Discussing music doesn’t have to be challenging

Discussing music can be a challenge. However, WordSong, which positions itself as “Boston’s foremost interactive concert organization,” directly addresses the complex relationship between music and language.

This month, the Mahindra Humanities Center hosted a WordSong performance and discussion focused on William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming.” By commissioning various composers to adapt a single text into music and facilitating conversation about the poem and its diverse musical interpretations, the series encourages deeper engagement with both poetry and modern composition.

The event, co-sponsored by Arts and Humanities Dean Sean Kelly, showcased the debut of brief compositions by Boston-area composers Elena Ruehr, Howard Frazin, and Tom Schnauber. All three pieces were presented in Holden Chapel by the local Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Krista River alongside the New England-based Arneis Quartet.

“It’s challenging to discuss music, yet we believe everyone can,” stated Schnauber, who co-founded WordSong with Frazin in 2008.

Nevertheless, the German American composer remarked: “It is simpler to discuss words than music.”

With this consideration, the program commenced with a recitation of Yeats’ poem. Its imagery of separation and a mysterious Sphynx-like entity awakening as a moment of catastrophe approaches, was penned in 1919. That troubling era, following the devastating aftermath of the First World War as well as Ireland’s fight for independence, resonates into our current times, as audience members quickly observed.

As participants contributed about what the poem signified to them, Schnauber noted themes on a whiteboard. These included politics, disillusionment, and accountability, along with religion and Einstein, whose theory of relativity was relatively recent when the poem was composed. Yeats’ animal imagery (“the falcon cannot hear the falconer”) and the poem’s structure, including its repetition, were also discussed.

The three compositions adopted varied approaches to the text.

Schnauber’s arrangement was performed first. A cappella segments, leaving River’s voice unaccompanied, were used to emphasize phrases, particularly when the soprano reflected on the title line. Pizzicato sections accentuated the sense of disconnection that pervades the poem.

Ruehr’s composition took a more melodic route. Possibly in response to the circling falcon from the first stanza, repeated (or circling) motifs transitioned into the chaos of sharp staccato passages. The string quartet’s music then shifted to a dreamlike quality during the poem’s reflective second stanza.

Frazin’s piece commenced with River singing a cappella before a dramatic entry by the strings, the instrumentation emphasizing the sustained vocal phrasings. This work also incorporated a few recurring motifs exchanged between the viola and the cello, the instrument most closely tied to the human voice.

After the three pieces were performed, the composers invited comments from the audience. Attendees remarked on how varying musical interpretations elicited distinct emotional responses.

At times, the discussion centered on which imagery each musical work accentuated. When Ruehr pointed out that natural imagery was significant to her, an audience member mentioned that this was evident in the music: “I could hear the falcon swooping in yours.”

During the dialogue, each piece was performed again, inspiring further discussions about what each composer intended to highlight and which interpretations were the most impactful. Responses varied from technical critiques, with some listeners suggesting they detected echoes of early religious or Irish folk music within the compositions, to emotional reactions.

When Schnauber and Frazin approached the formidable “rough beast” of the second stanza, one audience member remarked that the effect was “cataclysmic.” In Ruehr’s piece, that same individual noted the effect was more “resigned.”

As the conversation shifted back to the circumstances of Yeats’ time, Frazin highlighted the contemporary relevance of the poem and the compositions it inspired.

“We’re experiencing a period that is not dissimilar to his, filled with complex emotional conflicts,” said the composer, who also acts as WordSong’s artistic director. This leads to its own inquiries: “Even if you disagree with something, determining how to respond is intricate. We must step back and consider, how did we arrive here?”

As the conversation extended well beyond the scheduled conclusion of the event, it became evident that neither the text nor the music had left the audience without words.

“Listeners grasp far more than they realize,” remarked Frazin. He credited individuals’ “intuitive artistic insight,” an understanding bolstered by the exchange of ideas.