Daron Hagen's Songs: the First Quarter Century

by Paul Sperry

Faculty, the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools

Reprinted with the kind permission of Carl Fischer LLC from the preface to the Daron Hagen Songbook.

Art Songs matter! The achievements of the composers who write songs for piano and voice are formidable. These musical miniatures often contain a composer's most intimate and personal expressions. Without them music lovers' lives would be much poorer.

Beginning in the 1880's and continuing to the present day, there has been a remarkable flowering of this form in the United States. Our Victorian-Era composers (MacDowell, Nevin, Beach, Chadwick, Foote, Paine, etc.), like their European brothers, Strauss and Brahms, gravitated towards mediocre poetry -- Chadwick's preference for Arlo Bates is my favorite pairing of good music with dreadful words. But even during thatperiod one finds occasional settings of Shakespeare, Shelley and Browning. By the 1930's American composers seem to focus on first-rate texts.

 Between World War II and the early 1960's, a real School of American Art Song flowered: Barber, Bernstein, Bowles, Dello Joio, Duke, Flanagan, Rorem and Talma, to name only a few, are the best known. One of the hallmarks of this school was the meticulous attention paid to the poetry. Rorem, for example, has written for over forty years of his respect for the poets he chooses, of his desire to make the poem clear through his music. Forty years later, Daron Hagen mainly sets texts from the new generation of American poets,yet he carries forward Rorem's passion for

excellence. Looking through this volume, a generous collection from Hagen's twenty-five years of song composing -- impressive for a man of forty-- we find no second-rate poetry. Hagen's taste is broad, ranging from the complexity of Paul Muldoon to the whimsical charm of Alice Wirth Gray.

His compositional range is equally broad. While Rorem's influence colors the early songs, Hagen's musical vocabulary has long been clearly his own. Like Rorem, he is totally secure in his craft, which frees him to address each poem individually. Despite the fact that this volume does not include the early cycles Merrill Songs, Dear Youth, Echo's Songs and Love Songs in which Hagen utilizes atonality (the Satyr and Look Down, Fair Moon) and folk music (O, for Such a Dream), it demonstrate Hagen's wide expressive reach. He ranges from the simplicity of the Lutheran Hymns he grew up singing (Holy Thursday, Why We Have Cats) and 1970's Folk Rock (Vera's Song) to 1930's Musical Comedy (Doll's Song) and 1910's Vaudeville (Fiction and the Reading Public) depending on how the poem affects him. He can respond with a gorgeous tune (The Second Law) or in recitative style (Going). As Hagen has matured, a streak of austerity in his work has deepened (Confession, Pledge, Coming) while he has maintained his sense of humor (Figments).

As a performer I enjoy the breadth of his stylistic choices - it is fun to toss off 15 second bagatelles like Blemish and Mink and then follow them with a heartfelt beauty like Bran. However, I would advise performers that the songs aren't as easy as they may look. There are usually harmonic or rhythmicsurprises, pitches that can be hard to find, or poems that are devilish to puzzle out. If you take your time learning them they will more than repay theeffort. Also, decide in every case whether to sing full voice or to be more parlando in whole or in part. For example, in The Green for Pamela Hagen switches back and forth from recitative to sung lines. Think about how much you want to alter your tone color and delivery between the two sections and whether that would apply in other songs like Gravity where he does something similar.

I think teachers will find this a valuable volume for college age students as well as professionals. Too often we avoid giving our students 20th century songs thinking they will be too hard for them. I like to differentiate between what is hard to sing and what is hard to learn. Some songs in this volume are both, but I think there are many pieces in this collection on which young singers may sharpen their musical teeth without stressing themselves vocally: e.g., The Second Law, Just Once, Love, Quiet, Quiet Heart, The End of Daylight Savings Time. Obviously, people will find different songs easier or harder, but Hagen can help us grow. It is clear to me that he is growing, that this collection is only a step along the way in the development of a major songwriter. I'm thrilled to have it on my shelf and am looking forward to what will come next.

(Paul Sperry's recordings of American music include four CDs of American song available on Albany Records, numerous songs and chamber works available on DG, CRI, Crystal, Musical Heritage,Summit and Nonesuch Records, and he is one of four singers to have recorded the complete songs of Charles Ives for Albany records. He is currently Chairman of the Board of the AmericanComposer's Orchestra and serves on the faculty of the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival and School. He is also the Director of Joy In Singing, anorganization devoted to helping young singers and American composers.)