Eric Nathan: Some Favored Nook Tony Arnold, William Sharp, Seth Knopp

• Eric Nathan (b. 1983): Some Favored Nook:
• 1 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part I, I. To tell me what is true? 04:49
• 2 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part I, II. The nearest dream recedes unrealized 02:44
• 3 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part I, III. Could you tell me how to grow? 03:01
• 4 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part I, IV. They shut me up in Prose 03:53
• 5 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part I, V. My barefoot rank is better 02:10
• 6 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, VI. To see if we were growing 03:18
• 7 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, VII. War feels to me an oblique place 01:58
• 8 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, VIII. There suddenly arose 02:45
• 9 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, IX. Emancipation 02:47
• 10 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, X. All sounds ceased 02:53
• 11 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, XI. There came a wind like a bugle 01:54
• 12 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, XII. Attending to the wounded 02:18
• 13 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part II, XIII. That shamed the nation 02:01
• 14 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part III, XIV. These are my introduction 05:51
• 15 Nathan: Some Favored Nook: Part III, XV. My Wars are laid away in Books / No Prisoner be 03:23
• Total Runtime 45:45

Info for Eric Nathan: Some Favored Nook

Eric Nathan’s Some Favored Nook goes far beyond a setting of texts by Emily Dickinson and abolitionist and essayist Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Nathan’s piece is a dramatization of the relationship between these two historical figures, incorporating text settings of Dickinson’s poetry as well as a libretto by Mark Campbell that is woven from their correspondence. Nathan’s curation of that correspondence focused on themes related to slavery and the American Civil War. The result, performed here by soprano Tony Arnold, baritone William Sharp, and pianist Seth Knopp, is a poignant and intimate work that explores a friendship within the context of a nation in turmoil, ideologically and on the literal battlefield. Some Favored Nook allows the listener to reflect on another fraught time in the history of the United States, as we live through our own era of conflict.

While history has celebrated Dickinson and recognized her as one of America’s most important poets, it has largely forgotten Higginson, despite the fact that he led a prominent public life as an essayist, minister, military commander, and advocate for the rights of African-Americans and women. Notably, he served as the commanding officer of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first black regiment to fight in the Civil War (on the Union side), and was instrumental in publishing the first collection of Dickinson’s poetry. Higginson and Dickinson did meet once in 1870, but their relationship took place almost entirely through letters.

Nathan approaches the various texts differently — many of the letters fashioned into the libretto are set with recitative-like music, highlighting the embedded subtleties in the texts that shine light on sthe evolving connection between the two writers. Dickinson’s poems are set as art songs, with the piano establishing an expressive musical context that paints the words. Since Higginson’s texts are all taken from the letters, his more substantial content is treated similarly to Dickinson’s poems, and set more like songs, as opposed to structurally connective material in the larger piece.

Part I, “To Tell Me What is True,” opens with the tentative music of two people getting a sense for one another, with light, inquisitive two note figures in the piano that become a leitmotif for the letter correspondence. In Part II, “The nearest dream recedes unrealized” we hear the first of the included Dickinson poems, set over an anxious, accumulating tremolando figure in the piano. Higginson’s letter about leading the First South Carolina Volunteers and his commitment to abolition is given a courageous and powerful setting in Part VI, “To see if we were growing,” as towering chords and march-like rhythms in the piano support Sharp’s bold baritone.

Higginson’s letter about the Emancipation Proclamation, Part VIII “There suddenly arose,” is set with grand wonder, framed by an insistent pedal point in the left hand of the piano. Nathan holds the reverent tone steady for Part IX, Dickinson’s poem, “Emancipation.” Some of the work’s most emphatic music is heard in Part X, “All sounds ceased,” as rumbling bass figures, stabbing, accents, planed chords, and a galloping rhythmic motive capture the bracing intensity of a gun battle. In Part XIII, “That shamed the nation,” Higginson reflects on the bitter knowledge that until blacks had served as soldiers, the country had not recognized them as men. Nathan’s setting is ambivalently triumphant, as heroic polytonal voicings ascend in register. Some Favored Nook ends with Dickinson’s poem, “My Wars are laid away in Books” in an a cappella setting, first for Arnold, and then with Sharp in a rare moment of ensemble singing. It is a powerful closing moment for a piece that largely unfolded in the space between two people carrying on a long distance communication. Nathan’s work is a stark, intimate portrait of two people of conviction, struggling to come to terms with the conditions of their day. The spare instrumentation and economical use of musical materials evokes a simpler era. Reflecting on their correspondence, Some Favored Nook gives us a template for a path towards meaningful connection in troubled times that is direct, without frills, and honest. - Dan Lippel

Tony Arnold, soprano
William Sharp, baritone
Seth Knopp, piano

Eric Nathan
(b. 1983) music has been called “as diverse as it is arresting” with a “constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “thoughtful and inventive” (The New Yorker). A 2013 Rome Prize Fellow and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, Nathan has garnered acclaim internationally through performances by Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, Dawn Upshaw, Jennifer Koh, Stefan Jackiw, and Gloria Cheng. His music has been featured at the New York Philharmonic’s 2014 and 2016 Biennials, Carnegie Hall, and the Aldeburgh, Tanglewood, and Aspen festivals.

Recent projects include three commissions from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Opening (2021), co-commissioned by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress, was premiered by the MSO and broadcast nationally on PBS. He has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Barlow Endowment, Fromm Music Foundation, Tanglewood Music Center, and Aspen Music Festival, and has been honored with a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Nathan has completed residencies at Yellow Barn, Copland House, and American Academy in Rome, and is a 2022 Civitella Ranieri Foundation fellow.

Nathan’s most recent album, Missing Words, was released in 2022 on New Focus Records. He serves as Associate Professor of Music at Brown University and is currently the New England Philharmonic’s Composer-in-Residence. He received his doctorate from Cornell.

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