Judith Shatin

Soprano and Piano

Composer's Note:

Patterns, a monodrama for soprano and piano, is a setting of the poem of that name by Bostonian Amy Lowell (1874–1925). Lowell broke many of the patterns imposed upon her by society. Although she was not allowed to attend college, she lived her life on her own terms and became a highly regarded poet and author. I have been drawn to her poetry for a long time, and Patterns seemed especially apt when opera singer Amy Johnson and I discussed texts. The societal patterns the narrator rails against range from the garments that imprison her body to the "… pattern called a war…" that catches her fiancé in its maw. She plays wondrously with patterns in the poem, at times with dazzling internal rhymes ("… daffodils/bright blue squills"). But she also breaks patterns. She shifts line lengths and inserts unexpected repetitions and line breaks. With all this local brilliance she creates a powerful arc that I reflect in my setting. Patterns begins with the actor walking in her blossoming garden, where she complains of being corseted in stiff brocade. She goes on to describe her soft body beneath as she dreams of a meeting with her lover. Alas, it is not to be, and she explodes with anguish over his death and cries out against the pattern that is war. In this arc, Lowell nonetheless celebrates the cycles of nature, from flowers in full bloom, to the asters of fall, to snow. Patterns was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, Amy Johnson.