Just-Spring: Art Songs of John Duke

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
John Duke (1899–1984) is one of the acknowledged masters of the American art song. This release of twenty-three of his finest songs will afford lovers of vocal music the opportunity to discover Duke’s little-known corpus. Comparison with the musical language of other notable American art song composers (Griffes, Loeffler, or Ives, for instance) reveals an unusually consistent and personal style throughout most of Duke’s career, the composer venturing only slightly afield of a conventional tonal practice derived mostly from European music of the nineteenth century. Musical influences on his language, in fact, are almost entirely European; most of his songs have an accompanimental texture unmistakably his, continuing, in a way, the tradition of the German Lied, using poems in English.

Duke often claimed, both in his writings and in conversation with colleagues, to have developed his art song style somewhat self-consciously after having studied in great detail the historical, poetical, and musical contexts of three previous genres exhibiting a marriage of music and poetry: the Elizabethan song, the nineteenth-century Lied and the French mélodie of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His choice of poetry avoids almost completely the abstract in favor of the tried and true themes of love and mortality, themes that most composers have found the most suitable for musical treatment. Duke’s music is taken very seriously by those who know his work intimately. After all, about how many American composers could it be said that all 265 songs have a natural feel for the voice, an elegantly matched pianistic accompaniment, a recognizable and personal style, and a musical language that never resorts to false syntax? It is easy to see why American singers love to sing his songs.

Just-Spring: Art Songs of John Duke, Music, John Woods Duke, Lauralyn Kolb, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Classical Vocals, Miscellaneous Vocal Music, Vocal, Vocal Music

Average customer rating:

A Generous Packet of Art Songs by American Composer John Duke

just spring review... great CD

Just-Spring: Art Songs of John Duke

Manufacturer: New World Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
Classical | Indie Music | Stores | Music
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But Yesterday Is Not Today-The American Art Song 1927-1972

Permit Me Voyage: Songs by American Composers

ASIN: B00005V9UK
Release Date: 2002-01-01

Tracks:

Just-Spring
Acquainted With the Night
Water that Falls and Runs Away
I Carry Your Heart
The Mountains Are Dancing
April Elegy
Morning in Paris
There Will Be Stars
Good Morning, Midnight
Heart! We will forget him!
Bee! Im expecting you!
The Bird
Little Elegy
All Music, All Delight
Shes Somewhere in the Sunlight Strong
Bells in the Rain
Penguin Geometry
O, it was out by Donnycarney
Aubade
I cant be talkin of love
Walking in the Rain
Merry-go-round

Album Description

John Duke (1899-1984) is one of the acknowledged masters of the American art song. This release of twenty-three of his finest songs will afford lovers of vocal music the opportunity to discover Duke's little-known corpus. Comparison with the musical language of other notable American art song composers (Griffes, Loeffler, or Ives, for instance) reveals an unusually consistent and personal style throughout most of Duke's career, the composer venturing only slightly afield of a conventional tonal practice derived mostly from European music of the nineteenth century. Musical influences on his language, in fact, are almost entirely European; most of his songs have an accompanimental texture unmistakably his, continuing, in a way, the tradition of the German Lied, using poems in English.

Duke often claimed, both in his writings and in conversation with colleagues, to have developed his art song style somewhat self-consciously after having studied in great detail the historical, poetical, and musical contexts of three previous genres exhibiting a marriage of music and poetry: the Elizabethan song, the nineteenth-century Lied and the French mélodie of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His choice of poetry avoids almost completely the abstract in favor of the tried and true themes of love and mortality, themes that most composers have found the most suitable for musical treatment. Duke's music is taken very seriously by those who know his work intimately. After all, about how many American composers could it be said that all 265 songs have a natural feel for the voice, an elegantly matched pianistic accompaniment, a recognizable and personal style, and a musical language that never resorts to false syntax? It is easy to see why American singers love to sing his songs.

Customer Reviews:

A Generous Packet of Art Songs by American Composer John Duke.......2006-01-27

Though his name may not be a household word among American composers, to singers the lieder of John Woods Duke are a staple of the recital repertoire. A composer well respected in his lifetime (1899 - 1984), his 265 catalogued songs are the epitome of the marriage of text and music. His musical style never veered from melodic but his integration of poetry with his expressive understanding of the voice places him in the same category with Ives, Griffes, Rorem, Barber, Heggie et al.

This fine recital by soprano Lauralyn Kolb, a former student of the highly regarded Howard Swan of Occidental College and a sought after oratorio soloist and recitalist, with pianist Tina Toglia is a study in musical intelligence. Kolb's soprano voice is beautifully focused and her communication of the texts ranging from ee cummings, Emily Dickinson, Elinor Wylie, Sarah Teasdale, Robert Frost, Richard Nickson, Mark Van Doren to James Joyce is pristine and warmly sensitive. Her collaboration with Toglia demonstrates the way musicians should approach the art song. There are many excellent songs in this collection that could be singled out, but the pleasure of the recital is that the variety selected by the artists is very satisfying for a survey of works by a relatively unknown (to the public) composer. Recommended. Grady Harp, January 06

just spring review... great CD.......2005-08-20

fast shipment, everything recieved as promised. good seller to buy from. thank you.

Carole Bogard: A Collection of American Songs

Average customer rating:

beautiful songs
A flawless and fascinating recital

Carole Bogard: A Collection of American Songs

Manufacturer: Parnassus
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Compilations | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Historical Periods | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Just-Spring: Art Songs of John Duke
But Yesterday Is Not Today-The American Art Song 1927-1972

ASIN: B00005LPYJ
Release Date: 2001-06-26

Customer Reviews:

beautiful songs.......2007-05-09

A welcome reissue in CD format from old LP's of Carpenters compositions : song cycles of very well known lyrics. Particularly fascinating are the renderings of poems from "Gitanjali", a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore in English translated from original Bengali; a work that got Nobel prize in 1913 (Not the Pullitzer prize as mentioned in th accompanying text). The songs on lyrics/poems by other poets, all americans are just as beautiful. Well done.

A flawless and fascinating recital.......2005-04-14

This 2-CD set by soprano Carole Bogard is an absolute must-have for lovers of American songs, song recitals in general, or great singing. Culled from three long-out-of-print LPs and some performance tapes recorded for broadcast in Europe, it includes songs by Carpenter, Flanagan, Copland, Rorem, and the little-known Richard Cumming and John Woods Duke. And yet, there is not a single weak track on the entire set. Every song is interesting (something that cannot be said for many similar recitals recorded today), and each and every song is performed with musical acuity and an attention to words.

Particularly interesting, to me, were the songs by John Alden Carpenter. Largely neglected by modern singers and scholars, Carpenter wrote what many feel is the most successful fusion of classical music with jazz, the ballet tone-poem "Skyscrapers." It had the misfortune to premiere in 1924, the same year as Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue"; but whereas "Rhapsody" was more of a pastiche, "Skyscrapers" blends the jazz and classical aspects flawlessly, producing an exciting and well-crafted work that deserves a wider audience.

The Carpenter songs presented here are not jazzy, but they do reveal a greater depth of feeling and originality in construction than one hears nowadays from the songs of Andre Previn or Jake Heggie. And the other pieces are equally excellent.

I highly recommend this album, especially for Sunday afternoon or summertime listening...between the excellence of the songs and the excellence of Bogard's singing, you just melt into the music and become one with the warm, intimate feeling that this recital engenders.

Track Listings:

Track Listings

track listings

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