Songs of Innocence

 
 

Piping down the valleys wild,

Piping songs of pleasant glee,

On a cloud I saw a child,

And he laughing said to me:
‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’

So I piped with merry cheer.

‘Piper, pipe that song again.’

So I piped: he wept to hear...

William Blake, Songs of Innocence (1789)

ABOUT SONGS OF INNOCENCE

Over the past twenty years, as I have undertaken musical journeys to create large works for classical and mixed ensembles, ideas for songs often occur to me, unrelated to the piece I’m working on.

These melodies can be simple and sometimes even childlike in their innocence. The idea of simplicity really appeals to me, and as someone who gravitates naturally towards complexity, it’s a challenge to write music that is simple, sunny, and appealing.

I felt a connection with William Blake, the famous English romantic poet whose “Songs of Innocence” featured poems verging on nursery rhymes. The poems in Blake’s collection, like my songs, can also have a darker side, exploring the process of corruption and loss of innocence as childhood turns into adulthood.

PROGRAM

  1. 60 Morningside - 6:24

  2. Crow or Dove - 5:58

  3. Wedding Song - 4:24

  4. Dreamscape - 4:24

  5. Torsion - 4:45

THE CAST

Patrick Zimmerli - Composer, Saxophone
Kevin Hays - Piano
Satoshi Takeishi - Percussion

THE SONGS

60 Morningside — in the early aughts, I was waking up very early every day to write music. During the summer months I was sometimes conflicted between starting my work and running up to a little perch over morningside park in Manhattan to take in the sunrise. Opposite this perch was a beautiful building in red brick that took on a gorgeous rich hue with the rising sun. I later learned that this building was the house of the Columbia University president.

Crow Or Dove — This piece is inspired by a line from a Shakespeare Sonnet about missing a loved one from afar, and seeing them in every image that comes to the eye:

For if [I] see the rud’st or gentlest sight,

The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,
 The mountain or the sea, the day or night,

The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature

Wedding Song — This piece expresses the ebuillient enthusiasm that comes with marriage, a feeling of togetherness and collaborative effort that one hopes will continue long into the future.

Dreamscape — A more moody piece that reflects the disorienting state of dreaming, and the strange and sometimes frightening things that can occur when in the subconscious state.

Torsion — The term describes a kind of twisting deformation of an object, and this piece has a twisted form that evolves and further deforms as it goes along— all in support of a melody that, set in a more common time signature, would feel winsome and chipper.

BIOGRAPHIES

Patrick Zimmerli writes a sophisticated yet approachable hybrid of contemporary classical and jazz music. Zimmerli has an extensive catalog of works for chamber, orchestral, vocal, jazz, and mixed ensembles of all sizes. His many collaborators have included The Lincoln Trio, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Kent Tritle, Brooklyn Rider String Quartet, Scott Yoo, Aaron Diehl, Samara Joy, John Novacek, Ethan Iverson, Luciana Souza, the Knights Orchestra, and the Ying String Quartet. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Salle Pleyel and the Cathedral des Invalides in Paris, Sala São Paolo in Brazil, the Vienna Konzerthaus Grosser Saal, and the SF Jazz Center, among many other venues.

Kevin Hays is an American jazz pianist and composer. He has recorded more than twenty albums as leader or co-leader, including three each for SteepleChase and Blue Note Records. He led a long-standing trio with bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Bill Stewart, and has also sung with his New Day Trio of bassist Rob Jost and drummer Greg Joseph. His many collaborators include Nicholas Payton, Nick Brignola, Steve Wilson, Benny Golson, Joshua Redman, Seamus Blake, Eddie Henderson, Sonny Rollins, and Brad Mehldau.

Satoshi Takeishi is one of the most captivating and poetic percussionists working today. A powerful yet sensitive musician, he has a unique approach to the percussion which draws on his deep roots in jazz as well as Colombian and Japanese percussion traditions. Takeishi uses a kind of modified drum kit where he is seated on the floor, playing cymbals but with rimless taiko drums substituting for the traditional snare and toms, and a frame drum standing in for the bass drum. A native of Mito, Japan, he has performed with musicians as diverse as Eliane Elias, Carlos “Patato” Valdes, Herbie Mann, the Paul Winter Consort, Rabih Abou-Khalil, the Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band, Anthony Braxton, and Pablo Ziegler.