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Antes, Smith, Gershwin and Beach: Stephanie Blythe (mezzo-soprano), Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, presented by San Francisco Performances, Herbst Hall, San Francisco. 23.4.2009 (HS)

John Antes: Trio in D Minor for Two Violins and Cello
Alan Louis Smith: Vignettes: Covered Wagon Woman
Gershwin: Lullaby for String Quartet
Amy Beach: Piano Quintet in F-Sharp Minor


In an otherwise earnest program of charming, but not particularly consequential, American music, Stephanie Blythe stood tall in presenting the local premiere of a highly effective and moving song cycle by the collaborative pianist and sometime composer Alan Louis Smith. Written in 2006, Vignettes: Covered Wagon Woman breaks no new ground, but the simplicity and directness of his musical language perfectly matches the source, the diary of a woman who made her way west with her husband and couple of friends in a covered wagon. With her statuesque presence, powerful and richly textured voice and searching presentation of the text, Blythe put a rapt audience on that wagon, facing daunting rivers, wary Native Americans, a buffalo hunt and a particularly harrowing mountain.

The individuals and families that tackled the perilous journey across a forbidding continent to settle the American West in the mid 19th century have long been fodder for American myth. Their stories lodge in our collective subconscious. The journal of Margaret Ann Alsop Frink, which the composer found in historical archives, brings these stories to life in vivid detail. Her journey from Indiana to Sacramento, Calif., also has special resonance for us in San Francisco, out here on the far edge of the west. California was a destination for many in 1850, the year of Frink’s five-month journey, and one year after the California Gold Rush.

The 35-minute cycle comprises 13 parts, two of which are purely instrumental. A piano trio accompanies the voice with harmonies and gestures Aaron Copland would have found familiar. Grounded in diatonic melodies and the sort of open chords Copland invented to represent the wide-open space of the America countryside (think Appalachian Spring or Billy The Kid), Smith manages to conjure the emotional content of the text with simple gestures. He has an opera composer’s knack for creating a mood, of painting a scene, with just a few notes. The sense of relief in “The Face of the Earth,” the journal entry after crossing the treacherous Missouri River, is palpable. He gets the combination of danger and exhilaration with galloping rhythms in “Buffalo Chase” and hangs a few limpid chords in the air to create the sense of fear and anticipation in “The Sioux Tribe and the ‘White Squaw’,” an encounter with Indians who prove to be friendly and fascinated with the presence of a woman in the traveling party.

The apex of the work, and a tour de force for Blythe, is “The Mountain,” the longest piece in the cycle. “We came to the foot of the mountain,” it begins. “It was very steep and high and looked impossible.” As the music describes the physical exertion, Blythe recounts the struggle to pull the wagon over obstacles, as humans, mules and horses strain to the limit.

Smith’s music reaches its most expressive points, however, when the text becomes most reflective. “Margaret’s Dream,” for example, follows “The Mountain,” which ends with our protagonist wrapping herself in a buffalo robe and falling asleep by the road. There is a blissful quality to the music, with an undertone of dread over what might be waiting in the next valley.

Pianist Warren Jones, a favorite accompanist of top-tier singers, joined violinist Ani Kavafian and cellist Priscilla Lee in giving clarity and shape to the music. But it was Blythe that took the piece to the heights with her stage-savvy approach. Rock steady in both physical stature and voice, rolling out powerful low notes to underline the steadfastness in Frink’s narrative, she invested every line of the diary with extra meaning. 

The rest of the program lacked similar substance. Trio in D Minor for Two Violins and Cello, by the 18th century American-born amateur composer John Antes, bounced along easily in a Haydn-esque vein but was instantly forgettable. George Gershwin’s student work, a gentle tango called Lullaby for String Quartet, made for a pleasant diversion before the menu’s main course, Amy Beach’s Quintet in F-Sharp Minor for Piano and Strings.

The piece, completed in 1908, remains firmly rooted in the 19th century. With its broad harmonies and muscular gestures, it calls to mind Brahms with a whiff of Wagner. It’s high-calorie music, effulgent and heart-on-sleeve dramatic, with big tunes moving in parallel octaves. Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinists Kavafian and Lily Francis, violist Paul Neubauer and cellist Lee gave it a vigorous ride.

But what remained in the air even after all that storm and fury were Smith’s gentle chords, Frink’s plainspoken words and Blythe’s extraordinary telling of their tale.

Harvey Steiman


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