Lamenting Earth. Nicholas Phan, tenor; Myra Huang, piano; Jasper Quartet. AVIE Records (AV2828). Total time: 62:25
DIGITAL REVIEW — “Falling out of winter’s fingers and into wastelands of untimely births, a pale, forsaken petal sinks.”
Those vivid, distressing words were written by Sophia Shao, one of nine students at Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School in New York whose poetry is included in the libretto of Lamenting Earth. The song cycle, with music by Vivian Fung, was premiered in 2024 by tenor Nicholas Phan, who has now released the world-premiere recording of the climate-change-themed work for tenor, string quartet, and piano.
Fung’s initial inspiration — and the core of the libretto — was Claire Wahmanholm’s poem “O,” using words such as “osprey,” “ocean,” and “ozone” to speak poetically about the deteriorating climate. Wahmanholm also helped shape the student contributions. The result is a text of surprising range and shocking twists: The beautiful “natural” world as first described is revealed to be an artificial replacement; we find ourselves in a harsh, barren reality that humanity could have prevented.
The Jasper String Quartet and pianist Myra Huang provide an illusory lushness reminiscent of Britten in the opening movement, “November Blooming,” with musical hints of trouble on words like “ominous.” This contrasts with the insect-like, threatening scurry of “Lament,” revealing the environmental truth. “O” follows, growing slowly upward from the bottom of the performers’ registers, textured with fast string crossings and burbling piano left hand.
Phan’s voice, although sometimes over-vibrated, is always expressive, committed to the poetry, and integrated with the instrumental parts. The final movement, “Vast, Green,” has a through line of quiet sorrow, admiring nature while also grieving for it.
Preceding Lamenting Earth is an eclectic mix of works. As Phan has said of the project, it considers nature from differing perspectives: “that we are a part of it, and that we are separate from it,” with the latter implying that humans feel empowered to “subjugate and control” nature rather than “understand its rhythms and harmonies in order to live within its bounds.”
Another contemporary work joins Fung’s as the voice of impending doom, yet this one from all-powerful nature’s point of view. Patrick Castillo’s Skyline Palimpsest, for string quartet without text, has a programmatic description, “meditating on the indifference of place to human presence and on a near future in which cities like New York will be reclaimed by rising seas.” The Jasper deftly navigates the work’s complex structure, built of the conversational interaction of musical ideas that grow and morph endlessly. The bowed passages have a compelling intensity, contrasted with pizzicato, at times frantic but sometimes thoughtful and meandering, amid harmonic bowed notes. One does get a sense of layers of change occurring over eons.
Three older works represent a less bleak image of nature, seeing it as a thing of beauty and wonder and a friend to humankind. The album opens with three lieder by Schubert for voice and piano. “Wandrers Nachtlied II,” sets a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; the dark colors of Huang’s accompanying chords blend gloriously with Phan’s gentle delivery. Franz von Bruchmann wrote the text for “Am See”; Schubert’s writing and Phan’s performance capture the wonder of the night sky with short, breathless phrases. The final lied is the continuously fluid “Auf dem Wasser zu singen” with words by Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg.
Rather than a poet’s admiration of nature, Vaughan Williams’ six-movement song cycle On Wenlock Edge, using texts by A.E. Housman, focuses on human interaction with nature as workers on the land. “Is my team ploughing?” stands out for both Phan’s finely sculpted lines and the Jasper and Huang’s tender playing. The final movement, “Clun,” connects with the last Schubert song in its water-like ripples, and it addresses the album’s larger theme by remarking on the miracle of a city springing up from the Thames.
Charles Ives’ voice-and-piano arrangement of “The Housatonic at Stockbridge” is based on a movement from his Three Places in New England that sets text by Robert Underwood Johnson. Invoking “ev’ry dreamy hill” and water’s “restive ripple,” it gives no hint of imminent apocalypse. Yet Huang’s approach to the piano’s dissonances is deeply eerie, making the slow-moving vocal line unsettled, almost threatening, rather than calming. In the context of the album overall, it’s an effective strategy.
The release of Lamenting Earth was timed to mark Earth Day in April 2026. But this collection is relevant every day of the year. After all, this is our home. Whatever our perspective, the key is to be aware of the earth we tread. And there’s nothing like music to focus the mind.
