Beast Songs
Song Cycle for Soprano, Ensemble, and Computer-Synthesized Singing Voices
Lyrics by Michael McClure
COMMISSIONED: Ensemble Kaleidocollage, Paris and Brooklyn Philharmonic
PREMIERE: Gerda Hartmann, Ensemble Kaleidocollage, November 1979, American Center Paris; Susan Belling, Brooklyn Philharmonic, February 1980, Brooklyn Academy of Music
DURATION: fourteen minutes
PUBLISHER: All Conrad Cummings works are self-published; contact him here
INSTRUMENTATION: soprano, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, cello, and computer synthesized singing voices
Excerpt from the premiere recording with Susan Belling and the Brooklyn Philharmonic:
“Beast Songs” happened because the pianist Ursula Knies said, “No, Conrad, I will not do an old piece of yours, I want a new one, and besides, where’s the piano in ‘Skin Songs?’” We were in Paris, and I was creating human singing voices out of computerized whole cloth at IRCAM, Boulez’s music research institute at the Pompidou Center. The computer voices could do vowels but not consonants. It didn’t seem fair for them to sing in duet with a real singer unless the real singer sang something that wasn’t always quite words. Joan Abrahamson and I went to the poetry section in the basement of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, and each time she picked up a book, I said, “Too many words.” Until Michael McClure’s “Ghost Tantras” with their growls and roars. Michael said it was OK for me to set them provided I didn’t smile so much when I was in his company. Ursula, along with Gerda Hartman, soprano and the Ensemble Kaleidocollage premiered the piece at the American Center, Paris. It had quite a life after that, and was the first of my pieces that got serious attention in the US. It also was composed in the derelict Mercedes with the top open, parked in various locations in San Francisco. And an impossible passage in the last song, in the Luxemburg Gardens in full breath-taking fall colors.
—Conrad Cummings
BEAST SONGS
lyrics drawn from “Ghost Tantras” by Michael McClure
1
GOOOOOOR! GOOOOOOOOOO!
GOOOOOOOOOR!
GRAHHH! GRAHH! GRAHH!
Grah gooooor! Ghahh! Graaarr! Greeeeer! Grayowhr!
Greeeeee
GRAHHRR! RAHHR! GRAGHHRR! RAHR!
RAHR! RAHHR! GRAHHHR! GAHHR! HRAHR!
BE NOT SUGAR BUT BE LOVE
looking for sugar!
GAHHHHHHHH!
ROWRR!
GROOOOOOOOOOH!
54
The motion of cool air shudders my shoulders with pleasure.
The smoke from nostrils makes flame-shaped wings.
The air is soft.
AYE.
The air is soft and smooth.
Aye! Aye!
ROOHGRAHOOOOOOOOOOR-
DEEEEEP-AYE-GRAH
rahagraooor. Grahh. Garr grahoor hrahhrr
miketoobrometh-por-eshkry. Rahoooor gahhr. Narl
opal, narh sorottbreth. Drooon-dep karnoh pohr ell
and deeper deeper to the feeling being
to the risen-acting dream cave
walking & talking.
HERE, AYE, HERE.
AYE. AYE.
Up-deep. Aye! Thou I thou thoooh.
51
I LOVE TO THINK OF THE RED PURPLE ROSE
IN THE DARKNESS COOLED BY THE NIGHT.
We are served by machines making satins
of sounds.
Each blot of sound is a bud or a stahr.
Body eats bouquets of the ear’s vista.
Gahhhrrr boody eers noze eyes deem thou.
NOH. NAH-OHH
hrooor. VOOOR-NAH! GAHROOOOO ME.
Han drooooohb seerch. NAH THEE!
The machines are too dull when we
are lion-poems that move & breathe.
WHAN WE GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOR
hann dree myketoth sharoo sreee thah noh deeeeeemed ez.
Whan eeeethoooze hrohh.
99
IN TRANQUILITY THY GRAHRR AYOHH
ROOHOOERING
GRAHAYAOR GAHARRR GRAHHR GAHHR
THEOWSH NARR GAHROOOOOOOOH GAHRR
GRAH GAHRRR! GRAYHEEOARR GRAHRGM
THAHRR NEEOWSH DYE YEOR GAHRR
grah grooom gahhr nowrt thowtooom obleeomosh.
AHH THEEEAHH! GAHR GRAH NAYEEROOOO
GAHROOOOOM GRHH GARAHHRR OH THY
NOOOSHEORRTOMESH GREEEEGRAHARRR
OH THOU HERE, HERE, HERE IN MY FLESH
RAISING THE CURTAIN
HAIEAYORR-REEEEHORRR
in tranquility.
LOVE
thy
!oh my oohblesh!
The premiere recording of “Beast Songs, “ complete, with Susan Belling and the Brooklyn Philharmonic:
For a perusal copy of the score, contact Conrad
THE NEW YORK TIMES – EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
“The two most successful works, strangely enough, used the computer to produce inarticulate animal music. The American premiere of Conrad Cummings’s “Beast Songs” pitting Susan Belling’s precise coloratura against computer generated voices, singing Michael McClure’s text. Three lines, taken at random, are:
“IN TRANQUILITY THY GRAHRR
AYOHH
ROOHOOERING
GRAHAYAOR GAHARRR GERAHHR
GAHHR”
Mr. Cummings’s talent came through despite the insistent cries, leaving a certain uneasiness.”
MUSICAL AMERICA – PATRICK J. SMITH
“The most memorable music was Conrad Cummings’s Beast Songs (American premiere). Cummings, a young American who worked at IRCAM in Paris, has combined a soprano voice (Susan Belling, unamplified) with a chamber ensemble and a computer synthesized sound of two other “human” voices, to text in English and “beast tongue” of Michael McClure. Aside from the compositional expertise, well delineated in the four pieces, and the interest in the interplay of real and manufactured voices, the work opened up some hitherto unexplored areas of music.”
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE – ROBERT CROAN
“No less impressive was “Beast Songs,” by Oberlin-based Conrad Cummings: four connected settings of Michael McClure’s evocative poetry in a language that combines English with growls.
In these songs the solo soprano (Pittsburgher Lynne Webber, spectacular as always) is accompanied by five instruments plus a complement of computer-generated voices. Her pure vocalism suggested animal sounds while retaining a human, musical quality and naturalness of expression.”
