Ageless Verse for a Song

Sometimes, all it takes is a poet, a singer and a piano to freeze-frame our hectic lives and put our daily strivings in perspective. These are miraculous moments - rare and precious. More the irony, then, that one such moment happened yesterday at a free lunch-hour concert at St. James Cathedral in front of a few dozen people.

Vancouver-born mezzo-soprano Lynne McMurtry is among the remarkably large crop of wonderful Canadian singers who are in their 30s right now. With the help of Boston-based pianist Alison d’Amato, McMurtry tackled a variety of settings of poems by Walt Whitman, written by American composers Ned Rorem, Lee Hoiby, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ives and Celius Dougherty. There were also four poems set by Toronto composer James Rolfe.

Whitman (1819-1892) could write about love, but his most powerful verse deals with hypocrisy and the horrors of war. As we get daily reports of dead soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq, Whitman’s words are as pointed and relevant today as they were during the American Civil War.

The songs McMurtry chose covered a wide spectrum of topics and emotions, a range she exploited fully with her rich, flexible and large voice. Her singing style remains easy and fluid even as she penetrates deep into our psyches. The program itself was a masterstroke of careful pacing and stylistic counterpoint. Rolfe’s pithy settings were a particular treat, from the drip-drippy piano accompaniment on “Trickle Drops” to the wistful “A Clear Midnight.” D’Amato proved a fluid, flexible accompanist with a similarly easygoing dramatic flair.

The program drew to a close with two powerful settings by Rorem of “Inauguration Ball,” where perfumed ladies are juxtaposed with dying soldiers, and “The Real War Will Never Get in the Books.” Sound familiar?

In his poem “That Music Always Round Me” (which wasn’t sung yesterday), Whitman writes: “I hear not the volumes of sound merely - I am moved by the exquisite meanings...” Yesterday, his exquisite meanings were rendered by equally impressive interpreters. Art doesn’t get any more moving than this, regardless of the price of admission.

John Terauds
Toronto Star
May 17, 2006