Chester Biscardi: Selected Songs

This collection is a selection of individual songs as well as excerpts from three song cycles. It is as much a songbook for singers as it is a testament to my collaborations with innovative writers and exceptional performers. The Gift of Life (1990-1993), written for soprano Judith Bettina and pianist James Goldsworthy, is based on texts by Emily Dickinson, Denise Levertov and Thornton Wilder. These songs speak about birth, life, memory, loss, death, and, finally, love. I don’t think I would have been able to write that cycle if I had not worked with the libretto— and the characters that emerged from it—of Tight-Rope (1985), my chamber opera written with Henry Butler about a poet’s search for identity and the risk involved not only in the search but in being true to the discovery. In other songs I set to music the words of Allen Ginsberg, Sheldon Harnick, Muriel Rukeyser and Carl Sandburg. From 1997-2002 I collaborated with William Zinsser on Modern Love Songs, a cycle that reflected our shared passion for the American Songbook. These songs sit somewhere between cabaret/standard tunes and the contemporary art song. And, finally, Sailors & Dreamers (2007-2010), written with Shirley Kaplan, pays tribute to the tides and the currents that carry us forward to the new and the unexpected.
 

In the May/June, 2008 issue of Journal of Singing, editor Richard Sjoerdsma described Chester Biscardi as “. . . a major American composer, a remarkably talented, imaginative, and mature voice of one whose oeuvre seem destined to enter the canon of important contemporary American song literature.” Although Biscardi enjoys an illustrious reputation and has been the recipient of some of our field’s most prestigious awards, including the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a commission from the Koussevitsky Music Foundation, his vocal works have not been disseminated and performed perhaps as much as they deserve. It is to be hoped that the recent publication of this anthology of sixteen songs will rectify this omission and make his excellent work more readily known and available to voice teachers and singers.

The anthology (also available as an e-book on Kindle) includes individual songs, an aria excerpted from his chamber opera Tightrope (1985), songs from the cycles Modern Love Songs, Sailors and Dreamers (2007–10), originally a piece for voice and chamber ensemble, and The Gift of Life (1990–1993), written for the talented husband and wife duo, soprano Judith Bettina and pianist James Goldsworthy. Mr. Biscardi’s poet choices for these include Emily Dickinson, Denise Levertov, Thornton Wilder, Allen Ginsberg, Sheldon Harnick, Muriel Rukeyser, and Carl Sandburg. Like his contemporary, composer Ricky Ian Gordon, Biscardi imbues many of his songs with a sense of lying “somewhere between cabaret/standard tunes and the contemporary art song” (chesterbiscardi.com). Many of these pieces have an incantatory feel, with chant-like delivery of phrases. The songs range in difficulty, with most melodic lines rangy and challenging, tessitura-wise, while giving the illusion of ease and tonal accessibility. Biscardi’s extraordinary gifts as a composer are informed by his training as a pianist, by his deep appreciation of iconic American voices like Aaron Copland and George Gershwin, and the importance of literature as a springboard for all his creative effort. The resulting effect is one of open, transparent, and effortless song built over a deep and structurally complex (harmonically and melodically) foundation.