Voyages - For Baritone and Piano

VOYAGES was commissioned in 1986 by baritone David Stephens for the New Music Festival sponsored by the School of Music at Florida State University. It was premiered by David Stephens accompanied by the composer at the Dohnányi Recital Hall in Tallahassee, Florida, on 28 April 1988. A song cycle for high baritone, Voyages consists of tonal musical settings for Hart Crane’s six love poems (said to be inspired by his relationship with Emil Opffer, a blond, blue-eyed sailor from Denmark) published under the title of 'Voyages' in his collection, White Buildings: Poems (1926). 'Above the fresh ruffles of the surf' launches the series in a buoyant musical setting, while 'And yet this great wink of eternity' follows with a musically passionate and majestic tone. 'Infinite consanguinity it bears' composed as a lyrically expressive adagio, and the quasi recitative 'Whose counted smile of hours and days' give rise to a folk-like setting of 'Meticulous, past midnight in clear rime,' the accompaniment to which develops into a kind of perpetual motion as the voice climbs ardently to its highest notes. Recapitulating the buoyant tone of the first song, 'Where icy and bright dungeons lift' ends the cycle in a bravura musical tour de force. John Franceschina, composer, has created scores for the National Shakespeare Company and the Provincetown Playhouse in New York City, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, Baltimore’s Center Stage, Washington’s Ford’s Theatre and the Arena Stage, the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Florida Studio Theatre, Geva Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Papermill Playhouse, Music Theatre Works, and the Moscow Art Theatre, in addition to the Asolo State Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, where he acted as composer-in-residence from 1976 to 1993. His Fanfare for the Fiftieth was commissioned by Philippe Entremont for the fiftieth anniversary of the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra in 1985; his secular oratorio, Houtebeen, for male chorus, string orchestra and accordion ensemble, toured the Netherlands in 2014, his opera, Scenes from the Jungle toured the Netherlands in 2019, and his secular cantata, Joppenszoon, toured the Netherlands in 2024-2025.