Louis Karchin

Soprano and Piano

Composer's Note:

Compositions on Canvas: Two Art Songs takes its title from a slightly larger group of three poems of Boston-based poet Steven Withrow's, upon which my music is based. His Compositions on Canvas: Three Art Songs was, in turn, directly inspired by paintings, and the two poems I chose to set had as their subjects John Singer Sargent's San Vigilio: A Boat with a Golden Sail and Marc Chagall's You and I and the Village. Withrow's poems overlay imaginative flights of fancy onto the subjects and characters of these art works, and the poems are truly "compositions on (or "about') canvases;" likewise, my music aspires to similar aim. The paintings themselves, of course, are the literal "compositions on canvas." The first song seeks to reflect a particular off-the-beaten-path harbor scene that intrigued Sargent on his travels in Italy; its tone is peaceful and ruminative in nature. The second song is, by contrast, animated, and set in a modified verse form, as Withrow brings Chagall's iconic shapes (giant noses, upside down figures and people embedded in animals) to life. The song cycle is about nine minutes in length.

10.24 revised