The Songs of Robert Boury

THIS ARTICLE IS BEING WRITTEN AT THE END of a Tennessee August that held breathtaking, record breaking heat and drought. Venturing outdoors was not an option for this writer. Fortunately, it provided time in air-conditioned bliss to get acquainted with some new works by several gifted composers. It is impossible to mention every piece or composer that deserves attention in an article of this length. These were chosen for the diversity of their offerings and musical styles. university-based composer is a marvelous resource for new works. Both university faculty and students benefit greatly by having a composer in residence, one who is visible as a teacher of composition and other courses while creating pieces that can be performed on a regular basis. Boury is such an example. He is the Resident Composer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His principal composition teachers were David Diamond, Mario Davidovsky, Ross Lee Finney, and Leslie Bassett. Though he has written for several mediums, his primary output has been art songs that use the poems of twentieth century poets-in particular, Wallace Stevens and Mary Oliver. Boury's songs and cycles (and there are many) are beautifully written for the voice in a tonal compositional language. They are melody driven with accompaniments that add color and texture without overtaking the voice. Intermediate level voice students could sing many of his pieces. Some of his pieces could be sung by quite inexperienced singers, but there are works for the performing artist, as well. diversity of his oeuvre can be seen in the following examples. in the Forest (Mary Oliver) is a cycle of four songs for soprano and piano written in 1987. first song, May, is rich in natural images with a chromatic scale tone painting of bees in the accompaniment. second song, Sleeping in the Forest, is based on an incipit from a late Schubert sonata. Robert Schumann is a portrait of the composer as a young man who has just met a girl named Clara and before his encounter with manic depression. composer says that he tried to copy Schumann's style, but the source motif is from a Mendelssohn 'Song Without Words,' called 'The Fleecy Clouds.' In the final song, The Fawn, the poet tells of a mysterious, supernatural encounter with a fawn in the wood on a Sunday morning and asks the question, Oh, what is holiness? [Moderately difficult] Three Wishes (1999) is a short cycle for medium voice and piano. Boury uses three different poets here: The Swan (Mary Oliver); This (Andrea Hollander Budy); and To a Dejected Poet (Ambrose Bierce). These would be very useful as teaching pieces. Both the voice and piano parts offer interpretive challenges but are quite performable without extensive rehearsals. moods range from contemplation in the first song to dramatic fanfare in the third. [Moderately difficult] Boury excels at miniatures. Two cycles in particular would fit into this category. First, the minimalist song cycle, Carnations (1988), is a delicate work for mezzo soprano and piano and contains songs set to a poem in three parts by Wallace Stevens. Writing in 1942, as Western civilization was imploding, the poet stares at Clear water in a brilliant bowl, then comments, Say even that this complete simplicity still one would want more, one would need more/More than a world of white snowy scents. And finally, There would still remain the never-resting mind . poet's original title was The Poems of Our Climate. These beautifully executed songs are short moments of memorable, distinctive poetic understanding. [Moderately difficult] second group of miniatures is A Bowlful of Rhinos (1985) for mezzo soprano and piano. …