The Long Walk Home
Nathan Keoughan; Peter Tiefenbach
Independent (canadianartsongproject.bandcamp.com/album/the-long-walk-home)
The Long Walk Home is Canadian Art Song Project’s (CASP) first independent release. Commissioned by CASP in 2015, this contemporary song cycle for baritone and piano is composed by Peter Tiefenbach with text by James Ostime. It premiered in March 2015 at U of T’s Walter Hall with baritone Geoffrey Sirett and pianist Tiefenbach. This recording features baritone Nathan Keoughan with Tiefenbach again at the piano.
This eight-movement song cycle has many musical styles like cabaret, musical theatre, Handel style operatic recitative, and art song. It tells the modern story of one man’s one-night experiences and emotional feelings. Opening Prologue starts with baritone “song” with wide ranging singing and chordal accompaniment until he meets a woman in a bar who invites him to her house. In Too Good … (To Be True…) happy singing comes to a sudden silent stop when he sees another man in her house. An abrupt musical change of pace with grief stricken operatic singing and piano support. He runs away in Outta There to theatrical running music, then quiet singing above piano chords alternating with faster more atonal music. Message Received has operatic high pitch vocals and detached piano chords as he waits for his friend’s text answer. The other movements are equally mesmerizing.
Tiefenbach’s intelligent stylistic composing and piano performances are perfect. Keoughan’s vocal career in opera, music theatre and symphonic repertoire makes for great singing here. Ostime’s well written text runs the gamut from hilarious to emotionally sad. This is unforgettable, entertaining music!!
