Not too long ago, some were ready to dismiss Jake Heggie as a second rate composer with a penchant for Broadway frivolity. He was light, he was charming, he was oh so gay, but he wasn’t much else. As for his heart-wrenchingly profound opera, Dead Man Walking, it was a one-off anomaly amidst mounds of music that cared not about what lies beneath the surface.
Then came the critical swell of approval for another profound Heggie co-creation, the opera Moby Dick. Now, shortly after those who were so quick to dismiss Heggie’s oeuvre found themselves caught with their pants down, the music on the San Francisco composer's latest CD, Passing By, has ripped them off entirely. A collection of beautifully shaped art songs, some dating from as early as 1980, when Heggie was a 19-year-old living in Paris, the works address love and loss with such beauty and care that those who revere Schubert, Schumann, and their peers will likely find themselves playing them over and over.
Listen To The Music
Lucky Child (featuring Susan Graham)Facing Forward (featuring Frederica von Stade and Joyce DiDonato)
As evidence of the personal esteem that his colleagues hold him in, Heggie has assembled one of the finest collections of American singers ever to grace a contemporary song collection: soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian; mezzos Susan Graham, Zheng Cao, Frederica von Stade, and Joyce DiDonato; tenor Paul Groves; and baritone Keith Phares. The sterling accompanists — violinist Dawn Harms, violist CarlaMaria Rodrigues, cellist Emil Miland, and Heggie himself on piano — may have a more local pedigree, but their playing is as distinguished as the singing.
Passing By establishes its predominant tone in the first track. Performing “A Lucky Child” from At the Statue of Venus (2005), to text by Terrence McNally, Graham sounds so natural and relaxed, her singing so deeply felt, that the beauty of this simple reflection on love experienced by a child goes straight to the heart. Given that At The Statue of Venus, an extended musical scene for soprano and piano originally intended for Renée Fleming but debuted by Kristin Clayton, is mostly a scream, it’s easy to overlook this introspective gem amidst the humor. It takes an artist of Graham’s magnitude to bring it home.
Some Times of Day (2004), a set of three short songs based on poetry by the late Raymond Carver, was written for Cao and a trio that included Harms and Miland. Everyone performs at their virtuosic best. Note Harms’ teasing display in the first song, and the wonderful melody that surfaces in the final piece.
I could go on for days about the wonders created when, in the four duets of Facing Forward/Looking Back (2007), first von Stade and Graham, then von Stade and DiDonato meld perfectly in duet. The setting of Armistead Maupin’s “Mother in the Mirror” is as hilarious as Heggie’s setting of his own poem, “Facing Forward,” is beautiful. You can’t help but love this song, especially when sung by two great mezzos.
Phares could sing the phonebook and still sound as handsome as can be. But his Here and Gone (2005) duets with Groves are far deeper than that. Settings of poems by A.E. Housman and Vachel Lindsay that together describe the attempted reconnection of two old friends, once split apart by fear of homosexual love, the cycle addresses a subject that few composers are willing to touch.
To the four Songs and Sonnets of Ophelia (1999), Bayrakdarian brings the touch of youth. In “Spring,” she manages one of the softest pianissimos I have ever heard on disc. The subject, in Heggie’s words “an extraordinary young woman — pushed, pulled and used in a world dominated by men — seeking connection and agonizing over love,” further evidences the composer’s belief that love, in whatever forms it may manifest, is what matters most.
To DiDonato is entrusted Final Monologue (2007), a setting of the conclusion of Terrence McNally’s award-winning play about Maria Callas, Master Class. DiDonato transcends the temptation to wallow in maudlin self-pity, bringing far more beauty to the scene than I expect Callas would have done in real life.
“The only thanks I ask is that you sing properly and honestly,” sings Callas. Heggie and friends do just that, and more. This is a very special recording.