Concertino for Flute, Harp, and String Quartet Volume / Technique and Evolution in Peter Lieberson's Three Songs and Rilke Songs.

Abstract

This document explores some of the technical and expressive techniques at work in two of Peter Lieberson’s song collections, with particular emphasis on vocal writing, harmonic design, and stylistic trajectory. Lieberson’s vocal music has met with widespread acclaim in recent years, but scholars have so far singled out only his first Piano Concerto (1983) for serious study. The Concerto is regarded as a landmark composition, an early coalescence of Lieberson’s musical tenets and his developing preoccupation with Buddhist philosophy. Stylistically, though, the modernist works of the 1980s and early 90s contrast with Lieberson’s more recent pieces, which display greater lyricism, allusive harmony, and lush textures, and which suggest a more intuitive approach.

One explanation for the shift in Lieberson’s stylistic sensibility is his collaboration with mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, his late wife. Lieberson has credited Hunt-Lieberson with the expanding role of melody in his music, and more generally, with the abandonment of systemization in favor of instinct. Nowhere are these developments more vivid than in the vocal works Lieberson composed for her: the Rilke Songs (2001), Neruda Songs (2005), and The World In Flower (2007). Furthermore, these works amount to something of a vocal Renaissance for Lieberson, who avoided vocal music almost entirely in his early career.

The first chapter of the present study reviews existing analytical scholarship, and contextualizes Lieberson’s sole early vocal work: the Three Songs (1981) for soprano. The first of the Three Songs, “Listen and Hear,” is the subject of the second chapter, and is used to characterize Lieberson’s early idiom, particularly with regard to his treatment of the voice. Chapter 3 is concerned with “Stiller Freund,” the fifth of the Rilke Songs, and through comparison identifies a number of parameters by which the later song diverges from the earlier. Once again, Lieberson’s vocal writing is a central topic. What emerges from this inquiry is a sense for the broader changes that have taken place in Lieberson’s music over the past few decades.