Krystal Productions is committed to presenting to the public the finest artistic musical and theatrical performances in the world today, specializing in contemporary artistic expression representing eternal artistic and spiritual values and dedicated to challenging the conventions of the dramatic musical theatre. Rather than attempting to impose foreign or radical structures for shock or novelty, Krystal recognizes the organic process of spiritual and artistic evolution and seeks to establish artistic strength and power through a coalescence of evolving consciousness with the traditions and culture of our civilization.
Date : Friday, April 16, 2004
Location : Weill Hall in Carnegie Hall, NYC

Krystal Classical Productions Presents
Marc Heller In Recital
in The Best Contemporary American Music

I. SONGS John Musto

1. Words To Be Spoken
(for Baoth Wiborg, son of Gerald and Sara Murphy, who died in New England in his sixteenth year; and a tree was planted there)

"O Shallow Ground
That over ledges
Shoulders the gentle year,
"Tender O shallow
Ground your grass is
Sisterly touching us:
Your trees are still:
They stand at our side in the
Night lantern.
"Sister O shallow
Ground you inherit
Death as we do.
"Your year also-
The young face.
The voice-vanishes.
"Sister O shallow
Ground let the silence of
Green be between us
And the green sound."
Text by Archibald Macleish

2. Palm Sunday: Naples

"Because it is the day of Palms,
Carry a palm for me,
Carry a palm in Santa Chiara,
And i will watch the sea.
"I sit and watch the little sail
Lean sideways on the sea,
The sea is blue from Sorrento
And the sea-wind comes to me.
I see the white clouds lift from Sorrento
And the dark sail lean upon the sea.
"I have grown tired of all these things.
And what is left for me?
I have no place in Santa Chiara,
There is no peace upon the sea;
But carry a palm in Santa Chiara,
Carry a palm for me."
Text by Arthur Simmons

3. Old Photograph

"There she is. At Antibes I’d guess
by the pines, the garden, the sea shine.
"She’s laughing. Oh, she always laughed
at cameras. She’d laugh and run
before that devil in the lens could catch her.
He’s caught her this time though: look at her
eyes-her eyes aren’t laughing.
"There’s no such thing as a fragrance in a photograph,
but this one seems to hold a fragrance
fresh-washed gingham in a summer wind.
"Old? Oh, thirty maybe. Almost thirty.
This would have been the year I went to Persia-
they called it Persia then-Shiraz,
Bushire, the Caspian, Isfahan.
She sent me the news in envelopes lined in blue.
“The children were well. The Murphys were angels:
they had given her new potatoes as sweet as peas
on a white plate under the linden tree.
She was singing Melisande with Croiza-
"’mes longs cheveux’". She was quite, quite well.
I was almost out of mind with longing for her...
There she is, that summer in Antibes-
laughing with frightened eyes."


II. SONGS (From the Song Cycle Dreams Of Love) William Maselli

1. YOUR SOUL

O love,
My spirit burns with longing.
Every piece of my essence ---
Of the Universe - - -
Seethes in swirling mysterious commanding search to union.
All is at war
And no peace can be
Without the touch
Of your soul
On mine.

2. WEDDING DAY

Today is your wedding day!
Oh Joy and sublime love!
The sun shines between the passing clouds,
And snow falls from the mountains,
And in my heart a song sounds again and again,
Lifting me to the shore
By the lake
Of my lost dreams.
Text by William Maselli

III. NEW ENGLAND TIMES AND PLACES Alfred Heller

1. The Pasture
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I shan’t be gone long,
You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young
It tot-ters when she licks it with her tongue.
I shan’t be gone long,
You come too.

2. A Minor Bird

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.

3. A Sunset Bird In Winter

The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.
In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it soft and swift.
No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on a bough
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.
From my advantage on a hill
I judged that such a crystal chill
Was only adding frost to snow
As gilt as gold that wouldn’t show.

4. Tree at My Window
Tree at my window, window tree
My sash is lowered when night comes on
But let there never be curtain drawn between you and me.
Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud
Not all your light tongues talking aloud could be profound.
But tree I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.
That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her.
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner weather.
A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke
From north to south across the blue;
A piercing little star was through.

5. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
to stop without a farm house near
Between the woods and frozen lake
the darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
to see if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep
but I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.

6. The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Text by Robert Frost

IV. CANTATA, Confessioni di Sant’Augustini Alfred Heller
(Dedicated to the Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimó honoring Renato Cardinal Martino)

quid autem amo, cum te amo?
non speciem corporis nec decus temporis,
non candorem lucis ecce istum amicum oculis,
non dulces melodias cantilenarum omnimodarum,
non florum et ungentorum et aromatum suaveolentiam,
non manna et mella, non membra acceptabilia carnis amplexibus:
non haec amo, cum amo deum meum.
et tamen amo quandam lucem et quandam vocem
et quendam odorem et quendam cibum
et quendam amplexum,
cum amo deum meum,
lucem, vocem, odorem, cibum,
amplexum interioris hominis mei,
ubi fulget animae meae,
quod non capit locus,
et ubi sonat, quod non rapit tempus,
et ubi olet, quod non spargit flatus,
et ubi sapit, quod non minuit edacitas,
et ubi haeret, quod non divellit satietas.
hoc est quod amo, cum deum meum amo.


“What is it that I love in loving Thee? Not corporeal beauty, nor the splendour of time, nor the radiance of the light, so pleasant to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of all kinds, nor the fragrant scent of flowers, and ointments, and spices, not manna and honey, not limbs pleasant to the embracements of flesh. I love not these things when I love my God; and yet I love a certain kind of light, and sound, and fragrance, and food, and embracement in loving my God, who is the light, sound, fragrance, food, and embracement of my inner man-- where that light shineth unto my soul which no place can contain, where that soundeth which time snatcheth not away, where there is a fragrance which no breeze disperseth, where there is a food which no eating can diminish, and where that clingeth which no satiety can sunder. This is what I love, when I love my God.”


V. PRELUDES Alfred Heller

1.
The winter evening settles down
With smells of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots
And the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps
And then the lighting of the lamps.

2.
The morning comes so consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

3.
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watch the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
Ant the light crept between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,**
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

4.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of the blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled***
Around these images, and cling;
The nation of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hands across your mouth, and laugh;
The world revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

Text by T.S. Eliot

VI. SONGS John Musto

1. Nude at the Piano

"Here I sit,
Nude at the piano,
on this cold, cold stool.
I got with me here
A bottle of beer
And I’m feeling like a fool.

"And while I
Brood at the piano
You are somewhere faraway.
So I sit and I freeze
And I stare at the keys
Wishing I knew how to play.

"I would jump
Off the Verrazano
but I’m really just too blue...

"So I sit,
Nude at the piano,
The piano
I bought for you."
Text by Mark Campbell

2. Witness

"no time ago
or else a life
walking in the dark
i met christ
(jesus) my heart
flopped over
and lay still
while he passed (as
close as i’m to you
yes closer
made of nothing
except loneliness"
Text by e.e. cummings

3. San Jose Symphony Reception
(in flagrante delecto)

"The bald man in plaid playing the harpsichord
stopped short and sidled over to the sideboard
and copped a piece of Moka on a silver plate
and slid back and started playing again
some kind of Hungarian rhapsodate
while the lady in the green eyeshades
leaned over him exuding
admiration and lust
Half-notes danced & tumbled
out of his instrument
exuding a faint odor of chocolate cake
In the corner I was taking
a course in musical destruction from the dark lady cellist
who bent over me with her bow unsheathed
and proceeded to saw me in half
As a consequence my pants fell right off
revealing a badly bent trombone which
even the first flutist
who had perfect embouchure
couldn’t straighten out
Text by Lawrence Ferlinghetti


4. Flamenco

"I once met a flamenco guitarist,
in Spain, in Granada,
an AMERICAN flamenco guitarist,
and Jewish, of all things,
who played like a fiend.
"He called himself "’Juan’",
then something with an "’S’",
not the "’S’" it had been,
but Solares or Sastres:
whatever; he played like a fiend.
"He lived in a run-down hotel
which really was a whorehouse,
he told me; though mostly
what he told me were lies,
he did play like a fiend.
That he was an addict
he didn’t say, but every few hours
he went for a shot,
because he was sick, he said:
but he played like a fiend.
"Or perhaps I should say,
"’played like a fiend when he played’",
because he was often "’nodding’",
and no one asleep plays like a fiend.
"How had it happened?
Who knows" It happened to him,
it could happen to you,
"or to me, and I for one
never played like a fiend.
"He lived in a whorehouse
and lied and played like a fiend.
Should there be more?
There’s no more.
Just that he played like a fiend."
Text by C.K. Williams

VII. ARIAS from the opera Spirit Fire William Maselli

1. THE SEA
My lover is the Sea
And in her depths I breathed
Flourishing in radiant harmonies of sunlight
Drawn within the deep embrace of her massive soul
But I was cast out onto land
To wander within the dry kiss of shallow soil
To gaze in distance and in grief
At the majesty of the horizon eyes that forever blind and escape
But I drew close to the sea
And have touched her sandy shore
And in fine moments of destiny
I have lain by the waters that rush to the sea
And placed my hands in to the flow of her mystic sources
And lain in chaste embrace
Upon the mist of the breath of her soul
But from those unseen depths of desperate desire
And unfathomable reaches of spirit sway
I am forever banished
The sea is my lover and I taste her still

2. LITTLE BIRD
Little Bird
I seek for you in darkened skies
I call for you with silent cries
What vision can you bear to me
Across the sea of Eternity?
Little Bird
Who sang in time with Love’s sweet rhyme
Floating on the winds of Time
Still pouring forth her melodies
Upon the breeze of Eternity!
I remember you O Timeless One!
I soared upon your wings
Little Bird
Once captured in a mortal cage
Your beauty conquered mortal rage
A precious gift you gave to me
Eternity in your love
Scene sounds the distant glow of passion past
O lightning flash!
Calm, my heart, at last!
I remember you O wondrous one
I sheltered ‘neath your wings
Little Bird
We conjure Life’s Immortal Glow
I stroke the stream our spirit’s flow
I never could erase your pain
Man’s tragedies remain!
But still my little bluebird sings
In my heart for all Eternity!

3. LAMENT

How can I make you feel
The pure spirit of my love
And send the light of my devotion
Into your heart so strong that it shines in your eyes
It is my wish and only dream
That the pure spirit of my love
Forever shines in your eyes
To light the stars
So my love and soul
And all Eternity ---
Through my love for you ---
Are One.

4. THE DREAM

In a dream that seemed so magical
All the world was bathed in blue
And the brilliance of your eyes so true captivated
Everything I ever thought I knew
All the wisdom of the sky
All the beauty that surrounds you
The dream! that made you clear to me.
Deep inside the forest where you hide
Shrouded by the silence there
Melodies that travel from your soul mystify me
Drifting from the dark and weary world
Dreaming visions follow you
And the magic that you shine upon the sleeping children
Dream! that brings your love to me.
All of the world is just a dream to me
And in your eyes I see Love’s light
Visions in whispers of your melodies
The memories that keep me alive
In your kiss the stars shine paradise
In the touch of your skin the world is born
And in the secrets of your mystery
I fly in timeless melody
In a corner of the universe in black’ning shade
We are driven to embrace the stormy(winter) night
And in time all the shining fire of Love’s desire
Is encircled by the shading dance of night
In this world I can dream of your love for me
In this night I can will the world aflame
But you with your silence and scornful air
Crucify my heart, my soul, my brain
Deep in embers of your fading glow
Burn the fires of passion’s dance
Images of beauty you inspire romance me
Not a thing that you can say or do
Silences the starry sky
And the magic that you beam upon my sleeping spirit
Dream! that brings your love to me.