FRANK STEMPER, COMPOSER
Seamaster (1981)
Lyric Soprano and Chamber Orchestra [29 mins.]
Poetry by Kevin Lynch
Commissioned by the Milwaukee Chamber Society;
Premiered 13 May 1983 by the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra
with Marlee Sabo, soprano — Steven Colburn, Music Director
Performing Arts Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Opus 8 — A.S.C.A.P. work I.D. 494611391
Commissioned by the Milwaukee Chamber Society;
Premiered 13 May 1983 by the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra
with Marlee Sabo, soprano — Steven Colburn, Music Director
Performing Arts Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Opus 8 — A.S.C.A.P. work I.D. 494611391
PROGRAM NOTES
Seamaster was written for and premiered by the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra at the Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee. The piece is a setting of a lengthy biographical poem by Kevin Lynch, a childhood friend and former arts and music critic for The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal, Madison’s Capital Times, contributing writer for DownBeat magazine, author of two books, and his blog: Culture Currents (Vernaculars Speak)
The piece is long, by contemporary music standards – nearly 30 minutes. Although there is a pause just after the half-way point, the music is continuous. Part of the motivation for writing the piece was given by the University of California at Berkeley, where I was a graduate student at the time. This piece was in fact my dissertation, which is required of PhD’s in every field, humanities and sciences alike. SEAMASTER, therefore, is original research, or at least considered thus by the academic community.
But as lofty and pretentious as that seems, it seems to ring true. As I moved through my musical childhood, I always seemed to be expecting and searching for more from music. This led to an increasingly more intricate musical statement with an ever-expanding vocabulary. I just wanted to say whatever it is that I was trying to say in the most effective way possible. Maybe that’s what all artists are looking for – the best way to say IT. And IT seems to be:
“We’re all in this thing together, and it’s not going to end well, so hold my hand, would ya?”
(Although politicians and religious zealots use this reality to suck off of their fellow man, artists are more interested in sharing the life/death experience, with the hopeful goal to reassure and comfort.)
It’s certainly true that Beethoven did original “research” in music, i.e. innovated a few things. So did the other guys, Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Bach. (Well he pretty much created the art form, didn’t he.) However, modern composers, practically all of them (us), are always innovating things with their music. And whether or not those innovations “catch on” isn’t really the point. They’re doing it. They’re looking for new ways of connecting.
The innovation that I contributed via SEAMASTER occurs at about 3:25 in the MCO recording:
After a lengthy, dark and serious introduction, things lighten up with a simple waltzy folk tune with the text: “Are the gulls waiting, linger then the past….” That is, it started out as a pleasant little waltz. My innovation was in upsetting the applecart. I took the “long—short/long—short/long—short/long“ of the waltz and waivered the tempo (i.e. the speed of the beat), speeding it up and slowing it down, disjunctly, without pattern. So it became instead: “long—short/long-short——/long—short/long-short—/—longshort/long——short short short——/ “ etc. So the waltz remain unchanged, but the tempo of the waltz was all over the place. This “over-syncopation” then also changed the inflection of the words, accenting the wrong words – unaccenting the right ones. And that of course expanded the meaning of the poet’s statement, which was already “obuse” to begin with; the meaning of the words thus became broader, simultaneously profound and meaningless, but ultimately abstract – much like my heroes, the Symbolist French poets from the late 19th century.
Perhaps that innovative – who knows? But I wasn’t trying to innovate anything, I was just making music the way I wanted it to be. About 10 years later I was talking about SEAMASTER to students and faculty at San Francisco State University during an interview for a job there. During the lecture, it occurred to me that, “hey I’ve never heard anybody talk about something like this before.” Innovation or not, the point is the music.
(Interestingly, the poet and I stayed awake all night waiting for the reviews – pretending we were NYC producers waiting to see if David Niven liked our musical and whether or not we would remain in business on Broadway. (Mostly we were just drinking beer and eating hot dogs.) The reviews were about as expected, but one of them said that Kevin Lynch’s poetry was “…obtuse at best.” That hurt Kevin. He got kind of quiet. But a half hour later, as he was leaving to go home, he suddenly came to life saying, “Hey, wait a minute. ‘Obtuse at best?’ What’s he talking about. I was trying to be obtuse!” The reviewer tried to pan the poetry, but he naively complemented Kevin. Live and learn. I could go on for months about critics ignorantly missing the point from “up” on their high horse!
The Soprano for the premiere performance was Marlee Sabo, a dynamic singer and excellent musician. The Conductor was her husband, Steve Colburn, who was also the founder and instigator of the MCO. It took great courage for Maestro Colburn to program this music, not only because it was quite severe contemporary music, dark, serious, etc., but more because of the duration of the work: 30 minutes in a single movement. Steve knew that a half hour of any music would be a long time for his patrons to sit still – but much worse for music that was mostly harmonically discordant and arrhythmic. But Steve programmed, rehearsed, and performed the piece anyway. He did try to convince the composer after one of the many rehearsals that "perhaps we should cut the work a little, here and there?" But the young idealistic composer would have none of that! Thus, the show went on, and, at least for one fellow seated in the audience, Shangri La came to Milwaukee's Vogel Hall.
Seamaster was written for and premiered by the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra at the Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee. The piece is a setting of a lengthy biographical poem by Kevin Lynch, a childhood friend and former arts and music critic for The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal, Madison’s Capital Times, contributing writer for DownBeat magazine, author of two books, and his blog: Culture Currents (Vernaculars Speak)
The piece is long, by contemporary music standards – nearly 30 minutes. Although there is a pause just after the half-way point, the music is continuous. Part of the motivation for writing the piece was given by the University of California at Berkeley, where I was a graduate student at the time. This piece was in fact my dissertation, which is required of PhD’s in every field, humanities and sciences alike. SEAMASTER, therefore, is original research, or at least considered thus by the academic community.
But as lofty and pretentious as that seems, it seems to ring true. As I moved through my musical childhood, I always seemed to be expecting and searching for more from music. This led to an increasingly more intricate musical statement with an ever-expanding vocabulary. I just wanted to say whatever it is that I was trying to say in the most effective way possible. Maybe that’s what all artists are looking for – the best way to say IT. And IT seems to be:
“We’re all in this thing together, and it’s not going to end well, so hold my hand, would ya?”
(Although politicians and religious zealots use this reality to suck off of their fellow man, artists are more interested in sharing the life/death experience, with the hopeful goal to reassure and comfort.)
It’s certainly true that Beethoven did original “research” in music, i.e. innovated a few things. So did the other guys, Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Bach. (Well he pretty much created the art form, didn’t he.) However, modern composers, practically all of them (us), are always innovating things with their music. And whether or not those innovations “catch on” isn’t really the point. They’re doing it. They’re looking for new ways of connecting.
The innovation that I contributed via SEAMASTER occurs at about 3:25 in the MCO recording:
After a lengthy, dark and serious introduction, things lighten up with a simple waltzy folk tune with the text: “Are the gulls waiting, linger then the past….” That is, it started out as a pleasant little waltz. My innovation was in upsetting the applecart. I took the “long—short/long—short/long—short/long“ of the waltz and waivered the tempo (i.e. the speed of the beat), speeding it up and slowing it down, disjunctly, without pattern. So it became instead: “long—short/long-short——/long—short/long-short—/—longshort/long——short short short——/ “ etc. So the waltz remain unchanged, but the tempo of the waltz was all over the place. This “over-syncopation” then also changed the inflection of the words, accenting the wrong words – unaccenting the right ones. And that of course expanded the meaning of the poet’s statement, which was already “obuse” to begin with; the meaning of the words thus became broader, simultaneously profound and meaningless, but ultimately abstract – much like my heroes, the Symbolist French poets from the late 19th century.
Perhaps that innovative – who knows? But I wasn’t trying to innovate anything, I was just making music the way I wanted it to be. About 10 years later I was talking about SEAMASTER to students and faculty at San Francisco State University during an interview for a job there. During the lecture, it occurred to me that, “hey I’ve never heard anybody talk about something like this before.” Innovation or not, the point is the music.
(Interestingly, the poet and I stayed awake all night waiting for the reviews – pretending we were NYC producers waiting to see if David Niven liked our musical and whether or not we would remain in business on Broadway. (Mostly we were just drinking beer and eating hot dogs.) The reviews were about as expected, but one of them said that Kevin Lynch’s poetry was “…obtuse at best.” That hurt Kevin. He got kind of quiet. But a half hour later, as he was leaving to go home, he suddenly came to life saying, “Hey, wait a minute. ‘Obtuse at best?’ What’s he talking about. I was trying to be obtuse!” The reviewer tried to pan the poetry, but he naively complemented Kevin. Live and learn. I could go on for months about critics ignorantly missing the point from “up” on their high horse!
The Soprano for the premiere performance was Marlee Sabo, a dynamic singer and excellent musician. The Conductor was her husband, Steve Colburn, who was also the founder and instigator of the MCO. It took great courage for Maestro Colburn to program this music, not only because it was quite severe contemporary music, dark, serious, etc., but more because of the duration of the work: 30 minutes in a single movement. Steve knew that a half hour of any music would be a long time for his patrons to sit still – but much worse for music that was mostly harmonically discordant and arrhythmic. But Steve programmed, rehearsed, and performed the piece anyway. He did try to convince the composer after one of the many rehearsals that "perhaps we should cut the work a little, here and there?" But the young idealistic composer would have none of that! Thus, the show went on, and, at least for one fellow seated in the audience, Shangri La came to Milwaukee's Vogel Hall.
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Harbor secrets dampness can’t hide
When the past come sailing by It trickles up the down crevice. You hear it you twisted it You slide and the wave Can’t show you where you started On the Green moss, the blue reflection. Whole nose and up the gruff twist of flux. I can see the fat beckon beyond my encrusted eyelids, depressing my daily bed. What’s the who that jumps my fool Without a mind. “I can’t go swimming,” The waters nailed shut, my ayes can't sea my harm’s in the way. My strands moon’s night but not the rising sun. Flush, rush the sprint can blow the bush under fried maples. The ball blonde got earth Cracked, a thousand needles. You lift don’t cry me down. Are the goals waiting linger than the west? Look back to the shore where I don’t know to fly off my hands best paint can under Lunt’s idea. The purple’s on the red malice. The reds in the drain sink. Trickle down the magic disease now don’t look back to the shore; he’s dead as the wailing sirens. Reach back across the sky of fallen waves, past great gray whales basking far above the gulls, to a distant quasar which lit our path westward through gleaming backbone of the sky and hills with holes and eyes, till mine awake to desert gold. Bay and bluff portend to shoulder crested with scrambling granite beneath foot: gaping wind curtain and lost green mirror far below. Teewinot sneezes and shutters, We cling like fleas to her glistening skin. Wait, collar, dream of flying Fords and lives to live. Escape down clouds not waterfelled. Imagine a trois new generation splits, Fay play beige joy. (La dada deed a yada bad a dee) Are the goals waiting linger then the west, To saying and cry, circle vulture to feed on your riding past or your unborn destiny? Prometheus laughs even at many grander notions. You swallow spiteful jokes like steaming skins of swine. What is Art but a tear in the laugh art. A blanched voice said yes as Jack said well to spring as the empire said nay to Kong we know it wasn’t the airplanes. Swayed then buy a skyscraper and a prairie, A jester and mauve silhouettes and a monk don’t ask him now. Forget your turf and soul wordless hail of flats and G’s sown in sprung blue and blown. Each moment truth’s confession. Moments empty, moments full as of life surprised, comprised. |
Flout the spleen and slip
the sphincter glow, fit of muckrake in a whole nose and up the gruff twixt of flux. Call the less pass the peak till odd words don’t meld old deeds nor harm and an eye’s Iris rolls. Sputtering impatience ushers past you sitting groping for the note that folds inside the hearts interface. Hoary Sam won’t larf the plunk he hunkers the happy fool’s debunk. Bulb and tease me tastebud salty lick off foamy pup Swoop a sloop and dolphin strut ‘n’ wheel, blink of lush pool whirl to wash. White-breasteds inside you cry, fly, fall back to shore long recall. Swept north by rust and fins be fine the tottering tip of greener Prickley’s. Down shadow muddle in your gut Mine’s hung o’er gravitie’s kiss. This echoed on a river gulls never knew. Cajoles, wet bones, and kills. Broadside delusions more real than dream cum rue. Drews shot! I’m scared. This is the beginning of a beautiful child of the stars bequeathed far over rainbows. Reach across the time that falls Between the cracks in memory. As you wait, search, you love to want. Hold to staff and pen Stare into the ageless creases Lean, caress the whispering coffin. Lift arc the back that breeds Trace the softest line, Lay in breath-wept meadows. Find the coast I atop island distant would ravine. Speak not to prattlers but to one the shore laid to wait. I float on empty wings you land unfertile resource a soul sustains spirit bereft. Meet at Mount fragment seen a new, feel the weight of vision’s tether, The quivering still of wet gardens, the keening horror of Viscayan villiage. Reach across the soaring spectre of hopeless love, “on no…” guffaws the horse that heals heads. Of nascent creature in warm tow. To distant shores look back the years of waves to bow, tensile hands curl round rail, Mind arcs two question’s gently prodding like shafts of whiteness stream from wispy leviathans above. What notion of master flickers in vague reflector below, once a horizon of life’s baffling matrix. They what they say trappings of truth. What dwells ‘neath waves within see mothers breast. Secrets masters harbor in folds discovered when this cloak his shed for rays drunk in by oldest skin’s tendered vigil. Look, the high wills have flown. |
PRESS NOTICE
SEAMASTER
— performed by The Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra in Vogel Hall
“Reminiscent of the angularity of Berg’s Lyric Suite, the intense music proved absorbing. Seamaster. Over this, Stemper’s obvious technical skill finally brings voice and orchestra together…with the engaging sonority of Lynch’s verse.”
Lawrence B. Johnson
The Milwaukee Journal 14 May 1983
SEAMASTER
— performed by The Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra in Vogel Hall
“Reminiscent of the angularity of Berg’s Lyric Suite, the intense music proved absorbing. Seamaster. Over this, Stemper’s obvious technical skill finally brings voice and orchestra together…with the engaging sonority of Lynch’s verse.”
Lawrence B. Johnson
The Milwaukee Journal 14 May 1983