An American Song Album (Barber; Copland; Heggie; Floyd; Getty)

An American Song Album

Samuel BARBER (1910-1981)

Hermit Songs Op. 29

Jake HEGGIE (1961)

These Strangers

     How Well I Knew The Light

Carisle FLOYD (1926-2021)

The Mystery

Aaron COPLAND (1900-1990)

Four Early Songs

Gordon GETTY (b.1933)

 Kathy's Aria (from Goodbye Mr. Chips)

Welsh Songs

Deep River

Danny Boy

Melody Moore (Soprano) 

Bradley Moore (Piano)

In many important ways this is a very fine disc. The program has been very intelligently chosen. The performances are nearly ideal. The recorded sound (heard in two-channel stereo) is perfectly balanced. The program notes by Jeff Kaliss are informative, well written, and thoughtful, though his comment that Copland is “the only one among these composers which did not include an opera” is both oddly written and wrong (The Tender Land and The Second Hurricane). Pentatone’s decision to include texts despite the English language of the songs is welcome, and the duration of over 85 minutes is very generous. I would, however, advise skipping soprano Melody Moore’s note at the beginning of the booklet. “What an honor to open my singular mouth with Brad’s poetic playing beside me and release what I hope to be a very singular interpretation of these works” is something she should have resisted saying, but do not let this in any way deter you from this recording.

Moore has been reviewed very favorably in Fanfare by Huntley Dent, Barnaby Rayfield, Colin Clarke, and Lynn René Bayley on Pentatone releases in which she sang in Plump Jack by Gordon Getty and Verdi’s Otello. Now she has been given her own recital disc, and it is a triumph. She has chosen songs by some of America’s finest vocal composers, and she sings them with a gleaming lirico-spinto soprano and an understanding of the texts that she communicates well. If I were to nitpick, it would be that I wish her diction was a touch more crisp; consonants could have more bite. But that is the only negative, and it is not a major one (Moore is not as negligent in this area as Joan Sutherland, for example). It can also be noted that her engagement with the words, while genuine, is a touch generalized rather than specific. But except for the Barber, these are songs that frequently are recorded (if at all) by voices far less beautiful and compelling than hers. As an overall collection of American songs presented at a very high level, this one is far above the norm. Moore’s partner, Bradley Moore (no relation), is an experienced conductor and pianist who specializes in vocal and American music, and he contributes lyrical, warm playing.

The highlight of the disc for me is Carlisle Floyd’s The Mystery, subtitled “Five Songs of Motherhood.” I first encountered these songs shortly after their 1960 composition in a stunning performance by Phyllis Curtin and the Syracuse Symphony under its founding conductor, Karl Kritz. I have never heard them since––I am not aware of any previous commercial recording. (An internet search turns up only this new one. We still await the first recording of the orchestral version.) Floyd’s cycle of motherhood begins with a lovely description of the beginning of the process, “He has kissed me,” which is followed by an alternately intimate and passionate song called “Gentleness,” describing the emotions of carrying the baby during pregnancy. Next comes “To my husband,” which is filled with the urgency of love, and “At dawn,” conveying, quite dramatically, both the pain and elation of delivery and birth. “Rocking,” the final song, is a lullaby that is more impassioned than gentle.

Moore’s voice soars through this quite demanding cycle. Her clear high notes are produced without any sense of strain, and there are lovely floated pianissimos as well. She conveys the full breadth of feelings contained in The Mystery––passion, tenderness, elation, and love. Floyd’s 18-minute cycle is, in my view, a significant work that should have found a place of greater prominence in recitals by American singers. It might be seen as a modern American successor to Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben, and it would be interesting to pair the two on a program. Perhaps this exquisite recording will help rectify the situation.

By contrast, Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs have been recorded many times, and of course there is the classic 1953 Leontyne Price recording from a Library of Congress concert with the composer as accompanist. Moore may lack the unique vocal timbres of Price, or even Barbara Bonney, who made a fine Decca recording with André Previn. But these performances have much to offer on their own terms. There is a warm, solidly produced glow to the middle-upper and upper ranges of Moore’s soprano that is consistently pleasurable over the span of Barber’s settings of poems by medieval Irish monks between the 8th and 13th centuries. Moore, as she does in the Floyd cycle, effectively covers Barber’s wide emotional range, from exuberance (“The Heavenly Banquet”) to the haunting introspection of “The Desire for Hermitage.” The floated pianissimo at the end of “St. Ita’s Vision” is ethereally beautiful.

The six songs that make up two cycles by Jake Heggie justify his reputation as one of America’s most important currently active composers of vocal music (born in 1961, he is by three decades the youngest composer on the program). Copland’s posthumously published Four Early Songs show strong influences of the French Impressionists, particularly in the keyboard writing. The one original work by Gordon Getty on the disc is a fervent aria from his opera Goodbye, Mr. Chips, sung with intensity by Moore (the composer was present for the recording). The remaining contributions from Getty are lovely settings of three traditional Welsh songs and the ever-popular Deep River and Danny Boy.