DESCRIPTION:
Excerpts from Tony Solitro's "War Wedding." Recorded and filmed at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Jarrett Ott, baritone
Susan Nowicki, piano

Jarrett's website: http://www.jarrettott.com
Tony's website: http://www.tonysolitro.com
Full audio available on SoundCloud: http://bit.ly/WarWeddingSC

Program Note:

The songs of War Wedding chronicle the sensuous wedding night of two young lovers set against the backdrop of a savage and vicious war. After they part at daybreak, the young soldier dies from his wounds, and his bride is left alone.

The cycle was commissioned by, and is lovingly dedicated to, Justin Vickers. During his doctoral dissertation research on Michael Tippett's The Heart's Assurance, Justin encountered the poetry of Alun Lewis, which he describes as "saturated in war, and rich with grief." When he introduced me to the text, I knew immediately that it would translate perfectly into a song cycle.

Alun Lewis (1915-1944) was one of the great British writers of the Second World War. Born in industrial South Wales he went to university and became a teacher before enlisting in the army despite pacifist misgivings about the war. Already published, becoming a soldier galvanized Lewis's writing and he published a story collection, The Last Inspection, and two poetry collections, Raiders' Dawn and Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets. The latter was published posthumously, following his death in a shooting accident on active service in Burma. By this time his critical and popular reputation were established and Lewis's writing has continued to fascinate for almost seventy years. War Wedding is presented here with the kind permission of Mr. Lewis' estate.

TEXTS (corresponding to excerpts):

1. The Marriage Bed

Beloved, lie with me.

My heavy boots stand sentinel
Against this hired bed-room under-neath the eaves,
Where Beauty slips the green leash of her Spring
And flowers blossom from a ring of leaves.

And in her white magnetic fields
My tense prismatic fingers move
In patterns of attraction and release;
The parallels tend unswervingly
Toward the pole of peace.

2. The Wedding Gift

Whorled periwinkle, breathless wave
Kissing the sighing pebble green,
Deep rock-pools trembling lucency
Through which the sunburnt Tyrian dives
For the pearl in its dark yolk,
Your sad and wistful smile is glad
To know the Tyrian sleeps at last
In the sea-anemone that sways
Beneath the surface of the tide
And feels its silken veins.

3. The Vigil

But all your gentle seed they took
And all your manly symmetry,
The soft ways of your speech
And all your laughter.

All life was active in your gesture.
But I refused you, threw you farther
Than heart's reach, nerves' tether....
Oh! Had I only slid my nails
Into your gaping cicatrice
And sucked you with my lips' leech-kisses
And been your pagan lover...