The Chrysalis Duo (Lindsey Goodman, flute; Robert Frankenberry, piano) is joined by vocalist / composer Gilda Lyons in a performance of Dear Youth, musical settings of "excerpts of letters by American women of the era who were directly or tangentially involved. (Significantly, Hagen composed the piece at the Virginia Center for the Arts, a short distance from some of the largest battles of the Civil War.)
“These are often heartbreaking texts and Hagen is a composer who has a superb ear for catching the inflections of speech and supporting them sensitively with music. This was a real piece of chamber music — the flute writing was impressive — not merely songs with accompaniment. Yet, as any true song cycle must be, it was dominated by the singer with bursts of moving melody and [sic] it involved the listener with the individual narrative voices of the songs.”
Commissioned and premiered by the Baltimore ensemble Sonus in 1991, Dear Youth is, "In some ways ... an idealized family parlor piece of the time -- Cousin Ann joins in on the flute -- simple and polite. But the expert musical treatments of the texts give them a layered richness they could never have had originally, and the result is a work of generous humanity, comforting and wise," per the liner notes by Russell Platt for the premiere recording of the work on the Arsis label by Susan Crowder, Bradley Moore, and flautist Sara Stern.
For more information about Lindsey Goodman, click here.
For more information about Robert Frankenberry, click here.
For more inofrmation about Gilda Lyons, click here.
For more information about Dear Youth, click here.
For more information about the Phoenix Concerts, click here.
Flautist Lindsey Goodman
Pianist / Tenor / Conductor Robert Frankenberry
Composer / vocalist Gilda Lyons.
Hagen's notations on the original source text for The Lord Knows and O, For Such a Dream