Jennifer Larmore – American Songs

11,00

1 CD 

Classical Music 

Elatus

17 January 2022

In stock

Product Enquiry

Description

809274983626

Artists

Jennifer Larmore (Mezzo-Soprano)Antoine Palloc (Piano)

Contents:

Heggie: He’s gone away

Copland:

Old American Songs, Set 2: No. 1, The Little Horses

Ching-a-Ring

At the River

Zion’s Walls

In the Fields

Barber:

Bessie Bobtail

I hear an army

Sure on this shining night, Op. 13 No. 3

Rain has fallen

Heggie:

To say before going to sleep

White in the moon

The leather-winged bat

Barb’ry Allen

Barber: Sleep Now

Hoiby: Winter song

Duke, J W: Twentieth Century

Hoiby: A letter

Hundley: The Astronomers

Aborn:

T’is winter now

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day

Make me an instrument of thy peace

Niles: Black is the color of my true love’s hair

Robert Abramson: “Soldier, soldier”

Duke, J W: Heart! We will forget him!

Naginski: Richard Cory

Niles: Fee simple

Ives, C:

My native land

The Things our Fathers Loved

Memories : I Very Pleasant

The composition of art songs has played a part in the United States’ cultural history from the outset. The very first pieces of newly composed secular music to be published in the United States were art songs. These were the Seven Songs by Hopkinson – a signatory of the Declaration of Independence in 1788. In the 1920s Copland set out to acquire an identifiable American sound and in 1950/52 he published two collections of Old American Songs. Niles had a brief career as an opera singer. He assumes a more self-effacing stance vis-à-vis the original songs of Copland or Heggie, whose settings fuse a distinctive personality with an absolute respect for the sources. Barber stood apart from his contemporaries, composing essentially conservative music that revelled in its European roots. One of the few notable composers to be trained to a professional level as a singer, he wrote melodies that are always gracious to the voice. Less well-known composers also made important contributions to the mid-century repertoire; John Duke, Lora Aborn & Charles Naginski.

“there is Samuel Barber, up there where he belongs with the very best that song has to offer. His two James Joyce settings are stunning. Antoine Palloc plays it here with an awareness and strength of purpose that mark out his contributions throughout the disc.” “Jennifer Larmore has chosen with care. It feels like a personal choice, sung with personal concern, this young woman from Atlanta, Georgia, seems to know where it’s coming from.” (Gramophone, December 1997)