Canadian Music
SIX POEMS
From Letters to a Musical Friend
by William Aide
ANNIVERSARY
I married you and you have married me.
They promised that our house would fall apart.
This is the place where I was meant to be.
Incessant clangour, violent company
we planned to sidestep neatly from the start —
I married you and you have married me
through thick and thin. You wasted by degree
and pulled me with you down to deepest dark.
This is the place where I was meant to be.
Mineshaft fears infect the chemistry.
The cables snapped. We thought we were so smart —
I’d married you and you had married me.
It took sumless years to clamber free,
six children, indefatigable art
to reach the place where I was meant to be.
Our warring fathers’ sins have paid the fee;
defiance is elastic as the heart.
I married you and you have married me.
This is the place where we were meant to be.
Anniversary
APPLICATION, AS TO TYPE
I am a professional painist.
I have concretized the world over.
I play the complete Chaplin repertory and
love performing clamber music.
I am seazoned.
My rectals are slip-free.
My technique is second to neon.
I also do songs and intimations.
My frees are nominal.
Deferences on request.
Application as to Type
WHY I LIKE BRAHMS
Because he admired married sopranos
and was too scarred to misbehave.
Because his adoration of the Kaiser
escaped the notice of Hermann Goering.
Because his first piano concerto broke
a certain sound barrier in Timmins, Ontario.
Because his genius moved forward
by reconstructing the past.
Because he fell asleep while Liszt performed
the might B minor sonata (he didn’t).
Because his childish genitals were knackered while playing
piano in a seaside brothel (they weren’t).
Because he was a smooth looker when young
and a dumpy, trotting silhouette when old.
Because he went to a lunatic Robert Schumann
when Clara couldn’t or wouldn’t.
Because his frugal bourgeois life remained
gregarious and lonely.
Because he buried his beloved Clara
and saved her husband’s symphony while she lived.
Because he loved intelligent contraltos
and never wrote an opera.
Because as any donkey can see he follows
the giant behind him.
Because his fourth symphony
is worthy of King Lear.
Because he wanted to be
better than his music.
Because he never ceases to defy, exalt, console
our helpless mortality.
Why I like Brahms
HIS INTERMEZZI
Chiefly in order to make songs of them
we finger-touch these lieder without words
and hold the heartache in. No apothegm
can touch the hallowed grief this one records –
open the E flat minor’s Dies Irae
make it stand for lovers taking leave
of one another, aged arthritic Clara
from her faithful Brahms who must believe
she loves him by the way majestic hands
entreat the work’s mysterious heroics.
Each perceives their friendship never ends:
music comforts little these two stoics.
Stricken Johannes flicks a cold cigar
ponders why he loved no one but her.
His Intermezzi
HALF OBOE, HALF CLARINET
This is the voice to say yes to—
harsh, choked, dark,
smoked, veiled, black,
vaulting, slashing,
charred, metallic, raw,
hot-marbles-mouthed,
wrathful-heart-stopping,
deadened-before-dying,
little-girled, gaudy, bottled,
thick, opaque, rapt,
shrilling, cascading
E in alt to low F sharp,
chesting way up beyond A,
glottaled, noble, gloating—
Did you like my voice
when you
first heard it?
No.
I thought not.
Half oboe, half clarinet
VIENE, NORMA
Her art belongs to the ages
we all know that.
The camera recorded her last performance
a lone blur in a window.
She withdrew herself
and overcame her ruined voice.
Her heart
gave out.
Viene, Norma
Fifth Piano Sonata by Harry Somers
William Aide, piano
Fifth Piano Sonata by Harry Somers
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 1974 by Samuel Dolin
William Aide, piano
CBC Festival Orchestra
Victor Feldbrill, Conductor
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra 1974 by Samuel Dolin
John Beckwith: Stacey
Text by Margaret Laurence
Teri Dunn, soprano
William Aide, piano
John Beckwith: Stacey
John Beckwith: Six Songs to Poems by e e cummings
Mark Pedrotti, baritone
William Aide, piano
1. buy me an ounce and I’ll sell you a pound
2. ITEM this man is so
3. “o purple finch
4. Jimmie’s got a goil
5. that melancholy
6. let it go
John Beckwith: Six Songs
Phil Nimmons: Images Entre Nous
James Campbell, clarinet
William Aide, piano
Phil Nimmons: Images Entre Nous
Chris Paul Harman: Poem
Lawrence Cherney, Bass Oboe
William Aide, piano
Chris Paul Harman
John Beckwith: Concerto Fantasy
CJRT Orchestra, Paul Robinson
William Aide, piano
John Beckwith: Concerto Fantasy
Peter Paul Koprowski: Souvenirs de Pologne
William Aide, piano
CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Mario Bernardi, conductor
Peter Paul Koprowski: Souvenirs de Pologne
S.C. Eckhardt Gramatté: Sonata no. 3 (1924)
Landlicher Tanz (Rondo)
Kronung
Spanischer Tanz “Villa rosa”
William Aide, piano
S.C. Eckhardt Gramatté: Sonata no. 3 (1924)
Walter Buczynski: Lyric for Piano with Orchestra
William Aide, piano
CJRT Orchestra, Paul Robinson, conductor
Walter Buczynski: Lyric for Piano with Orchestra
Walter Buczynski: XI (1990)
Fantaisie
Berceuse
Barcarolle
William Aide, piano
Walter Buczynski: XI (1990)
Brian McDonagh: A Sardonic Songbook
Poems by Stevie Smith
Monica Whicher, soprano – William Aide, piano
Brian McDonagh: A Sardonic Songbook Poems by Stevie Smith
Talivaldis Kenins: Concertante (1966)
Presto furioso
Canzona: Lento
Vivace assai
Robert Aitken, flute; William Aide, piano
Talivaldis Kenins: Concertante (1966)
Talivaldis Kenins: Sonata for cello and piano (1950)
Allegro con moto ma non troppo
Scherzo presto assai
Andante molto sostenuto
Allegro molto e con brio
David Heatherington, cello – William Aide, piano
Talivaldis Kenins: Sonata for cello and piano
Harry Somers: Birminal Trilogy
The Owl and the Pussy Cat
Pelican Chorus (premiere 1994)
Abstemious Asses, Zealous Zebras (premiere 1994)
Barbara Hannigan, soprano; Marianne Bindig, mezzo soprano
Benoit Boutin, tenor; William Aide piano
Harry Somers: Birminal Trilogy
Beckwith: Avowals (words by bp nichol)
Beckwith: Avowals (words by bp nichol)
Talivaldis Kenins: Piano Quartet no. 2 (1979)
Agitato assai, quasi feroce
Adagio dolce espressivo
Intrada: Moderato – Presto tempestoso