Lori Laitman, Yale
graduate, originally wrote for film
and theatre but for over a decade now
has concentrated on the voice. I’ve
reviewed
a couple of her songs in the context
of a Gasparo mixed recital of settings
of Emily Dickinson by American composers.
We cover some ground in this collection,
which starts with her first art song,
The Metropolitan Tower, a number
of settings of a favoured poet of Laitman’s,
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933). Elsewhere
she sets Christina Rossetti and Robert
Browning. There’s a single setting of
Hardy (The Ballad-Singer) and
a cycle of poems written by children
at Terezin, I Never Saw Another Butterfly.
Responsiveness to the
text might seem like a given but Laitman
demonstrates that hers is particularly
acute. Note the way she stresses the
words voice and hands climactically
(the voice ascending powerfully) in
her setting of the 1922 poem by Teasdale,
The Hours. She is able to bring
stylistic breadth as well as in the
syncopated bluesy vamp of To A Loose
Woman (in which a woman is ticked
off by another for riding the crest
of fashion…. And you have dared to call
it passion.") The cycle Mystery,
which gives the disc its title is also
to poems by Teasdale. One, Nightfall,
is Finzi-like in its lyrical identification
and nostalgia. It is noteworthy how
the treble flecked ending catches the
poem’s last line And stars come out
in the skies – there’s something
magical about it. Despite her sombre
settings Laitman by no means abjures
humour. She can spin ebullient tra-la-las
and Spanish rhythms as well as mining
thought-provoking concentration in a
song such as I Sit At My Desk. Her
Terezin cycle contrasts strongly with
Holocaust 1944 on her album Dreaming,
also on Albany. Written for soprano
and saxophone, which imparts a klezmer-like
spirit to the music, these are settings
by children, some anonymous, some not.
The fact that the children, so far as
is known, all died in Auschwitz is reason
enough for gravity but this cycle as
a whole is less unrelieved than I
Sit At My Desk. There are strong
folk elements and moments of what Primo
Levi would call reprieve. Nevertheless
what one remembers most from the cycle
are moments such as the repeated line
rotting in silence from the final
setting, The Old House. Days
and Nights comes as a contrast –
a cycle with a witty tango (Laitman
has a talent for juxtapositions) and
a real appreciation of Emily Dickinson’s
quirkiness. This must account for the
wildly uneven tone of this cycle; try
the wild shrieks in Wild Nights.
Performances are dedicated
but sometimes variable. Phyllis Bryn-Julson
is the strongest interpreter, consistently
engaging. Full texts, dedications and
details of premieres are given and Laitman
has written the notes. At her best –
and I don’t think she’s at her best
in Rossetti or Hardy – Laitman strikes
a vein of melancholy and quicksilver
that catches the spirit of these poems
in a way that is both involving and
provocative.
Jonathan Woolf
ALBANY TROY 393 [63.16] 