Alphabetical Ashbery: Baritone Voice

Wuorinen's choice to set John Ashbery's deliberately disjunctive poetry creates music that mirrors the text's linguistic playfulness rather than smoothing it over. This is contemporary vocal writing with serious literary ambitions; singers who take it on develop an ear for how text and tone can resist easy resolution.

Intellectually sharp and occasionally unsettling, moving through fragmented musical gestures that feel simultaneously precise and searching. The music honors Ashbery's fractured syntax while creating moments of unexpected lyricism that catch you off guard.

Advanced baritones with strong contemporary music experience and the interpretive flexibility to handle Ashbery's fractured, witty sensibility. This is study material for singers preparing serious art song recitals and for graduate-level vocal programs emphasizing 20th- and 21st-century repertoire.

• Treat the alphabetical structure as a compositional fact, not a gimmick; each letter group has its own harmonic and rhythmic logic that unfolds across the 72 pages.
• Lean into the intervals without forcing them into traditional phrase shapes; Wuorinen's voice leading often privileges the leap over the smooth scalar line.
• Work closely with your pianist on ensemble integrity; the relationship between voice and piano is often disjunct by design, requiring absolute clarity on both parts to land the musical meaning.

Feature this in a recital devoted to American art song or poetry settings; its length and intensity make it a substantial work worthy of a full first half on a concert. Alternatively, pair it with shorter Ashbery settings or Wuorinen works to build a thematic program around postmodern American composition.

• Reading and interpreting disjunct melodic lines and chromatic intervals
• Sustaining musical coherence across fragmented structures
• Coordinating rhythmic independence between voice and piano
• Interpreting contemporary poetry through musical setting
• Building expressive nuance in atonal and post-tonal contexts