December Songs

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December Songs is a song cycle by Maury Yeston, who is best known as a musical theatre songwriter, responsible for the music and lyrics for Nine, Titanic and part of Grand Hotel. The work is a 'retelling' of Franz Schubert's Winterreise, (a song cycle of art songs), with a cabaret sensibility. The songs in both December Songs and Winterreise are linked as a sequence of reflections by the singer taking a lonely walk in winter, thinking back on his or her lost love. The piece crosses over the line from classical music to Broadway to cabaret.[1]

The work was written as a commissioned piece for the 1991 centennial celebration of New York's Carnegie Hall, where it was performed by cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci[2] It was then performed for three months in 2004 at the Theatre du Renard in Paris, where it was sung by Isabelle Georges. It has been recorded in English by Marcovicci and Georges, in German by Pia Douwes and in French by Georges.[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Vitaris, Paul. "The Unsinkable Maury Yeston." Show Music The Musical Theatre Magazine Spring, 1997: 17-23
  2. ^ Pogrebin, Robin. "A Song in His Psyche, As Hummable as Fame" New York Times, May 19, 2003
  3. ^ Isabelle Georges' December Songs site