New American Song Cycles

Track Listings
1. My Antonia: Landscape-From the Train    
2. My Antonia: Antonia    
3. My Antonia: Landscape II-Winter    
4. My Antonia: The Hired Girls    
5. My Antonia: Landscape III-Prairie Spring    
6. My Antonia: Antonia in the Field    
7. My Antonia: Landscape IV-Sunset    
8. Figments: Gravity    
9. Figments: Why We Have Cats    
10. Figments: The End of Daylignt Savings Time    
11. Figments: Zoo Prepares to Adopt Metric System    
12. Figments: Lines After Marianne Moore    
13. Figments: Deer in Mist and Almonds    
14. Figments: The Poetry of Sausages: Morcilla    
15. Vita Brevis: Lullaby    
16. Vita Brevis: My Heart Leaps    
17. Vita Brevis: Mezzo Cammin    
18. Vita Brevis: The Coming of Wisdom With Time    
19. Vita Brevis: In Remembrance    
20. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House: Desire    
See all 25 tracks on this disc

New American Song Cycles, Music, Tom Cipullo, Daron Hagen, Libby Larsen, Paul Moravec, Daron Hagen, Margo Garrett, Paul Moravec, Tom Cipullo, Paul Sperry, Classical, Classical Artists, Classical Vocals, Vocal, Vocal Music
New American Song Cycles
Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
  • Some Excellent Songs; Performances That Try One's Patience
 New American Song Cycles

Manufacturer: Albany Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Larsen, LibbyLarsen, Libby | ( L ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Classical | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
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  4. Song: A Guide to Art Song Style and Literature
  5. Paul Moravec: The Time Gallery; Protean Fantasy; Ariel Fanstasy

ASIN: B0001XAQBO
Release Date: 2004-04-27

Tracks:

  1. My Antonia: Landscape-From the Train - Margo Garrett
  2. My Antonia: Antonia - Margo Garrett
  3. My Antonia: Landscape II-Winter - Margo Garrett
  4. My Antonia: The Hired Girls - Margo Garrett
  5. My Antonia: Landscape III-Prairie Spring - Margo Garrett
  6. My Antonia: Antonia in the Field - Margo Garrett
  7. My Antonia: Landscape IV-Sunset - Margo Garrett
  8. Figments: Gravity - Daron Hagen
  9. Figments: Why We Have Cats - Daron Hagen
  10. Figments: The End of Daylignt Savings Time - Daron Hagen
  11. Figments: Zoo Prepares to Adopt Metric System - Daron Hagen
  12. Figments: Lines After Marianne Moore - Daron Hagen
  13. Figments: Deer in Mist and Almonds - Daron Hagen
  14. Figments: The Poetry of Sausages: Morcilla - Daron Hagen
  15. Vita Brevis: Lullaby - Paul Morvec
  16. Vita Brevis: My Heart Leaps - Paul Morvec
  17. Vita Brevis: Mezzo Cammin - Paul Morvec
  18. Vita Brevis: The Coming of Wisdom With Time - Paul Morvec
  19. Vita Brevis: In Remembrance - Paul Morvec
  20. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House: Desire - Tom Cipullo
  21. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House: Embrace - Tom Cipullo
  22. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House: Cancer - Tom Cipullo
  23. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House: Flames - Tom Cipullo
  24. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House: Putting Down ... - Tom Cipullo
  25. Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House: Another Reason Why - Tom Cipullo

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Some Excellent Songs; Performances That Try One's Patience.......2004-07-16

I yield to no one in my respect and admiration for tenor Paul Sperry's service to contemporary American song-writing. I have heard him in live recitals more times that I can count because of this dedication to the furtherance of songs by American composers. He has commissioned and premièred innumerable songs from upwards of thirty American composers. Further, he has such excellent diction that he has served American poets as well, since one can understand almost everything he sings without reference to a printed text. Never blessed with a beautiful voice, he has managed his meager vocal endowment with brains, guts and art. The songs on this CD deserve to heard and one expects they might not have been heard at all if it weren't for Sperry's efforts. Still, the time has come for him to stop singing. The voice has of late become too much of a chore to listen to; he too often sings well under pitch especially in his upper range, and when singing above a mezzo-forte the voice too often becomes a squawl.

As to the music recorded here, some of the songs are really quite enjoyable and one can only hope that others will take them up. I'm sure that is Sperry's hope, too; he certainly has given his time, effort and money to promote this kind of music, including several recordings on the Albany label. On this disc I'd single out the witty songs of Daron Hagen, set to laugh-out-loud funny poems by Alice Wirth Gray. Sample text from 'Why We Have Cats': "That bitch, the woman/who lived next door,/took it on the lam/to Arizona and left/five cats...What did she think life was: a Learning Experience?" Hagen's music underlines the humor in tonal but unexpected harmonies. Libby Larsen's song cycle 'My Antonía,' gently set to words from the Willa Cather novel, traces changes in the landscape over a year's time. Sample: from 'Prairie Spring' - "The larks...singing straight at the sun." Paul Moravec's 'Vita Brevis,' set to lyrics of Wordsworth, James Agee, Yeats, Anonymous and Mr Moravec himself, illustrates the cycle's envoi by Carlyle, 'One life: a gleam of time between two eternities.' The music, to my ears, is a generic and unmemorable. Paul Cipullo's 'Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House,' to poems by the current U.S. poet laureate, Billy Collins, is set to delectable post-impressionist Rorem-esque music. Sperry underlines Collins's felicitous turns of phrase [e.g. in 'Flames,' about Smokey the Bear: 'He is sick of dispensing/warnings to the careless,/the half-wit camper,/the dumbbell hiker.'] which are mirrored slyly in Cipullo's accompaniment. In the cycle's title song, Cipullo unexpectedly and wittily quotes the Scherzo of Beethoven's First Symphony. Sperry is accompanied expertly at the piano in each song cycle by its composer, except for the Larsen cycle where the pianist is Margo Garrett.

In summary, buy this CD for the mostly worthwhile songs, and try to ignore the difficulties with Sperry's vocal estate.

TT=59:37

Scott Morrison
Woollen: 4 Song Cycles
Average customer rating: Not rated
    		Woollen: 4 Song Cycles

    Manufacturer: Amcam
    ProductGroup: Music
    Binding: Audio CD

    SymphoniesSymphonies | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music | Baroque | Classical | General | Modern & 20th Century | Romantic | Sinfonia | Sinfonia Concertante
    GeneralGeneral | Classical | Styles | Music
    ASIN: B00000IAID
    Release Date: 1999-03-23

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