M: Well, Kandinsky is probably my favorite painter, and my friend John McDonald told me that Kandinsky wrote this book of poetry called “Klänge.” So, I got the book and it had these woodcuts that were meant to illustrate the poems and I just completely fell in love with the poetry. It was as if he could make these paintings and put them into words, so I felt like this was an opportunity for me to set his paintings to music, if that makes any sense at all. The very first time I set his poetry, I set the English translation and realized, once I started on the German, that the English translation didn’t really cut it because it only sort of gave the meaning but not really the sounds of the words, and the sounds of the words are as important as the words themselves. So with Lenz, it’s one poem but is in three parts, and I originally set that poem as part of a larger piece for soprano solo and I realized that it could be a little song cycle all by itself. I took a circuitous path, but that is why I chose that text. I love Lenz. I love the sounds of the words. I love what they say. I love the images.

C: So, when you were setting the text, what came first for you? Did you pick the text first and then work on the voice line, or did the piano come first? 

M: Oh, that’s a good question! So the very first thing I do when I’m setting a text is write it out by hand so I can really feel and understand the words. Then, I draw pictures or think about what the images are. I got a very clear sense of atmosphere for all three sections of Lenz and the piano kind of came first, in a way, because the piano is illuminating the texture. But the voice part was right on the heels of that for sure.

C: I think that’s so interesting because it seems like so many composers think that the voice must always come first and is most important and lean into the idea of the instrumentals only serving as accompaniment. 

M: Well, you know, it depends on the piece, but I never really think of voice and accompaniment. It’s always more like a chamber piece with voice and piano together. I haven’t written that much music for voice and piano, actually. I just have one other piece. The first Kandinsky poem I ever set was for voice, piano, and double bass, but this is really only one of a few pieces for voice and piano and I definitely saw them as two integrated, equal members of a chamber ensemble.

C: So with that being said, can you talk a bit more about the piano line and how it supports the meaning of the text and the images you had in your mind? 

M: I don’t have the score here so I’m just going from memory, but I think the first section has this rocking motion in the poem itself. That’s why the piano part is like this odd, sort of cyclical thing. The second one is all about different colors — blue and yellow flecks — and that was very important to the whole image of the movement. And then the last one refers to boiling water and that was really… I don’t know. There was this pain in the imagery, but a beautiful kind of pain, if that makes any sense. So, I think that this isn’t really that different from how I think about anything that I write, which is I get a sonic image in my head that makes perfect but unexplainable sense to me. It’s hard to put into words, so I don’t know if that makes any sense at all.

C: That makes complete sense to me, I totally get it! So, I was reading on your website about how you describe your music as being longing or expressing some sort of sadness. Do you think Lenz falls into that aesthetic as well? 

M: Definitely. I don’t try to do that, but it comes up in pretty much every piece that I write. I wrote a piano concerto for Kevin Madison and I felt like when I was writing the piece that it was filled with joy and this incredible positive expression. I listened to it in the dress rehearsal and was like, “This piece is sad, too!” Well, not really sad, but melancholy or nostalgic or something. But I don’t even think about it. It just comes up in almost every single piece I’ve ever written.

C: Yeah, I think pure joy is one of the hardest things to get across through music. 

M: Yeah! There’s only one piece I know of that I think is like that from start to finish and that’s Music for 18 Musicians. From start to finish it is just pure joy and I feel so happy when I hear that piece.

C: Yes, I totally agree! Now I noticed that Lenz was written for specific people who did not do the first performance.

M: They never did it. So, it was written for a baritone named Stephen Salters. This has happened to me a couple of times: knowing what my music sounds like, he asked me for a piece and I agreed. He has a beautiful, beautiful voice and when I delivered the piece, he told me that he wasn’t really sure he’d be able to program it because he didn’t think it was audience friendly. He asked if could I maybe fix it or add a fast section or something, and when people say things like that to me I think that I don’t want them to ever perform my music because they’re not going to understand what I’m saying. They’re not going to understand or get deep into the insides of the music. So I said, “No, I can’t do that,” and he said, “Okay, well I don’t think I’m going to be able to program it.” So, then, fast-forward to Jonathan Nussman who went to Boston Conservatory and heard my opera Rumpelstiltskin. He asked me if I had any music for baritone and piano. I told him I have a piece that’s never been performed and he goes, “Oh my God, can I do the premiere?” I asked Stephen Salters if Jonathan could do the premiere and he never answered me, so I thought, “That’s my answer.” So, Jonathan did the premiere and that’s the recording that I have, and then he and I performed it at Berklee but I didn’t get a recording of that. But he sings it very, very beautifully and he understands it and he really gets into the innards of the piece. Things worked out in funny ways in how I was disappointed when David didn’t do it but very happy that Jonathan did it and did it so beautifully.

C: Is there anything from Jonathan’s performance that you’d like to see reflected in future performances of the piece? 

M: Everything, pretty much. Jonathan is a really smart singer and has an excellent sense of rhythm — probably the best sense of rhythm I’ve ever heard in a singer — and working with him was really enlightening for me. I’ve accompanied for a lot of singers and it’s a misconception that singers don’t have good rhythm, but at the same time I wasn’t expecting him to be even as accurate as he was and it was really great to work with him. Not only was he rhythmically accurate, but his tone quality was great and he really understood when he should have a little more vibrato or a little less vibrato. I really have no complaints. Not only do I have no complaints about the performance, but I think his is sort of a standard for that piece.

C: Last question: how do you think Lenz has informed your compositional voice and how has your voice changed since composing that piece? 

M: That’s a really interesting question because I wrote that piece about twenty years ago, and in most ways, actually, it’s similar to the way my music sounds now. My music now is a bit less fragmented. Most of the pieces I write have longer lines and a longer trajectory, and I think if I