Catalog

It is common practice in scholarly circles to honor an individual or institution with a festschrift, a collection of essays or articles written by close associates, former students, colleagues, or those with interests relevant to the life’s work of the honoree. In that spirit, Videmus (the non-profit musical organization devoted to furthering the music of African American composers and artists) offers this CD as a musical celebration of Dr. Willis Patterson’s commanding achievements in performance, education, and administration. If a composer like William Grant Still is considered the “Dean of African-American composers,” then “Dean” Patterson, as he is affectionately known by many, could certainly be considered “Dean” of a long line of distinguished black performer/educators that stretch back at least to the 19th century. His commitment to the music of African-Americans exemplified by the 1977 Anthology of Art Songs by Black Composers fostered the scholarly research and performance of this literature by many artists including those on this recording and Jessye Norman.

The British composer, Peter Dickinson, was born at Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire. His musical personality ranges widely from the three substantial concertos for organ, piano and violin to the forthcoming witty Rags, Blues and Parodies collection. His layering technique in larger works - and notably in Surrealist Landscape here - enables different types of music to coexist in a way that sounds like no other composer. These song cycles show Dickinson responding to major 20th century writers and his sometimes colloquial manner may derive from some of the poets represented. For this recording, some of the finest British singers of their generation have worked with the composer to create an unusual document in the history of the English song cycle.

The artists on this disc write: "Through the ages, they have played recitals, studied in conservatories, written symphonies, concerti, chamber music, operas and piano works. Their music has been performed and recorded by the world's most prestigious orchestras, chamber ensembles, vocalists and instrumentalists. Although frequently neglected, art songs have consistently appeared in the output of women composers. From the parlor songs of Amy Beach to the jazzy accompaniments and lush tunes of Margaret Bonds, American and African-American women have created well-written and interesting compositions and made exciting contributions to the art of song repertoire. This CD is a compendium of these unsung (and in some instances unpublished) art songs. Some are romantic and rapturous, others folksy and frilly, yet all are replete with charm and dignity and worthy to be heard."

David Patterson, Ph.D. Harvard University, names as his teachers Leon Kirchner, Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory. He served as chairman of the Music Department for fifteen years at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Poet TenBroeck Davison, great granddaughter of Richard W. Sears, founder of the first mail-order firm, Sears Company, lived and studied on both sides of the Texas border. Having lived in Corpus Christi, her poems evoke images of her adolescent years spent absorbing the flavor of two cultures converging in that southernmost point of the continental United States. Poet James Merrill (1926-1995), the son of Charles Merrill, who was a founder of the stock brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch, published fifteen books of poetry. Last Words was commissioned for "An Evening of Words and Music" at Washington University with James Merrill, who was then poet-in-residence.

Gardner Read writes: "As a longtime, committed composer of art songs and of choral music, I have always been drawn to poetry that is rich in vivid imagery - "where sheep lie down to wait for morning's dew," for instance, or "when moonlight falls on the water," or "while envious fireflies spoil the twinkling dew," and "eager people, banners dreaming, marble gleaming"- all evoke positive musical response to the poem's compelling imagery. On the other hand, poetry that is heavily philosophical in tone, is basically narrative-oriented, or is motivated by social protest, for example, seldom stirs the creative juices for me. Stylistically, my vocal music here recorded ranges from overt romanticism, to various degrees of impressionism, to an almost folklike simplicity, even naiveté. These different vocal styles, however, are not the result of calculated choice but are determined only by the perceived musical potentialities of the poetic text. A clearly defined melodic line and a varied and apt accompanimental support are the twin basic criteria that have always shaped my vocal writing."

In January of 1892 when Harry T. Burleigh, the 25 year old African-American baritone from Erie, Pennsylvania, arrived in New York City to audition for a place at the National Conservatory of Music, few could have guessed how significantly this young man would affect the course of American music. His influence on Antonin Dvorak, who served as Director of the conservatory during three of Burleigh's four years of study, is reflected in Dvorak's use of African-American musical elements in his New World Symphony and his other American compositions. Burleigh's vibrant singing of plantations songs and spirituals, alongside the traditional recital repertoire, gave Americans accustomed to minstrel performances new aural images of African-American culture. By the second decade of this century, his secular art songs were being sung by some of the most distinguished international artists. And when he began to publish choral and solo arrangements of spirituals (in 1913 and 1916, respectively), he pioneered in bringing a distinctive African-American voice into the American choral and art song repertoire, making these sorrow songs accessible to singers of all national and ethnic backgrounds. Although he did not formally study with Dvorak, he spent many hours in Dvorak's home singing the songs he learned from his grandfather. The composer often interrupted him to ask about specific music idioms such as the flatted seventh, and asked "hundreds of questions" about the lives of slaves. The hours Burleigh spent discussing music with Dvorak and working as his music copyist profoundly affected him. Dvorak's interest in African-American music, his personal encouragement of Burleigh's own composition, and his demonstration of a sophisticated approach to the use of folk music as a creative resource, inspired Burleigh to work throughout his career to preserve the slave songs. Ultimately, he committed himself to fulfilling Dvorak's challenge to "give those melodies to the world."

William Moylan was born in Virginia, Minnesota. His early musical experiences were centered on the violin and guitar, and later on the double bass. He graduated from Ball State University and the Peabody Conservatory. Today he is Chairperson of the Department of Music, and Professor of Music and Sound Recording Technology, at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. About this recording Moylan writes: "Origins is about returning to beginnings. In many ways Origins represents the closing of a circle that brings me back to the beginnings of my musical career and my first compositions. I remember discovering that writing music could emerge from the center of one's core, early in my career. During the process of maturing, learning one's craft, and engaging the conscious mind's desire to forge a unique musical voice, the tendency to look inward and engage one's innate musicality can easily be lost. I have returned to a way of writing that flows comfortably and naturally, and speaks from a voice deep within. It now contains styles and languages enhanced by so many experiences along my career, with something familiar to my earliest works. The compositions also speak to beginnings: to the first sunrise and the beginning of the new day; to childhood and human innocence, and to ancient beliefs and spiritual origins; to the origins of life in the sea, nature and the Earth, and to the original human connection to nature. All three of the compositions on this disc were written for the home listening environment. They are Chamber music for today's Chamber, written to exploit the intimacy and immediacy of the living room, and the unique sound qualities and sound relationships available through recording playback, especially the spatial relationships of stereo."

The music generally recognized as most authentically American - blues, ragtime, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and its descendants - has deep roots in African-American culture and musical traditions. Equally important in African-American life though less well known is the tradition of concert music. The concert genres of art song and spiritual arrangements have a history dating back to the Federal period when the United States was still struggling to separate its own unique cultural and artistic identity from European influences. As the minstrel show assumed a prominent place in American musical life, mainstream American composers and African-American composers such as Frank Johnson, A.J.R. Connor and Henry F. Williams wrote charming, light-hearted parlor songs reflecting the forms, harmony, and limpid melodies of their British antecedents; some Louisiana composers wrote equally attractive songs using French texts and occasionally showing the influence of opera. Enclaves of free black Americans formed many of the first benevolent societies and African-American churches where educational opportunities and economic independence were more available to them than in other parts of the young United States. It is from this background that William Brown has drawn the delightful collection of songs that appears on this disc.

Brian Israel studied with Ulysses Kay, Robert Palmer, Burrill Phillips and Karel Husa. He graduated from Cornell in 1975. He taught at Syracuse University for 12 years until his untimely death at 35. His In Praise of Practically Nothing for tenor voice and eight-player Chamber ensemble was composed in Syracuse and is a setting of poems by Samuel Hoffenstein. Gerald Levinson is professor of music and former chair of the Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College. He studied composition with George Crumb, Richard Wernick and George Rochberg. His work in dark is a setting of poems by Nanine Valen and Robert Lax. David Noon is a graduate of Yale. His teachers have included Milhaud, Charles Jones, Yehudi Wyner and Mario Davidovsky. His Six Chansons were composed when he was a Fulbright Fellow in Warsaw, Poland. They are settings of six poems by the great Chinese master of the late Tang dynasty, Meng Chiao. Noon translated the poems into French. Robert Stern was educated at Eastman. He studied with Louis Mennini, Kent Kennan, Wayne Barlow, Lukas Foss and Howard Hanson. He writes: "Blood and Milk Songs takes its name from Blood and Milk Poems, a volume by Ruth Whitman. The lyric quality of the poetry is mirrored in the music, which is propelled by a strong melodic impulse."

How proud we are at Albany Records to be able to present to you these two wonderful artists in delightful material which has been newly recorded. Joan Morris and William Bolcom have been concertizing together since 1972. They perform American popular songs from the late 19th century through the 1920s and the 1930s, the latest songs by Leiber and Stoller, and cabaret songs by Bolcom and poet-lyricist Arnold Weinstein. To date they have recorded 19 albums together. Joan Morris was born in Portland, Oregon. She attended Gonzaga University in Spokane prior to scholarship studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. She appeared in several off-Broadway and road productions as well as at many Manhattan nightspots including the Cafe Carlyle and the Waldorf-Astoria's Peacock Alley. Since 1981 she has taught in the musical theater program at the University of Michigan where she produced an original musical in April 1998 based on the life of poet Mina Loy. The Pulitzer Prize winning composer William Bolcom studied at Mills College with Darius Milhaud, the Paris Conservatoire and completed his doctorate at Stanford University. Recent compositions include his wonderful opera McTeague, the Lyric Concerto for Flute and Orchestra for James Galway, his Sixth Symphony for Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra and he has just completed the film score for John Turturro's new movie Illuminata. He is now working on his new opera A View from the Bridge with a libretto by Arthur Miller and Arnold Weinstein which will be premiered in October, 1999 by the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He has taught composition at the University of Michigan since 1973, where he is the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Music.

Dreams, American dreams in particular, are basic to our lives. Whether it is the desire to write the perfect love song to use as a serenade or the need to break away from the everyday, humdrum world and escape into the land of rhythm, these songs make those dreams immediate and very real. Every song in this collection speaks to the heart, as well as to the mind, of the singer and the listener. American in content and context, American voices sing these songs best. Vocal music written by young American composers is coming into its own here at the end of this century and more singers are including songs by American songwriters than ever before in their recitals and recordings. Many new works are being commissioned by singers every year. In this recording Jean Danton presents an overview of the heart of American song writing for the last 150 years. Beautiful Dreamer, for example, has the same poignant soul as All the Things You Are. That particular Kern song is as complex, musically, as anything by Charles Ives. Gershwin's and Carpenter's musicianship is the equal of Copland's. Romberg and Ganz, for all their European background, made their American music as truly native in appeal as Bernstein or Joplin. Carl Davis' song seems to sum up the whole spectrum of song writing on its own terms. There is much to love in this music; all songs, sad, sweet, melancholy or raucous, are about love and about dreams. Heart Songs really are American Dreams.

Henry Cowell wrote songs for the half century spanning 1914-1964. They constitute a central part of his compositional profile and there are more than 180 of them out of his 966 known compositions. His songs are a vital, if sadly unknown, part of the rich history which is the American art song and in them, Cowell used some of his most forward looking and experimental ideas. His songs clearly delineate the several periods of his stylistic evolution - the naive, youthful works, the early avant-garde and "ultra modernist" works, the folk and modally-influenced music, and the late works which synthesize all these earlier styles. Most of Cowell's songs, however, have remained under-performed and virtually unknown, for they exist only as manuscripts in the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. To date only sixteen of Cowell's songs for voice and piano have been published. During his lifetime, his songs were premiered by many of the finest singers of the day including Roland Hayes, Eva Gauthier, Radiana Pazmor, Charles Holland and Theodor Uppman. Most often, he composed single songs but there are a few exceptions including the sets by Catherine Riegger, Mother Goose, Padraic Colum and Langston Hughes recorded here. As editor for many years of the ground-breaking New Music Editions, Cowell selflessly advanced the songs of many other composers including Ives, Copland, Charles Seeger, Vivian Fine, Paul Bowles, Elie Siegmeister, Ernst Bacon, Leo Ornstein, Otto Luening and Ben Weber. In all this time, he only published two of his own songs.

The Right Honourable Sir Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners in the peerage of England, and a baronet, was born on September 18, 1883 at Apley Park, near Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Educated at Eton, and later in Dresden, Vienna, France and Italy, mainly in pursuit of knowledge of languages to equip him for the diplomatic service, he succeeded his uncle in 1918, assuming the additional name of Wilson by Royal Charter a year later. He served as honorary attaché in Constantinople and later in Rome, but on his elevation relinquished theses posts, returning to England and his inheritance, several country estates, and lived the rest of his life, ostensibly, as a country gentleman. This, however, was only on the surface. He was a man whose music drew the highest praise from Stravinsky, and whose no inconsiderable literary and painting skills were to make him "the versatile peer" in the national press, but it was as a composer that he wished to be remembered. Berners' musical output was small by most standards and the case if often made that if he had had to earn a living from the arts he would have produced more. This is debatable. Less in doubt is that his art was well appreciated among his fellow artists - and aristocrats. Osbert Sitwell summed it up by writing that "...in the years between the wars he did more to civilize the wealthy than anyone in England. Through London's darkest drawing-rooms, as well as lightest, he moved ... a sort of missionary of arts."

This album features René Fleming in what has to be one of her earliest recordings, if not the earliest. Renée Fleming received her M.M. degree from the Eastman School of Music. The music she sings on this recording was recorded in 1983, while she was still a student at Eastman. As well, the presence of the great Jan DeGaetani (1933-1989) makes this a special disc. For many years she taught at Eastman, as well as Aspen. Bruce MacCombie studied with among others, Wolfgang Fortner. For several years he taught composition at Yale University, and in the last decade he moved from teaching to administration, serving as Dean of the Juilliard School from 1986-92 and now as Dean of the School for the Arts at Boston University. Leaden Echo, Golden Echo is the setting of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Sydney Hodkinson received his earliest training at Eastman under Louis Mennini and Bernard Rogers. He also studied with Carter, Sessions, Leslie Babbitt and Ross Lee Finney. He has been on the faculty of Eastman since 1973, teaching both composition and conducting. The Alte-Liebeslieder or "Old Fashioned Love Songs" are based on contemporary poems. Stanley Walden studied composition with Ben Weber and has been a faculty member at Juilliard, Sarah Lawrence College, and the State University of New York, College at Purchase. In addition to his Broadway Musical Oh! Calcutta, which has been produced throughout the world, he has written scores for film and dance.

Every label that specializes in American music, at one time or other, does an album devoted to the music of George Gershwin; trying to come up with a disc that is unusual and interesting is the challenge. As the title suggests, all the musicians on this album are friends; the instrumentalists are all members of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra. Just as George Gershwin was himself a product of diverse cultural influences, so his songs represent a variety of musical forms, styles and mediums. The collection on this disc spans the entire creative period of Gershwin's life, from The Real American Folk Song (written in 1918, and his first collaboration with his brother Ira) to the songs for the 1938 movie "The Goldwyn Follies," Love Walked In, I Love To Rhyme, and Our Love is Here to Stay, which were released after the composer's sudden death. Gershwin's friendships and alliances are evident in the songs as well. There are eight songs written for Fred Astaire and-or Ginger Rogers, two songs from the Broadway musical "Girl Crazy," (notable for the fact that the show was the Broadway debut of Ethel Merman and featured a pit Orchestra that included the likes of Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey and Benny Goodman), and further selections which feature Linn Maxwell Keller with the musicians as well as the musicians alone.

Dora Ohrenstein in her notes for this disc writes: "At its best Thomson's music achieves an eloquence all the more moving because it is done with such seemingly simple means. And in no genre is this more true than in his vocal music, where his outstanding literary skills came into play. Thomson was a gifted writer of prose, and he had an unerring ear and feel for language. When these talents were put to use in the setting of a text the results are exemplary - indeed, his achievements here are seldom disputed. That recognition has focused primarily on his fidelity to the natural rhythms and cadences of speech and for Thomson this was an enduring concern. Writing about his first song settings of poems by Gertrude Stein, he says: "My hope in putting Gertrude Stein to music had been to break, crack open, and solve for all time anything still waiting to be solved, which was almost everything, about English musical declamation. My theory was that if a text is set correctly for the sound of it, the meaning will take care of itself...I had no sooner put to music...one short Stein text than I knew I had opened a door. I had never had any doubts about Stein's poetry; from then on I had none about my ability to handle it in music. His text settings are models of clarity, but closer examination reveals that there is far more to admire in Thomson's handling of poetry. Time and time again, he finds ingenious ways to reveal a poem's structure, enhance and amplify its meaning, and underline the potent word or image." Here we have a wonderful selection of songs by this fine American composer who composed so well for the voice.

Soprano Jean Danton has performed extensively throughout the United States in recitals, oratorio and opera. She has appeared as soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society under Christopher Hogwood, the Oregon Bach Festival under Helmuth Rilling, the Boston Pops and the Boston Baroque. She is a graduate of the opera program at the Hartt School of Music. Dominick Argento's Six Elizabethan Songs exists in two versions: the first written in Florence in 1957 for tenor and piano and the second, revised by the composer in 1962 for soprano and Baroque ensemble (the version presented here). Songs About Spring for soprano and piano is a setting of five poems by e.e. cummings on the theme of spring. The third song of the group, "in Just spring" was a favorite of cummings himself. The English composer Arnold Cooke was born in Yorkshire in 1906. He studied with Edward Dent and in Berlin with Paul Hindemith. He taught at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College. In Three Songs of Innocence, Cooke has set three poems from William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" (1789) for soprano, clarinet and piano. For Nocturnes the composer has selected texts by five British poets. Appropriately, they all describe night scenes. William Moylan holds the Doctor of Arts degree from Ball State University, Master of Music degree from the University of Toronto, and the Bachelor of Music degree form the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, all in music composition. He composed his For a Sleeping Child - Lullabies and Midnight Musings especially for Jean Danton. The four songs were composed in October of 1995 and revised in January 1996.

Jacob Avshalomov was born in Tsingtao, China in 1919. He studied music first with his father, Aaron Avshalomov, and then Ernst Toch, Bernard Rogers, Aaron Copland and at Reed College and the Eastman School. He has taught at Columbia University and summers at Tanglewood and Aspen. From 1954 to 1994, he was conductor of the Portland Youth Symphony where he conducted among other works, the U.S. premieres of Tippett's The Child of Our Time and Roger Sessions' Divertimento. About the music on this disc, Mr. Avshalomov writes: "I'm with William Byrd, when he proclaimed, "Since synging is so good a thynge I wish all men would learne to synge.' The human voice is the ultimate musical instrument. I still believe this even after having reveled for 40 years as conductor of the Portland Youth Symphony. So it was no surprise to me, when I stepped down from my podium to concentrate on composing that as I surveyed my lifetime list of works, I realized over half of them were either vocal or choral. This, of course reflects an abiding interest in poetry and devotional literature of various persuasions. The songs presented in this recording were composed over a 40-year period, which began a decade before I became a conductor. Almost all the songs were composed for mezzo-soprano."

Leo Sowerby, whose loving sobriquet is "the Handel of Lake Michigan," lived most of his life in Chicago. He composed 550 works in all forms save ballet and opera and was the recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Prix de Rome. His works were premiered by such illustrious musicians and Organizations as Serge Koussevitsky, E. Power Biggs, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and the Chicago and Boston Symphony Orchestras. His 122 songs, 21 of which are heard on this disc, composed between 1909 and 1966, straddle a critical transitional period in American art song history. His earliest songs reflect the parlor and sentimental styles that were prevalent in the first decades of this century. His compositional training and his beloved models were from the French school, rather than the more dominant German school that then held sway over American concert and educational life. But by the early 1920s Sowerby's personal and American voice, founded on his prairie roots, was clear in his songs. This unique voice is heard to magnificent effect in the lovely songs contained on this recording.

Leo Sowerby's choral music has never been out of the repertory and several of his works for Christmas, particularly this collection's title anthem, Love Came Down at Christmas, and the Epiphany anthem, Now There Lightens Upon Us, are prominent among the reasons why. This collection, which includes nearly all of Sowerby's Christmas music, presents a comprehensive overview; from his very first, A Carol for New Year's Day, dating from his eighteenth year, to A Prayer for Christmas, composed in his 72nd year for the choir of his last parish church, Christ Church, Georgetown. From the immediately engaging arrangements of traditional folk tunes, to the soaring vocal heights and harmonic moodiness of the a cappella A Great and Mighty Wonder to the virtuosic choral-Organ collaborations, the composer displays a sure and ever-changing harmonic spectrum woven brilliantly into the choral fabric. All of these carols are a true testament to Leo Sowerby's craft and faith and his convictions of the joy and splendor of this magnificent season. This disc contains some magnificent music, appealing no matter what the season.

Bucknell University, rated one of the 30 best liberal arts colleges in America in the 1995 edition of U.S. World and News Report's college guide, offers a professional music program within an outstanding liberal arts environment. The Bucknell Music Department has an internationally recognized faculty whose members have gained recognition as performers, conductors, composers, authors and lecturers. The Rooke Chapel Choir, under the direction of William Payn, has gained international recognition in performances of some of the most significant works in the twentieth century American sacred repertoire. Its select members represent every major field of study at Bucknell, including the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, business administration, education and engineering. The Rooke Chapel Ringers were formed in 1983. They consist of 12 players who are selected by audition. Mezzo-soprano D'Anna Fortunato graduated from Bucknell in 1967. She has charmed critics and audiences alike with her recital, symphony orchestra and opera appearances in the United States and abroad.

In their program notes to this album Terry Rhodes and Ellen Williams write: "As a duo team, we have performed throughout the United States and Europe since 1988. In exploring the traditional duet literature, we came to realize the scarcity of twentieth century vocal duet music, and decided to do our own small part to rectify the situation. We commissioned two new works, one form Stephen Jaffe in 1990 for our Carnegie Recital Hall premiere, and one from Timothy Hoekman in 1994. Additionally we wanted to introduce our audiences to other new works by composers who also deserve to be heard. We consider it a vital part of our responsibility as performers to champion the works of living American composers and to create a venue for duet music, an art form that encourages a camaraderie of spirit and the sharing of musical ideas. This new Albany compact disc contains five pieces, none of which has been previously recorded. They range in accompaniment from piano to orchestra, with interesting combinations in-between. We hope that in this eclectic mix, there is something for each of our listeners." An especial highlight of this album are two duets from two different operas by the Pulitzer Prize winning composer Robert Ward. "Lady Kate" was composed in the years immediately following his winning the Pulitzer in 1962.

At the turn of the century, it was difficult enough for American composers like Daniel Gregory Mason, Edgar Stillman Kelley, or George Whitefield Chadwick to obtain a hearing for their music. They were poor relations of their more distinguished European counterparts. As tough as it was for these men, think of how tough it must have been for Dorothy Gaynor Blake, Mary Turner Salter, or Ella May Smith. Herein lies the importance of this release. You have probably never heard these composers' names before. They were all women composing music in the first 20 years of this century. All the music on this disc has been recorded here for the first time and all of it has been composed by women. How to describe the music? Interesting; more interesting than one might think. Remember, at this time in the development of music in America, there was no tradition; there was no composer who stood out from the rest; a woman had as good a shot at success as a man and these songs are well worth your attention. They can stand proudly next to a great deal of the material that was being composed at the same time by their male colleagues. This disc fills a very important gap in the discography of the American art song.

Robert Starer was born in Vienna in 1924. He entered the State Academy at age 13. Soon after Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938, he went to Jerusalem and continued his studies at the Palestine Conservatory. During World War II, he served with the British Royal Air Force. In 1947, he came to New York City for post-graduate study at Juilliard. He also studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1948. In 1957, he became an American citizen. He taught at Juilliard from 1949 to 1974 and at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York from 1963-1991. In 1994, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His book, Continuo: A Life in Music was published by Random House in 1987. His complete works for solo piano have recently been published in one volume. In 1986, Itzhak Perlman recorded his Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa. This disc offers a selection of Mr. Starer's chamber works for voice and various instruments.

During his lifetime Purcell was seen as a grand, almost super-human figure who was entrusted to compose the large, ceremonial pieces for major court and public events: coronation anthems, royal welcome and birthday songs, the lavish semi-operas for the London stage, St. Cecilia Day odes, and so forth. But there was another side of Purcell that is revealed by this recording: the provider of vocal and instrumental music for private, domestic consumption - music of the highest quality, originally performed by professionals, but collected and published for a mainly amateur market. Sally Sanford, Brent Wissick and Raymond Erickson, the artists on this recording, first met in the late 1970s at the Aston Magna Academy, a cross-disciplinary program in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century culture which brings together each summer scholars and baroque music specialists to consider music in relation to the other arts. They have collaborated on many projects since that time. This recording is an outgrowth of the 1987 Aston Magna Academy, "The Culture of Restoration England."

The centerpiece of this song collection, Dominick Argento's cycle From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, was awarded the 1974 Pulitzer Prize. A setting of eight excerpts from Woolf's journal, this ambitious and complex work offers in each song a glimpse into the writer's voyage of self-discovery as she observes her literary, emotional, social, and creative life. Beginning with the opening entry from 1919, the songs traverse a variety of experiences past her prescient 1940 thought, "I can't conceive that there will be a 27th June 1941," to the final entry, just before her suicide in March of 1941. In the composer's words, "I think I write music as a way of learning who I am, what I really think, what I truly believe. My own career has been an exercise in self-discovery. The strong concentration that these texts focus on self-knowledge may have prompted me to write my most moving music. Not a week goes by that I do not receive a letter from a singer or a listener saying how moved they were by a performance of the Virginia Woolf Diary." A singer who loves song literature, mezzo-soprano Mary Ann Hart has delighted audiences and critics alike with her performances. Out of sight (but still in earshot) Miss Hart did voice characterizations for the Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast and has recorded for the Arabesque, Chandos, Nonesuch and Albany Records labels.

Stephen Foster was a figure of contradictions: the composer was much loved by the public, but was at the same time a thoughtless husband and father. While his songs reflect a real intimacy with the antebellum South, Foster was not from the South and only once traveled into the region. Was he merely an "artless genius" who knew little about music or a well-studied craftsman? Foster was America's earliest popular and successful songwriter. Yet he died alone and penniless - not in the South, not even at his family home in Pittsburgh - but at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. While Stephen Foster's personal and business habits may have been chaotic, research has shown the man to have been a dedicated musician. Despite early biographers' description of an unschooled lightweight, the fact is that Foster carefully studied the American minstrel tradition and knew German Lieder and Irish-Scottish song literature. Foster's songs are often set for multiple voices, diverse instruments and even a cappella chorus. It is the intention of this recording to present the wealth of Foster's music - but not with a lone vocalist and accompanist from a single musical vantage point. Instead, both "classical" and "folk" musicians have gathered to sing and play on dulcimers, fiddles, accordions, pennywhistles and old pianos. Despite occasional wheezing, crunching and crackling, we hope these antique instruments - and our wonderful contemporary vocalists - will charm the listener and capture something of Stephen Foster's diverse genius that one might have experienced on a little 19th century concert stage, a street corner or on a back porch.

Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954) was a prolific composer of orchestral, instrumental, and vocal music. He composed more songs than any other type of music. In four volumes, four singers accompanied by their individual pianists, present more than 150 songs chronologically, the first recording of the complete songs of Charles Ives. Ives authorized transposition of them, so they can be sung by all voices. This amazing body of work from a musician who was also an inventive and successful insurance executive, span the 35 years of Ives’s compositional life, mirroring the many facets of his character: tenderness, humor, disapproval of hypocrisy and sham, nostalgia, Americanism, Yankeeism, religion, socialism, love of nature. Some of the songs are extremely difficult; others are simpler; few can be picked up and read right off. They resemble a workshop filled with Ives’s ideas, fragmentary or extended. Most were published in 114 Songs – the book compiled, published, and distributed at Ives’s own expense in 1922; others were composed “post-114,” among them Peaks, Yellow Leaves, The One Way, A Sea Dirge and In the Mornin’. The Ives oeuvre is substantial, and his output in songs alone is richer and more fulsome by far than might be expected from any career, let alone a curtailed one. This four volume set of the complete songs of Charles Ives is a major contribution toward the understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of one of the greatest song collections in the history of music.

The works of women composers have been consistently overlooked by music historians. New emphasis is now being placed on "women in music" in music departments and women's studies programs across the country. The works of many women are beginning to emerge from the neglect of the past, and are becoming recognized as compositions worthy of study and performance. This is especially true in the art song genre which because of the small forces involved, allowed for the possibility of performance, even if only in the home. The songs of these three composers represent three different styles. Although all were born in the nineteenth century, their styles of composition are as distinct as the poetry that each chose to set. Clara Schumann composed in the tradition of the early Lieder composers, setting texts of German Romantic poets. Irene Wieniawska's (known as Poldowski) music, which includes a large number of settings of Paul Verlaine, is predominantly in the French impressionistic idiom. Amy Beach was an American who set various English-speaking poets from Shakespeare and Robert Burns to her own husband and herself.

Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954) was a prolific composer of orchestral, instrumental, and vocal music. He composed more songs than any other type of music. In four volumes, four singers accompanied by their individual pianists, present more than 150 songs chronologically, the first recording of the complete songs of Charles Ives. Ives authorized transposition of them, so they can be sung by all voices. This amazing body of work from a musician who was also an inventive and successful insurance executive, span the 35 years of Ives's compositional life, mirroring the many facets of his character: tenderness, humor, disapproval of hypocrisy and sham, nostalgia, Americanism, Yankeeism, religion, socialism, love of nature. Some of the songs are extremely difficult; others are simpler; few can be picked up and read right off. They resemble a workshop filled with Ives's ideas, fragmentary or extended. Most were published in 114 Songs - the book compiled, published, and distributed at Ives's own expense in 1922; others were composed "post-114," among them Peaks, Yellow Leaves, The One Way, A Sea Dirge and In the Mornin'. The Ives oeuvre is substantial, and his output in songs alone is richer and more fulsome by far than might be expected from any career, let alone a curtailed one. This four volume set of the complete songs of Charles Ives is a major contribution toward the understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of one of the greatest song collections in the history of music.

From Billings to Bolcom - the subtitle of this recording dedicated to the American art song is a compilation of the best American has to offer from our musical beginnings to today. "Some of our best American composers have not been prolific songwriters," says Paul Sperry. "I think William Schuman's Orpheus with His Lute has everything a song needs: it is simple, moving and beautiful. But it is a single song, written for a proposed production of Henry VIII and has no companion pieces. Elliott Carter's three settings of Robert Frost constitute almost half of the solo songs he wrote, and Elie Siegmeister's arrangement of William Billings is the only solo Billings song I have seen. That is why I have compiled this American Sampler - to be able to record songs I love without having to worry about assembling a group by each composer. I have simply picked 31 of my favorite songs and put them together the way I would in a recital: organized to show each one to greatest advantage. I have deliberately not grouped the songs by composer, period or style, except for John Musto's little cycle, Shadow of the Blue: I kept it together because it is so powerful as an entity." Paul Sperry is recognized as one of today's outstanding interpreters of American music. Although he is equally at home in a repertoire that extends from Monteverdi opera and the Bach Passions to Britten's War Requiem and hundreds of songs in more than a dozen languages, he brings to American music a conviction and an enthusiasm that has brought it to life for countless listeners.

Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954) was a prolific composer of orchestral, instrumental, and vocal music. He composed more songs than any other type of music. In four volumes, four singers accompanied by their individual pianists, present more than 150 songs chronologically, the first recording of the complete songs of Charles Ives. Ives authorized transposition of them, so they can be sung by all voices. This amazing body of work from a musician who was also an inventive and successful insurance executive, span the 35 years of Ives's compositional life, mirroring the many facets of his character: tenderness, humor, disapproval of hypocrisy and sham, nostalgia, Americanism, Yankeeism, religion, socialism, love of nature. Some of the songs are extremely difficult; others are simpler; few can be picked up and read right off. They resemble a workshop filled with Ives's ideas, fragmentary or extended. Most were published in 114 Songs - the book compiled, published, and distributed at Ives's own expense in 1922; others were composed "post-114," among them Peaks, Yellow Leaves, The One Way, A Sea Dirge and In the Mornin'. The Ives oeuvre is substantial, and his output in songs alone is richer and more fulsome by far than might be expected from any career, let alone a curtailed one. This four volume set of the complete songs of Charles Ives is a major contribution toward the understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of one of the greatest song collections in the history of music.