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I Hate Music, cycle of "5 kid songs" for soprano & piano
Bernstein dedicated this song cycle to the artist Edys Merrill, with whom Bernstein shared an apartment in New York. A close friend of the composer's, she remembered that "I hate music" is what she used to shout, walking around the room with her hands over her ears, while Bernstein coached opera singers, improvised and clowned around.
At only seven minutes long, I Hate Music is a charming and easy-going cycle, examining childhood curiosities and mysteries, as well as exploring the word "music" and its associated experiences and meanings. Bernstein wrote the short poems for the cycle himself, and their diversity of expression is paralleled in his musical settings. Although they share a number of characteristics, namely disjointed melodic contours and sudden changes of mood and tempo, each seems to occupy its own expressive world; some are very genuine in expression, while others have a guile that reveals a more sophisticated viewpoint than that of their supposed child protagonist. The second song of the cycle, "Jupiter has Seven Moons," bears a striking similarity to "Oh! what a movie!" from Bernstein's 1951 one-act drama Trouble in Tahiti.
The opening selection, "My Name is Barbara," ponders the age-old childhood puzzle of where babies come from--and this kid isn't swallowing the usual explanations--while the text of the second song, "Jupiter has Seven Moons," contemplates the idea of multiple moons revolving around earth. The third song, "I Hate Music!" takes on the whimsical motto "I Hate Music! But I like to sing," with the quip, "Music is a lot of men in a lot of tails...with a lot of chairs, and a lot of airs, and a lot of furs and diamonds!" The fourth selection, "A Big Indian and a Little Indian (Riddle Song)," is a riddle about two Indians that plays on a person's expectations, and the final song, "I'm a Person Too," is a lighthearted meditation on childhood curiosity and knowledge.
Bernstein's friend Jennie Tourel included I Hate Music in her New York debut recital at Town Hall on November 1943. The cycle was described by one New York critic at the time as "witty, alive and adroitly fashioned." ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide
At only seven minutes long, I Hate Music is a charming and easy-going cycle, examining childhood curiosities and mysteries, as well as exploring the word "music" and its associated experiences and meanings. Bernstein wrote the short poems for the cycle himself, and their diversity of expression is paralleled in his musical settings. Although they share a number of characteristics, namely disjointed melodic contours and sudden changes of mood and tempo, each seems to occupy its own expressive world; some are very genuine in expression, while others have a guile that reveals a more sophisticated viewpoint than that of their supposed child protagonist. The second song of the cycle, "Jupiter has Seven Moons," bears a striking similarity to "Oh! what a movie!" from Bernstein's 1951 one-act drama Trouble in Tahiti.
The opening selection, "My Name is Barbara," ponders the age-old childhood puzzle of where babies come from--and this kid isn't swallowing the usual explanations--while the text of the second song, "Jupiter has Seven Moons," contemplates the idea of multiple moons revolving around earth. The third song, "I Hate Music!" takes on the whimsical motto "I Hate Music! But I like to sing," with the quip, "Music is a lot of men in a lot of tails...with a lot of chairs, and a lot of airs, and a lot of furs and diamonds!" The fourth selection, "A Big Indian and a Little Indian (Riddle Song)," is a riddle about two Indians that plays on a person's expectations, and the final song, "I'm a Person Too," is a lighthearted meditation on childhood curiosity and knowledge.
Bernstein's friend Jennie Tourel included I Hate Music in her New York debut recital at Town Hall on November 1943. The cycle was described by one New York critic at the time as "witty, alive and adroitly fashioned." ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide
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