Farewell at a Train Station in Vermont. Song for tenor voice and piano from the composer's cantata "Landscapes and Remembrances." Autograph musical manuscript signed. Ca. 1976.
Small folio (313 x 237 mm.). 8 pp. Notated in pencil on 12-stave G. Schirmer Royal Brand music paper. Signed by Menotti at head of first page.
With several erasures and instances of rewriting, with original musical notation partially visible.
Minor rust stain from paper clip to upper margin of first and last pages; slight indentation to upper margins throughout. In very good condition overall.
Landscapes and Remembrances, a cantata for soloists, chorus, and orchestra to texts by Menotti, was first performed at Uihlein Hall in Milwaukee on May 14, 1976, with Judith Blegen (soprano), Ani Yervanian (contralto), Vahan Khanzadian (tenor), Gary Kendall (baritone), and the Milwaukee Symphony and Bel Canto Chorus, James Keeley, conducting.
"The nine-part Landscapes and Remembrances is a set of musical impressions drawn from the composer's life, ranging from his arrival in America as a teenager to his discovery of South Carolina, where he founded the Spoleto USA Festival in 1977 ... The structure of Landscapes consists of alternating choruses and orchestral songs, although several of the choral sections make use of solo voices as well. The titles in general reflect the geography of remembrance at the root of each ...
Farewell at a Train Station in Vermont, the final song, is concerned with love, but this time with the bitterness of parting. 'In everyone's life', Menotti has commented, 'there is a farewell never forgotten, the pain of which never heals', a sentiment he had previously expressed in his libretto for Barber's opera Vanessa. It is evident that this section of Landscapes is ... rooted in actuality ... Over a solemn adagio figure, the solo voice sets the stage for this short scena: 'The train is late. It rains as it must when lovers part forever. Without a word we pace the empty platform, measuring our protracted agony with uncharted steps'." John Ardoin: The Stages of Menotti, pp. 129-131.
Menotti's autograph musical manuscripts are very rare to the market, with no examples of his manuscripts recorded sold by ABPC since at least 1975.
Item #38293
Price: $3,600.00 other currencies