Carole Bogard has a fine, high, slender voice and an
evident intelligence that imbues her singing with a finely poised alloy
of intellect and passion - neither precious nor blowsy.
This idiosyncratic anthology appeared on CD in 2001
to little critical attention. The audience for songs by American composers
is less extensive than that for English songs. The reason is a matter
for speculation. Certainly those with a passion for the setting of English
texts would be myopic to turn aside from the chaotic variety of song
writing like this simply because it is American.
John Duke was a native of Maryland, who studied
with Artur Schnabel and Nadia Boulanger. He developed a name as a writer
of light musicals for college productions. Artsongs were his avocation
and there are 210 to choose from. A third of these were written after
his retirement in 1967. The ones appearing here are written in a conservative
idiom, delicate, silvery and sentimental. Jazz is not a presence; it
is rather as if the songs have been written by an American counterpart
to Lehár at one moment and Brahms or Schumann at the next - perhaps
Macdowell would be a better reference. There is nothing of the harmonic
complexity or depth of say Schoeck or Gurney. Other songs such as those
on the Emily Dickinson poems recall Michael Head; they exude a lofty
innocence aided by Bogard's high and usually well sustained soprano.
Listen to the end of Let Down the Bars to hear the steady quality
of Bogard's voice at ppp. Bogard is also responsive in voice
colouring and expression witness her response to the precious Georgian
humour of Bee I'm expecting you (tr 19 CD1). The third Duke collection
is a small cycle of four e.e. cummings settings. These are the best
of Duke amongst what is on offer here ... and a considerable best they
are. They are a delight and can be thought of as a match to Moeran's
Four Shakespeare Songs and, closer to Duke’s home, the Dickinson
settings by Leo Smit and the Luening songs so beautifully put across
on another Parnassus disc reviewed elsewhere here (Danielle Woerner,
PACD 96012).
Richard Cumming is another unfamiliar name.
His muse probes yet more steadily, poignantly and deeply. The emotional
scalpel is turned with a sheer melancholy in As dew in April (familiar
words among English composers). The setting is lovingly coaxed by the
remora-like oboe of Beth Orson and the composer's piano. High praise
also for the Two Blake Poems. The second of these, London,
reminds me of the theme of A.E. Housman's poem of the countryman despairing
on the streets of London. Housman must surely have known the Blake poem.
This is dark and macabre and Cumming matches its inimical desolate qualities.
Once again a second instrument appears (the cello of Theodore Mook)
to track the interweave of loss and memory in Dickinson's poem 'Heart
we will forget him!' The three poems by Philip Minor are more elliptical
in their music and use a marginally more challenging palette - but nothing
more ‘outré’ than say Poulenc. It is Poulenc that Ned Rorem,
in his notes compares with Cumming. The last song has the brio of early
Sondheim - but then so does Poulenc. All these are taken from a Cambridge
LP.
On the second disc comes Copland's Dickinson
set. Bogard's sometimes chaste-seeming and unhurried voice here sounds
darker and more operatic in a reverberant acoustic. Breathtakingly quiet
and high sustained singing on the words I remember him! at the
end of the fifth song of the cycle have also been movingly set by Cumming
(tr.27 CD1).
It reflects great credit and speaks volumes of the
discriminating taste and commitment to literacy of Parnassus and Leslie
Gerber that they sought out the necessary permissions to print the words
of all 56 songs. The same dedication shows in Parnassus honouring the
composer's wish to establish the spiritual scene by printing a poem
that is not sung as a preface to the first song in the Gitanjali
cycle by Carpenter.
Detroit born Flanagan studied with Copland and
Diamond. He has written extensively though I do not recall hearing anything
of his before this. The ten songs come from a 1968 DESTO LP. There are
six in the Herman Melville cycle. Here the language is more obtuse or
rather less direct than in the case of Cumming and Duke. This is not
heart-ease music. Flanagan freely appropriates densely impressionist
mannerisms and all the apparatus of ivy and lichen that hangs over the
darkling songs of Frank Bridge and Schoenberg. Analogue hiss is strong
here and the Moss poems and the isolated Whitman setting betray, in
their sound, that they were taken down from an LP unlike the hissy though
smoothly achieved Melville songs. An unnamed flautist joins the guitar
of Mr R. Sullivan in the hothouse haze of Whitman's Goodbye My Fancy.
David Del Tredici, that celebrant of Lewis Carroll's ‘Alice’ in every
perspective is the pianist in the Flanagan songs. Ned Rorem we
know well. His lyrical composerly voice is destined to be recognised
and highly regarded in the longer term. He seems a natural melodist
and you can tell as much even from his non-vocal music (see my review
of his recent Naxos chamber collection). It is typical of Rorem that
he should so late in the last century set a determinedly unfashionable
poet such as Tennyson whose words are more naturally associated with
the likes of Roger Quilter. In fact he chooses to set the text by which
Quilter remains best known Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal. The
songs drift by in a sultry dream - yet always clear. Rorem really should
have a look at the poems of Ernest Dowson.
The songs of John Alden Carpenter have here
been sifted down to produce two collections - first the pair of Sassoon
poems and then the Tagore cycle (also available with orchestra - though
unrecorded). Sassoon is quintessentially English - from an aristocratic
setting and living with the brutal awakening of the Great War and the
guilty survival of that war. Tagore has been set by Frank Bridge - also
with orchestra. When you hear Slumber-Song you will ask yourself
why we do not hear this in music competitions and in recitals. It is
followed by the faintly Hispanic Serenade - a touch of Chabrier
here. It is weighed down by a certain conventionality of gesture something
which cannot be said of the wondrous Slumber-Song. The Tagore
set of six songs is fragrant and innocent (When I bring to you coloured
toys), tollingly marmoreal (On the day when death and I
am like a remnant) and smilingly benign (The sleep that flits
on baby's eyes). An outstandingly lovely song is On the seashore
of endless worlds the children meet. This is blithe yet emotionally
subtle. Carole Bogard knew and came to love these songs before she was
twenty and she has championed them over the years. If you are interested
in Carpenter also remember his Sea Drift on Albany, the two symphonies
on Naxos and a jam-packed recital of 31 songs on Albany TROY 388.
This present pair of discs is indispensable to the
collector of fine songs setting English words. For the most part your
ears are being opened to the rarest songs mostly in an idiom that is
rapt and lyrical - the Flanagans are the exception and account for the
word 'mostly'.
These pioneering recordings, made between twenty and
thirty years ago, have been 'rescued' from various sources and there
are differences in perspective and sound quality; small matters but
you need to be aware of them and not expect total perfection. I noticed
one or two channel blemishes where the voice suddenly became stronger
in one channel; nothing to put you off or detract from this valuable
traversal of largely unknown songs.
Rob Barnett
Carole Bogard (soprano)