The Billy Collins Suite: Songs Inspired by His Poetry (CD review)

Music by Pierre Jalbert, Stacy Garrop, Vivian Fung, Lita Grier, and Zhou Tian.  Cedille Records CDR 90000 115.

William "Billy" Collins (b. 1941) is a best-selling American poet who served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.  He is a writer of uncommon sensibility and most common sense.  Chicago's Music in the Loft chamber series and its founder, Fredda Hyman, decided it might be a nifty idea to ask various composers to set some of Collins's verse to music, and the result is the Suite by five different people we have here, premiered in 2008, just before this recording.  The music displays a wide variety of moods and styles, while the words of Collins provide the glue that holds it all together.

Things begin with "The Invention of the Saxophone," a twelve-minute, tongue-in-cheek poem set to music by Pierre Jalbert.  It's done as a trio, with a narrator, piano, and, of course, sax, set to a soft, dreamy, jazzy score.  It gets a little rambunctious toward the middle and then returns to a more serious, languorous calm by the finish.

The next section of the Suite is called "Ars Poetica" ("Art Poetical"), four passages set to music by Stacy Garrop.  This time the melodies are more intimate, reflecting grief, joy, and a bit of whimsy, using mezzo-soprano, violin, cello, and piano.  They are a bit more trying, but should hold some interest for fans of the poet.

Following that is a three-movement piece by Vivian Fung with the titles "Insomnia," "The Man in the Moon," and "The Willies," arranged for clarinet, cello, piano, and narrator.  They are a good deal less portentous than the preceding work and offer a nice contrast to it, being little pictorial musical pieces vividly representing the Collins poetry in notes and harmonies.  I enjoyed "The Willies," especially, highly accessible, cute, charming, and most entertaining.

The two movements in Lita Grier's segment, "Forgetfulness" and "Dancing Towards Bethlehem," take us through a touching and sentimental landscape, with baritone voice, clarinet, and piano.

Then the Suite ends with Zhou Tian's musical setting for "Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause to Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles."  That's quite a mouthful for the title of so short a poem, but the music itself--for flute, harp, viola, and narrator--is the most delicate, lyrical, and beautiful of all the compositions in the Suite and provides a fitting conclusion to the proceedings.

Any of the five sections of The Billy Collins Suite could easily stand on its own, and, indeed, that's how one might best listen to them.  Each person will have his or her own favorites, surely, that will bear repeat listening.

As always from Cedille, we get absolutely mesmerizing sound, for which we must again credit engineer Bill Maylone.  Voices are sweet and natural, while instrumental accompaniments remain smooth, warm, and true.  The sonics are never close, forward, or bright, but warm and realistic; just right, in fact.  They fit the music.

JJP