Stories Out of Cherry Stems

As meticulous as Peter Dayton is in his music, he gives equal attention to words. As he tells it, it is through poetry that he first began exploring ideas of structure in art, long before turning to music. Each of the four sets of songs on STORIES OUT OF CHERRY STEMS deal with different texts in inventive, often surprising ways. All of them feature the talents of soprano Katie Procell, who brings an expressive and singular performance to each piece. There is a natural, effortless quality to the vocal lines, which is as much a credit to Dayton’s compositions as to Procell’s interpretations. None of this musical material is simple, yet every line spills from the tongue as if it could not have been uttered in any other way.

The conviction of these performances is evidence of the close working relationship between the composer and singer, who met in 2018 when Dayton attended a concert Procell was giving of Olivier Messiaen’s Harawi (1945). Stunned by her performance, Dayton introduced himself and suggested working together on a future concert. Numerous collaborations quickly blossomed between the singer and composer, including the two pieces which bookend this album: Entwine Our Tongues: Sapphic Fragments (2019) and Desiderata: Ten Pieces of Wisdom (2020).

In Entwine Our Tongues, Procell sings with four reed instruments: two oboes and two clarinets (with doubles on English horn and bass clarinet). The texts come from Jordi Alonso’s Honeyvoiced (2014), a book of poems based on the writings of Sappho. The song cycle opens with a flurry of activity in the instruments and an immediate bold entrance from Procell. Dense, shimmering harmonies vanish as quickly as they arrive, while Procell’s grounding melody holds everything together. A truly standout moment of this piece is the penultimate movement, in which Procell is left unaccompanied to maneuver through complexly sensuous lines set to a text describing the hope that her desires might coincide with another’s. The absence of the ensemble here is as palpable as is Procell’s total self-sufficiency in her a capella performance. The moment her solo ends, the reeds re-enter, launching the listener into the final, gently rocking movement.

The other ensemble piece of this album is Lost Daughter: Songs on the Myth of Persephone (2020/2021), for soprano, flute, viola, and harp. Dayton selected each text of this cycle from a different source and time period, exploring various aspects of motherhood and grief. The piece begins plaintively; the three instruments seem at times to be a one instrument-assemblage: a strange and subtle organ. Procell’s dramatic and technical facility is on full display. She floats delicately over the top of the instruments, suddenly shifting her weight into heavier lines. Gentle gliding tones burst into nimble chromatic runs and wide leaps, then settle back into steady low incantations, barely above a whisper. Contrasting the first four movements, Dayton casts the fifth almost entirely as a spoken narration of Louise Glück’s Persephone, the Wanderer (2006), while the three instruments weave around each other in careful heterophony. Procell is equally expressive in her dramatic reading as in her singing, bringing out all the wit and insight of Glück’s modern commentary on the ancient myth.

The remaining pieces are duets between Procell and a single instrument. Si Solamente (2017), for soprano and cello, sets three poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Each deals in its own way with intimacy, with presence and absence. In three long movements, this piece is a haunting tour de force for both singer and cellist. There are two striking moments of athletic vocalization from Procell in the second movement. In the third movement, the singer muses on a paradoxical desire for a lover’s silence in order to more fully feel their presence through the possibility of that silence being broken. Dayton avoids any obvious renderings of silence in this movement. His use of a simple vocal melody anchors the poem’s strophic form, while the cello moves through variations on a two-note repeating phrase, constantly reinventing itself but retaining its essential identity.

Desiderata, for soprano and saxophone, opens by invoking a similar theme, as Procell reminds the listener to “remember what peace there may be in silence.” The performance of this piece’s ten aphorisms — each punctuated by its own brief silence — matches the sincerity and humility of the text. Every one of these miniatures is as complete a composition as any of the longer movements on this album. Within them is found the same commitment to melody and line, the same careful attention to detail that characterizes Dayton’s style. There is a persistent tension between simplicity and complexity delicately threaded through all these songs: twisted stems of cherries from which stories are spun. Each story is given a charismatic life by Procell and her fellow performers.

— Stuart Wheeler