Sure on this shining night - 20th-century romantic songs of America

Sure on this shining night

20th-century romantic songs of America

Robert White (tenor), Samuel Sanders (piano)

1 The Children

Composed By – Theodore Chanler

Lyrics By – Leonard Feeney

2 The Year's At The Spring

Composed By – Amy Beach*

Lyrics By – Robert Browning

3 When Stars Are In The Quiet Skies

Composed By – G W Chadwick*

Lyrics By – E Bulwer-Lytton*

4 Orpheus With His Lute

Composed By – William Schuman

Text By – William Shakespeare

5 Rose Marie

Composed By – Rudolf Friml

Lyrics By – Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach

6 The Side Show

Composed By – Charles Ives

7 Song To The Witch Of The Cloisters

Composed By – John Corigliano

Lyrics By – William M. Hoffman

8 Sure On This Shining Night

Composed By – Samuel Barber

Lyrics By – James Agee

9 Sigh No More, Ladies

Composed By – Virgil Thomson

Text By – William Shakespeare

10 Come Away, Death

Composed By – Erich Korngold*

Text By – William Shakespeare

11 On Hearing "The Last Rose Of Summer"

Composed By – Paul Hindemith

Lyrics By – Charles Wolfe*

12 Echo

Composed By – Paul Hindemith

Text By – Thomas Moore

13 If I Could Tell You

Composed By – Idabelle Firestone

Lyrics By – Madeleine Marshall

14 The Collection

Composed By – Charles Ives

Lyrics By – Charles Kingsley

15 The Lord's Prayer

Composed By – Albert Hay Malotte

16 Nature, The Gentlest Mother

Composed By – Aaron Copland

Text By – Emily Dickinson

17 The Tiger

Composed By – Eric Ewazen

Text By – William Blake

18 Never More Will The Wind

Composed By – William Bolcom

Text By – 'HD' (Hilda Doolittle)*

19 Little Elegy

Composed By – Ned Rorem

Text By – Elinor Wylie

20 One Alone

Composed By – Sigmund Romberg

Lyrics By – Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach

21 Do Not Go, My Love

Composed By – Richard Hageman

Text By – Rabindranath Tagore

22 To A Stranger

Composed By – Marc Marder

Text By – Walt Whitman

23 When I Have Sung My Songs

Composed By, Lyrics By – Ernest Charles

24 These, My Ophelia

Composed By – Theodore Chanler

Text By – Archibald MacLeish

25 An Old Song Re-Sung

Composed By – Charles T Griffes*

Lyrics By – John Masefield*

26 Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life

Composed By – Victor Herbert

Lyrics By – Rida Johnson Young

27 June Night

Composed By – Horatio Parker*

Lyrics By – Ella Higginson

28 Triolet

Composed By – John Musto

Text By – Eugene O'Neill

Tenor Robert White sings 28 romantic songs spanning the century by both native American and immigrant composers, from Amy Beach in 1899 to Marc Marder's Walt Whitman setting of 1996. There are many favourites (or 'favorites') here from the musical stage, including Friml's Rose Marie and Victor Herbert's Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life. Malotte's famous setting of The Lord's Prayer is also included. The title of the CD is taken from Samuel Barber's beautiful setting of James Agee (the poet of Knoxville, Summer of 1924).

The accompanying booklet is packed with anecdotes from Robert White's personal acquaintance with the majority of the composers represented. Several of the songs were actually written specially for him to sing.