Lyric Studies(48)

The “48 Lyric Studies” consists of freely transcribed versions of, or original studies derived from, select ed vocalises by Giuseppe Concone (1801-1861) and Giovanni Marco Bordogni (1789-1856). [...] The “48 Lyric Studies” is intended to improve the musician’s music-reading comprehension to the point of being better able to determine what the written page of music tells the performer, and, perhaps more importantly, what it does not. The studies have been progressively arranged in a manner designed to emphasize numerous specific musical problems associated with notation from the performer’s perspective, from the recognition of elementary musical structural components such as motives, phrases, (including melodic outlines) cadences, and meter, to the concept of overall musical architecture, usually presented in song forms. It should also be noted that the actual notation of the music in these studies has its own purpose, in accordance with an old dictum of 20th Century composer and performer, Leonard Bernstein, paraphrased here as follows: Sometimes the music sounds the same as it looks, sometimes it looks different but it sounds the same, and sometimes it looks the same but it sounds different! There is no further text: the music should speak for itself. The absence of dynamic markings in these studies is intentional. In studies such as these, this musical component is best left to the performer’s imagination. Thomas Stevens, Los Angeles, 1997