The program, with the Meredith Girls’ Chorale conducted by Fran Page as our guest ensemble, included works by Elinor Remick Warren, Barrie Cabena, Amy Beach, Alice Parker, and Salem, N.C. composer Margaret Vardell Sandresky.
As we prepared our program for “Music Hath Charms”, the music revealed to us that the “charms” in Congreve’s text are not the feminine power of pleasing, but have the earlier sense of disturbing magical powers. From the bardic atmosphere of Elinor Remick Warren’s “We are music makers”, to the ghostly hunting horns of the slain Trennar in the fourth of Brahms’s songs, to the witchly text in Alice Parker’s “Incantation”, our songs today demonstrate the power of music to evoke, to haunt, to inspire, to soothe. We invite you to hear the magic.
Performed on Sunday, May 31, 1998.
Program
Women’s Voices
We Are the Music Maker – Elinor Remick Warren (1900-1991)
Music Hath Charms, Op. 145 – Barrie Cabena (1993)
Elinor Wylie: Incantations – Alice Parker (b. 1925)
1. Incantation
2. Nameless Song
3. Fair Annet’s Song
4. Madman’s Song
Three Shakespeare Songs, Op. 39 – Amy Beacg (1867-1944)
1. Over Hill, Over Dale
2. Come Unto These Yellow Sands
3. Through the House Give Glimmering Light
Vier Gesänge (Four Songs), Op. 17 – Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
1. Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang (The Harp Resounds with Wild Refrain)
2. Lied von Shakespeare (Song from Twelfth Night)
3. Der Gärtner (The Gardener)
4. Gesang aus Fingal (Song from Fingal)
The Meredith College Girls’ Chorale
Sail Away – Malcom Daglish
An Evening Falls (Sung Under the Silver Umbrella) – Gordon Binkerd
Mary Had a Little Blues – Charles A. Collins
Old MacDoodle Had a Band – David J. Elliot
Feel Good – Barbara Baker/David Elliot
The Meredith College Girls’ Chorale and Women’s Voices
O Music – David L. Brunner
Letter – Margaert Vardell Sandresky (1972)