''December Songs'' is a

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice ...

musical theatre Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ...

composer-lyricist

Maury Yeston Maury Yeston (born October 23, 1945) is an American composer, lyricist and music theorist. He is known as the initiator of new Broadway musicals and writing their music and lyrics, as well as a classical orchestral and ballet composer, Yale Uni ...

. The work is a "retelling" of

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

's ''

Winterreise ''Winterreise'' (, ''Winter Journey'') is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert ( D. 911, published as Op. 89 in 1828), a setting of 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two song cycles on Müller' ...

'', (a song cycle of

art songs An art song is a Western world, Western vocal music Musical composition, composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment, and usually in the classical music, classical art music tradition. By extension, the term "art song" is ...

), with a

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

sensibility. The songs in both ''December Songs'' and ''Winterreise'' are linked as a sequence of reflections by the singer taking a lonely walk in winter, thinking back on his or her lost love. The piece crosses over the line from classical music to Broadway to cabaret. Where the Schubert masterpiece features words by

Wilhelm Müller Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Müller (7 October 1794 – 30 September 1827) was a German lyric poet, best known as the author of ''Die schöne Müllerin'' (1823) and ''Winterreise'' (1828), which Franz Schubert later set to music as song cycles. Life ...

portraying a jilted young man's wandering the snows of the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

woods and ultimately sinking into madness, the Yeston lyrics depict a contemporary young woman wandering a snowy

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and finding recovery and hope on her journey. ''December Songs'' pictures in richly varied melodies and striking yet unforced poetic images a worldly young woman, jilted and adrift in a wintry New York City, reading all she sees for commentary on her broken heart. It has been recorded six times in English, and once each in French, German, and Polish.

Performances and recordings

Premiere

The work was written as a result of Yeston being commissioned to write a piece for the 1991 centennial celebration of New York's

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

, where it was performed by cabaret singer

Andrea Marcovicci Andrea Louisa Marcovicci ( ro, Marcovici; born November 18, 1948) is an American actress and singer. Life and career Marcovicci was born in Manhattan, to Helen Stuart, a singer, and Eugen Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descen ...

. It was performed at the

Weill Recital Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by ...

, which was packed with Broadway and nightclub luminaries, who gave it a thunderous ovation. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' indicated the uniqueness of the score as Yeston's confident marriage of the classic and the contemporaneity that would likely lead to its enduring nature." A recording of Marcovicci's performance was released the following year on January 1. The Chicago Tribune commented: "Though it`s true that Yeston is hardly the first composer to create an epic song cycle, no one has put one together quite the way he has. Neither the German romantics nor the French Impressionists nor the American modernists conceived a cycle in a pop idiom and with the emotional depth of the best musical theater. Yet that`s precisely what Yeston has created in ”December Songs,” which is graced by melodies that are Mozartean in their simplicity, harmonies that plainly underscore the drama and lyrics at once poetic and colloquial. Imagine a Rodgers and Hart musical for a cast of one-and with no dialogue, dancing or similar distractions-and you begin to see how ”December Songs” grips an audience. Like Franz Schubert`s far darker song cycle ”Die Winterreise” (”The Winter Journey”), to which Yeston`s piece loosely refers, ”December Songs” comprises soliloquies from a character who yearns for a lost love”

Subsequent performances

''December Songs'' has been performed worldwide including France, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland, It had a limited run for three months in 2004 at the Theatre du Renard in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where it was sung in French by Isabelle Georges. It has been recorded seven times in English by Marcovicci, Georges,

Harolyn Blackwell Harolyn Blackwell (born November 23, 1955) is an American lyric coloratura soprano who has performed in many of the world's finest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters in operas, oratorios, recitals, and Broadway musicals. Initially known ...

, and others, in German by

Pia Douwes Pia Douwes (born 5 August 1964) is a Dutch actress in musical theatre in Europe. She is best known for having created the title role in the German-language musical '' Elisabeth''. Biography Douwes was born in Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherl ...

, with a German translation by Wolfgang Adenberg, in Polish by Edyta Krzemien, also in English (in the Netherlands) by Hetty Sponselee and Sheila Conolly, and in French by Georges. Two time

Tony Tony may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer * Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leagu ...

nominee

Laura Osnes Laura Ann Osnes (born November 19, 1985) is an American actress and singer known for her work on the Broadway stage. She has played starring roles in '' Grease'' as Sandy, '' South Pacific'' as Nellie Forbush, ''Anything Goes'' as Hope Harcourt, ...

recently featured ''December Songs'' in her

54 Below 54 Below is a cabaret and restaurant in the basement of Studio 54 in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Owned by Broadway producers Steve Baruch, Richard Frankel, Marc Routh and Tom Viertel, 54 Below has hosted shows by such performers as Patt ...

debut, ''Laura Osnes Sings Maury Yeston'', and on her album ''If I Tell You''. ''December Songs'' was recorded with a male singer for the first time in 2017 by New York cabaret singer

Stearns Matthews Stearns Matthews is an American, New York-based cabaret singer, recording artist, director, teacher, and pianist. He has performed throughout the United States as well as the United Kingdom. Training As a teenager, Matthews was a voice studen ...

. On November 11, 2022, a new recording with a 37 piece orchestra, ''December Songs for Voice and Orchestra'', starred

Victoria Clark Victoria Clark (born October 10, 1959) is an American actress, musical theatre singer and director. Clark has performed in numerous Broadway musicals and in other theatre, film and television works. Her soprano voice can also be heard on innume ...

with orchestrations by

Larry Hochman Larry Hochman (; born November 21, 1953) is an American orchestrator and composer. He has won four Emmy Awards for his original music on the TV series ''Wonder Pets!'' and a Tony Award for his orchestrations for ''The Book of Mormon''. Early li ...

was released.Gans, Andrew
"New Recording of Maury Yeston's December Songs, With Tony Winner Victoria Clark, Released November 11"
''Playbill'', November 11, 2022

Song list

# "December Snow" # "Where Are You Now" # "Please Let's Not Even Say Hello" # "When Your Love Is New" # "Bookseller In The Rain" # "My Grandmother's Love Letters" # "I Am Longing" # "I Had A Dream About You" # "By The River" # "What A Relief"

Notes

References

{{reflist

External links

Maury Yeston's ''December Songs'' page

Stearns Matthews' ''December Songs'' page

Yeston nous parle de december songs
Compositions by Maury Yeston 1991 compositions Song cycles