A Guide to the Life Expectancy of a Rose

1956

17 minutes

Scene for Soprano, Tenor, flute, violin, ‘cello, clarinet and harp

S.R. Tilley, from an article in the New York Times garden section.

Bethsabée de Rothschild Foundation

May 15, 1956, Rothschild Foundation, New York City, Bethany Beardslee, soprano, Earl Rogers, tenor, Jacques Monod, conductor

Available on demo CD

1. Longevity an interesting point on which to speculate
2. Some must be discarded
3. Replacement and survival
4. Ramblers and climbers
5. Protection and mortality

“What’s your dark meaning of this light word?” (Shakespeare, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Act V scene II)

Stage Directions: The scene takes place against a curtain backdrop. The sole piece of furniture is a chaise-longue, on which the woman is reclining when the scene opens. The man is standing in back of the chaise-longue. The instruments may be placed onstage to the left of the performers, if so desired. (The stage directions are to serve as suggestions for actions and can be altered.)

This work is a kind of fantasy, sometimes serious, sometimes ironic or humorous, in which the overt meaning of the text should not be taken literally. It deals with growth, replacement, survival and being in a relationship. The directions in the score are only suggestions and may be changed and elaborated upon freely. A chaise-longue is a suggested prop. The singers could wear formal evening dress. In the version directed by Martha Graham for the Composers’ Forum in New York City the instrumentalists sat on one side of the stage, the action taking place on the other side. Miss Graham dressed the singers in formal clothes of the Edwardian period. In addition, she used three male dancers, who set the stage with artificial rosebushes in pots, and who were utilized during pauses between sections. The work may also be performed as a concert piece.

–Vivian Fine, notes to the score

 

Although the text is a straightforward discussion about the growing habits of various kinds of roses, such as floribunda, hybrid tea roses, and climbers, Fine saw an opportunity to consider the text as a metaphor for human relationships. Her previous work with dance composition, especially Doris Humphrey’s The Race of Life, fueled Fine’s imagination for considering Tilly’s article about growing roses as a scene, much like a chamber opera Fine divided the article into five sections: (1) “Longevity an interesting point on which to speculate,” (2) “Some must be discarded,” (3) “Replacement and survival,” (4) “Ramblers and climbers,” and (5) “Protection and mortality.” She indicated certain props and actions for the soprano and tenor. Martha Graham directed the première, which was May 15, 1956, at her dance studio. In notes which accompany the score Fine described the staging: “In the version directed by Martha Graham for the Composers’ Forum in New York City the instrumentalists sat on one side of the stage, the action taking place on the other side. Miss Graham dressed the singers in formal clothes of the Edwardian period. In addition, she used three male dancers, who set the stage with artificial rose bushes in pots, and who were utilized during pauses between sections.” Fine’s sense of humor and compositional talent merged to produce one of her finest compositions and a predecessor for her future operas.
     Although A Guide to the Life Expectancy of a Rose is not recorded professionally, there is a tape recording of the première, and what is immediately apparent from listening is the text’s clarity. The audience’s laughter recorded on the tape confirms this fact. Fine knows how to compose for singers so that every word is audible. There are some spoken words, sections of recitative, duets, solos, and a short spoken passage resembling sprechstimme. Her keen sense of rhythmic flow complements the text’s natural declamation, plus her innate musical hearing allows her to write lines that enhance the words. Fine reported that she heard the piece while she was composing it and composed it chronologically and in full score….
     The instrumental ensemble of flute, violin, clarinet, ‘cello, and harp provides color and texture. Sometimes vocal lines are doubled or punctuated by the ensemble. At other times the instrumental counterpoint provides a further commentary about the text such as the twisting lines that begin section four, “Ramblers and climbers” or an ostinato that accompanies the woman’s text discussing a rosebush’s healthy roots. There are several instances in which an instrument acts as a vocalist. An especially interesting example is when the male vocalist chants a text “there are ever so many conditions that influence longevity” while accompanied by a solo pizzicato cello line that was a melody he had sung four measures previously, creating a situation in while he is singing against himself. A Guide to the Life Expectancy of a Rose is sixteen minutes long, and the listener hears it as one complete work. Sections are apparent by staging directions, which Fine included in the score….Short instrumental introductions set the mood, except for the last section, which functions as a recapitulation repeating previous music from sections one and two, which have been adjusted for text considerations.

–Heidi Von Gunden, The Music of Vivian Fine, Scarecrow Press, 1999

 

A Guide [became] one of Fine’s most successful and often-discussed works. In this piece, which is scored for two solo voices (soprano and tenor) and chamber ensemble (five instruments: flute, violin, clarinet, cello, and harp—the pick of the “softer instruments,” as described by Riegger), the element of humor surfaces once again. Fine tells how she discovered the piece’s title and its story.
     ”A Guide to the Life Expectancy of a Rose” is the exact name of an article that appeared in The New York Times Garden Section [by S.R. Tilley]… I just loved the title; I just saw it and I remember clipping it out. It seemed to me so beautiful. A guide to the life expectancy of a rose; it’s just sheer poetry. Of course, for something to strike you, there has to be something cooking inside yourself. Sometimes you’re not aware of what’s cooking. You’re made aware that something is taking place inside by response to something that one comes across on the outside… It [A Guide] tells about the growing of roses, what will live and what will die, and what has to be pruned away. This became a dialogue about the relationship between this man and this woman, expressed through this language of growing roses.
     Fine’s setting of the text is what gives this work its humor and glorious appeal. Wallingford Riegger says, “By the use of exaggerated stresses and cleverly prosody she has transformed the pedestrian seriousness of the words into something hilariously funny.” The “serious” words to which he refers are phrases such as, “there are no tables of life expectancy,” and “it is impossible to quote any real statistics as to the longevity of a rosebush.” The instrumental ensemble underscores such words’ meanings and descriptions, at times using contrapuntal devices, such as inversion and three-part canon.

–Leslie Jones, “The Solo Piano Music of Vivian Fine,” Doctor of music arts thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1994

“…By the use of exaggerated stresses and clever prosody [Fine] has transformed the pedestrian seriousness of the words into something hilariously funny.”

–Wallingford Riegger, Bulletin of the American Composers Alliance, (1958)

 

“…the most entertaining work at the Composer’s Forum.”

–The New York Times, February 15, 1959

 

“Soon, however, [Fine] returned to her dissonant style, though now less forbidding and with a wider expressive range, including a delightful sense of humour, as is evident in A Guide to the Life Expectancy of a Rose.”

–Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, Julie Anne Sadie and Rhan Samuel, editors, Macmillan Press, 1995

Ramblers and Climbers

Climbing roses are notably long-lived. Many specimens 50 to100 years of age can be found around the country. The rambler type, with its clusters of small blossoms, will survive all sorts of conditions, but the newer large-flowered climber cannot be relied on in al cases. Quick changes of climate may kill the budded graft; in the North cold and frost may cause death; in the South heat and dryness may be equally destructive. In the temperate states of this country there is a wide choice of good climbing roses that have proved thrifty through many years. This group includes Bloomfield Courage, clusters of crimson flowers are followed with many scarlet berries; Dr. Huey, fiery maroon, red flowers which are long-lasting; Evangeline, pale pink, a good one, and vivid Paul’s Scarlet. The climber Dr. W. Van Vleet with pale pink blossoms was the first of a new race of climbers introduced in 1910. It has proved to be the forerunner of many fine climbing roses, such as American Pillar, Alida Lovett, Mary Wallace. Silver Moon with pure white flowers is said to carry a strain of the old Cherokee rose.