2011. Inspired by native-Texas indie-rock band Eisley’s “Room Noises”, Marvelous Things is a theatrical event which aims to challenge the traditional form of the play as well as the role of the audience, who are not only spectators but participants in the creation of a false reality—or as we more commonly call it, the theater.

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In this dance work, a subsequent incarnation of The Blanton Museum of Art DESIRE exhibit brings real bodies off the canvas into real time, using the interviews, the artwork, a composer, dancers and a choreographer, to further tell – and locate -- the stories.

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