Track Listing

1. Knoxville: Summer of 1915, for high voice & orchestra (rev. for voice & chamber orchestra), Op. 24
2. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 1, "At Saint Patrick's Purgatory"
3. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 2, "Church Bell at Night"
4. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 3, "St. Ita's Vision"
5. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 4, "The Heavenly Banquet"
6. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 5, "The Crucifixion" (from The Speckled Book)
7. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 6, "Sea-snatch"
8. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 7, "Promiscuity"
9. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 8, "The Monk and His Cat": "Pangur, white Pangur"
10. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 9, "The Praises of God": "How foolish the man"
11. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: No. 10, "The Desire for Hermitage"
12. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 1: No. 1, The Boatmen's Dance
13. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 1: No. 2, The Dodger
14. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 1: No. 3, Long Time Ago
15. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 1: No. 4, Simple Gifts
16. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 1: No. 5, I Bought Me a Cat
17. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 2: No. 1, The Little Horses
18. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 2: No. 2, Zion's Walls
19. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 2: No. 3, The Golden Willow Tree
20. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 2: No. 4, At the River
21. Old American Songs, for voice & piano, Book 2: No. 5, Ching-a-ring Chaw
22. Stabat Mater, for soprano & string quartet
23. Capital Capitals, for 4 male voices & piano

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #110094 in Music
• Released on: 1999-06-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Amazon.com
A beautifully conceived program, this disc brings together some of the most beloved American melodies of the modern age, such as Copland's Old American Songs. Also included are less frequently heard works, particularly the second set of the Copland cycle. Rarer still are the accompanists on these pieces, namely, the composers themselves. Barber, Copland, and Virgil Thomson provide the background for voices that engage these heartfelt fragments of American folklore with a rare panache. While some of the piano accompaniments are as plain and homespun as the texts they set (Thomson sets himself an easy job of it at the keyboard for the unexpected four-part harmonies of "Capital Capitals"), the interplay with the voices is unshakably powerful. Take Copland's Songs, here brought down a step for William Warfield's huge baritone. He is by turns forceful and restrained, chewing through Copland's clever folklike texts about simple pleasures and open spaces with a satisfying relish. Barber's more densely packed but equally seminal works for soprano are also generously represented. In Hermit Songs, Leontyne Price's technically sound yet whimsically engaging vocal color brings this deceptively accessible cycle to life. By the time the introspective orchestration of Thomson's Stabat Mater begins to percolate around Jennie Tourel's gorgeous mezzo, we gain an overview of a colorful art song heritage, revealing the timeless stories and melodies of a shared American sensibility. --Matthew Cooke

Customer Reviews

INCREDIBLE.
This CD should be in every music lover's collection. If you are even remotely interested in American art song, this disc is for you. To have singers performing works with the composers at the piano is priceless. Steber's Knoxville is perfection. Do not pass up the chance to hear all of these incredible singers in their prime, singing works which oftentimes were written for them. It does not get any more definitive than this.

WOW!
What a fantastic re-release! To hear not only Price, Warfield, Steber, and Tourel in their prime, but the composers at the piano rendering definitive interpretations of thiese master works...well, the experience is priceless. This is one of the best recordings, and most treasured, in my entire collection!

One of my favorites - and I don't much care for vocal music
Though I'm not a huge fan of vocal music, this is one of my very favorite of over 1,200 CDs in my collection. It's a lovely collection, with no weak spot. Eleanor Steber in the first recording of Knoxville 1915 is magnificent, and I can never listen to anyone else do Copland's Old American Songs after hearing William Warfield's rendition here. The real finds here, though, are the Thomson works: Stabat Mater is brief but haunting and memorable, and Capital Capitals is inventive and hilarious. In this company, the young Leontyne Price in Barber's Hermit Songs is almost beside the point. I cannot recommend this CD highly enough.