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Some Days

for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
texts by Joseph Kariuki, Bloke Modisane and James Baldwin
mezzo soprano and orchestra
Edition: Performance material

Product Details

Description

The song cycle Some Days combines the jazz-inflected sound of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s music with the no less distinctive utterance of three black African and American poets, Joseph Kariuki, Bloke Modisane and James Baldwin.

The tone of the work is lyrical and intimate, befitting four poems chosen for their theme of loneliness (the third movement, ‘Tango’, is purely instrumental). The orchestral sound, product of an unusual line up of clarinets and bassoons with harp and strings, seems tailored to capture the brooding emotion of the cycle, whether in ironic mode, as in the second song, or the straight transcription of mood as conveyed in the closing blues. Also adding to the elegiac tone are stylistic echoes of Miles Davis, a musician greatly respected by the composer.

By 1989, the year of the work’s composition, Turnage’s skill as a writer for the voice was already well recognised. In contrast, however, to earlier successes as Lament for a Hanging (1983) and his first opera Greek (1988), in which ritual, myth and drama formed the background for vocal expression, Some Days was his first acknowledged essay in song conceived purely as vehicle for personal confession, a role characteristic not only of late-Romantic music, but also of twentieth-century popular-culture.

Dedicated to the memory of Michael Vyner, Some Days was commissioned by the David Cohen Charitable Trust for the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, who gave the first performance with mezzo-soprano Cynthia Clarey and conductor Bernard Haitink at the BBC Proms on 21 July 1991.

Nicholas Williams

Orchestral Cast

0.0.2(2.bcl).bcl(Ebcl).3(2.3.cbsn)-hp-str(12.12.8.8.4)

Content

I Come Away, my Love
II Lonely
III Tango
IV Some Days
V Blues: Now I am Absolutely Alone, Forever

More Information

Title:
Some Days
for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
texts by Joseph Kariuki, Bloke Modisane and James Baldwin
Language:
English
Edition:
Performance material
Publisher/Label:
Schott Music
Year of composition:
1989
Duration:
15 ′
World Premiere:
July 21, 1991 · London (UK)
Royal Albert Hall
BBC Proms 1991
Cynthia Clarey, mezzo soprano · Conductor: Bernard Haitink · Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Commissioned work :
Commissioned by the David Cohen Charitable Trust for the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Series:

Technical Details

Product number:
LSL 4098-01

Performances

Set Ascending Direction
  • Some Days
    Conductor: Bernard Haitink
    Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
    January 12, 1997 | Chicago, IL (United States of America)
  • Some Days
    Conductor: Bernard Haitink
    Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
    January 11, 1997 | Chicago, IL (United States of America)
  • Some Days
    Conductor: Bernard Haitink
    Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
    January 10, 1997 | Chicago, IL (United States of America)
  • Some Days
    Conductor: Bernard Haitink
    Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
    January 9, 1997 | Chicago, IL (United States of America)
  • Some Days
    Conductor: Bernard Haitink
    Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra
    April 26, 1994 | Boston, MA (United States of America) , Symphony Hall
  • Set Ascending Direction

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