Fund Michael's Song Cycle Recording Project

Hello, My name is Michael Patterson and I am raising money to fund the post production expenses and to cover the costs of promotion and manufacturing of physical cd's my song cycle "Love's Long Long Season". I composed these songs, based on five ancient Japanese poems. I set them using the instrumentation of piano, harp and alto flute and mezzo-soprano. Theses songs have a long history and they represent some of my best work as a composer. What follows are some notes on the writing of Love's Long Long Season.

The song cycle, ‘Love’s Long Long Season”, was initially sketched for piano and voice. These songs are my personal expressions on the most accepted themes of “unreachable love, Autumn leaves, falling snow, plum and cherry blossoms, the moon in its phases and seasons, the rustle of leaves, sounds of cicadas, frogs, cuckoos, nightingales, themes of unreachable love, clandestine meetings with lovers, famous beauty spots, count ceremonies, the quiet of a monk’s hermitage, the death of rulers, patrons and mistresses, and the poem written by the poet’s on the eve of his own death-“ (Rexroth) Also, each poem has it’s own pattern of dance gestures. All of these elements provided a rich landscape of images to represent musically.

To add a personal story; When I was very young, a Sophomore at the College-Conservatory of Music, one of two books I purchased, independent of my college textbooks, was “A Selection of Poems bt e.e. Cummings. And the

second was an unusual book titled The Zen Koan. Both of these books were “keystones” and informed my poetic outlook and over the years. My interest in the

short forms of Japanese Haiku, Zen and the culture of Japan only increased.

Once I began composing music to these beautiful poems from the Japanese, I decided to take on the

challenge of setting them in the original language.

The translations from Kenneth Rexroth’s marvelous book, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, was

brilliant and usable , but I felt that the short phrases would be aesthetically more pleasing in their

native language. Setting that as my objective I began consulting with many singers I knew, who were

native Japanese at Mannes School of Music, where i was teaching, and with several instrumental

artists I was working with in NYC. They offered much insight, even researching and mentioning that some

of the phrases found in the poems were not even in use anymore. I also read the Introduction to the poems, so carefully researched by Rexroth , which provided an invaluable historical overview of the origins and practice of singing and speaking the poems. At this point I decided to try to make my own translation, influenced by Rexroth’s approach, and Arthur Waley’s, who I greatly admired, in an attempt to get at the essence of the poem. I would not settle for a word to word translation.

The key turning point in creating a performance and recording was to find the right singer who was classically trained, but not overly “operatic. Someone who could sing simply, and yet be expressive. Yuwan Zhang fit that part of my concept. She also added much to the translations since she lived in Japan and knew the language well. Finding the artist, pianist, Michael Chertock was a blessing, his musicality and ability to sense what was needed in phrasing and articulation was a great help. The marvelous interpretations by Jennifer King, whose tone I love, made her alto flute sound at times, almost like a bamboo flute, and the graceful and musical playing of harpist Rachel Miller made this the perfect trio to record these pieces.

A personal note of thanks to Kim Pensyl, whose perfect sound engineering laid a solid foundation for the mixing. Many thanks to Josh Cheng for patiently adjusting the mixes and shaping the final result. And a final personal note of thanks to all who supported this project with your finances and encouragement.

The piano, vocal version of the songs is available. This version, for piano, harp and alto flute and mezzo-soprano was completed and recorded in 2024. - Michael Patterson

Many Thanks