Toward the end of his long life - a life that encompassed cataclysms both political and artistic - Richard Strauss quipped that he had “actually outlived himself.” A laconic man of breezy talent and moral ambivalence, Strauss seems, in the end, to have retreated entirely from his present circumstances, taking refuge in a nostalgic dream, composing impertubably charming, and occasionally exquisite music (notably his Four Last Songs) - a music so out of touch with history as to sound, paradoxically, more disturbing than the efforts of his avant-garde contemporaries.

Seventy-five years later, we stand on the brink of a transformation more far-reaching than anything Strauss could have imagined. It seems likely that Artificial Intelligence will alter the landscape of reality beyond recognition - though whether this will be for the better or for the worse is uncertain.

Either way, and from the relatively narrow perspective of human creativity, musicians, poets, and painters may be fading away in the shadow of machines, their psychological groping, their methodical lumbering replaced, in short order, by superior products rendered effortlessly by thoughtless automatons. We’ll all be out of our jobs.

And so I find myself, in 2023, in a position similar to that of Strauss - the position of turning away from an uncertain future ( the problem for the next generation) and looking back with fondness and regret at the passing of a way of living and making music. For me that has manifest, over the last couple of years, in a return to the musical style I employed back in my formative years - a style to which I’ve returned not only with renewed enthusiasm but hopefully with the benefit of experience. Other examples of this style are the Souvenirs d’Ete in What WIld Hope and the Eight Sketches After Joan Mitchell in Videos.

To that category I now add my own Five Last Songs; the title may not turn out literally to be accurate, but it expresses the sense of arriving at a terminal point: artistically, the future is a wall, the past is refuge, and more than ever before, the human aspects of music - the inspiration of poetry, the natural predilections of the voice, the impulse to imitate what we admire in our predecessors, even the inevitable lapses and flaws - are celebrated here, while all traces of stylistic anxiety (the quest for originality having been abandoned) disappear. In a few years such concerns will have lost their meaning anyway. In a few more, no one will be listening to these songs (they are for now). In a generation or two maybe even Bach won’t matter. To this I respond: it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t matter.

Meanwhile, what could be more human than family and friends? The first three performances recorded here are sung by my former student Henry Griffin, the last two by my brother Joe and my sister-in-law Lisa, while the supporting instrumentalists for these are also former students (Sergio, Gabriel, Zuoliang, and Conor). Together, they created an atmosphere of palpable joy.

Here are the texts for the songs:

Annabel Lee

‘Twas many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea

That a maid there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee,

And this maid she lived with no other thought than to love and be love by me.

(Ulalume!)

Oh I was a child, and she was a child, in that kingdom by the sea,

And we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee.

With a love the winged angels of heaven coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago, in that kingdom by the sea,

A wind came out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel Lee.

So her high-born kinsmen came and bore her away from me

To shut her up in a sepulchre in that kingdom by the sea.

(Ulalume!)

But the moon never beams without sending me dreams of my beautiful Annabel Lee,

And so all the night-tide I lay down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

The Troubadour’s Song

If I’m the sun then you’re the one

For whom I set and rise each day,

The one for whom I rise each day.

If you’re the moon which brightens night

Then I’m the poet you delight,

The poet whom you delight.

But if you will not take my heart,

Take this small music, my best part,

This music, my best part.

La Belle Dame sans Merci

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake and no bird sings.

I see a lily on they brow with anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheek a fading rose fast withereth too.

“I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful, a fairy’s child.

Her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head, and bracelets too and fragrant zone.

She looked at me as she did love and made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed and nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong she would bend and sing a fairy’s song.

She took me to her elfin grot, and there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild, wild eyes with kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep, and there I dreamt - ah! - woe betide! -

The latest dream I ever dreamt, on the fair hill’s side.

I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all,

They cried: “La Belle Dame sans merci that thee in thrall!”

I saw their starved lips in the gloam, with horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here on the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering,

Though the sede is withered from the hedge and no birds sing.

La Belle Dame sans merci hath me on thrall.”

Ca Doit Etre Comme Ca

I hear a melody from long ago

Sung by a troubadour I used to know,

And though it stirs remembrance in my heart

The vision’s fugitive, ca doit etre comme ca.

Before my wandering gaze, like a mirage,

A long-lost love appears with beau visage,

But when she smiles at me then I can tell

It is another girl, ce n’est pas elle.

Ah, though we search the world around

Those things we’ve lost cannot be found,

All is but epigone and pale facsimile;

Yesterdays’s beauty fades away,

Why do we hope again today?

I guess it has to be that way:

Ca doit etre comme ca.

And so for temps perdu we search in vain,

Without that madeleine it’s simply not the same.

So take my hand, my dear, before I’m gone:

Love’s happens here and now -

Ca doit etre comme ca.

In the Shadow of Machines

Oh, I met a man from Dover coming down the mountain path

With a satchel on his shoulder; on his arm a bonny lass.

But they smiled not at my greeting as they hurried on their way;

Then he turned and said, “This is the world’s last day.”

So they went down to the harbor where the long ships waiting lay,

And the captain gave the order and they sailed out of the bay.

And then one last time the church bell chimed: they turned upon its knell;

As they waved I thought, “This is the last farewell.”

They went down, they went down,

In the shadow of machines they went down.

Move aside, good Sir Walter; shake a leg now, Willy Boy.

Lay aside your grim remonstrance, leave Macbeth and leave Rob Roy,

And a hundred thousand lays unwritten ‘cross a thousand springs

That the young and lovestruck shepherds used to sing.

Yes and farewell, good Trelawne, farewell  Meg and Peg and Kate;

Goodbye Penny, Benny, Seanny, by the flowering garden gate.

Though the thrush still gilds the myrtle there’ll be none to hear him sing

But a god-forsaken, heartless metal thing.

They go down, they go down,

In the shadow of machines they go down.

I cried, “‘Neath your shining armor you’re a hollow drum of tin!”

He said, “Father, I am but your next of kin.

And if something’s lost, then something’s gained - the master’s changed the tune,

So take your songs and your belongings and make room.”

We go down, we go down,

In the shade of the machines we go down.

Come down Jesus from your cross at last, there’s no one left to save,

All the saints and all the sinners have arisen from their graves

And been judged to be irrelevant - their heaven and their hell

Is to sleep beneath the shadow of machines.