<<< previous recording <<< >>> next recording >>>
Barber: Songs (CD)
Nominated for 2008 Juno Award "Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral" category
CD of the Month: Gramophone, January 2008
"…one of the year's finest vocal releases. Unmissable." Five out of five stars [Exceptional]. Classic FM magazine
Five out of five stars - Musicalcriticism.com
“…Finley communicates with finesse every poetic nuance, his golden baritone allied to rare poetic intelligence.” The Sunday Times
Five out of five stars: “Finley has a beautiful instrument, backed by solid technique, dramatic commitment, and superb musicianship. He is perfectly suited to these songs.” La Scena Musicale
“…we can only be glad that the team of Finley, Drake, and Barber finally got together.” Classics Today
Composer: Samuel Barber
Performers: Gerald Finley, Julius Drake, Aronowitz Ensemble
Recorded: December 2005, All Saints,
Durham Road, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Released: 29 October 2007 (UK). 13 November 2007 elsewhere
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Hyperion CDA67528
ASIN: B000WE5G5I
Track listing [Click on each track title to hear an extract]
CD1
1. There's nae lark (Barber/Swinburne)
2. The Beggar's Song (Barber) 'Good people keep their holy day'
3. In the dark pinewood (Barber/Joyce)
4. Three Songs, Op 2 (Barber/Stephens). No 3: Bessie Bobtail 'As down the road she wambled slow'
5. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Ó Faoláin). No 01: At St Patrick's Purgatory 'Pity me on my pilgrimage to Loch Derg!'
6. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Mumford Jones). No 02: Church Bell at Night 'Sweet little bell, struck on a windy night'
7. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Kallman). No 03: St Ita's Vision 'I will take nothing from my Lord, said she'
8. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Ó Faoláin). No 04: The Heavenly Banquet 'I would like to have the men of Heaven in my own house'
9. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Mumford Jones). No 05: The Crucifixion 'At the cry of the first bird'
10. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber). No 06: Sea Snatch 'It has broken us, it has crushed us'
11. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber). No 07: Promiscuity 'I do not know with whom Edan will sleep'
12. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Auden). No 08: The Monk and his Cat 'Pangur, white Pangur'
13. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Auden). No 09: The Praises of God 'How foolish the man who does not raise'
14. Hermit Songs, Op 29 (Barber/Ó Faoláin). No 10: The Desire for Hermitage 'Ah! To be all alone in a little cell'
15. Three Songs, Op 10 (Barber). No 1: Rain has fallen
16. Three Songs, Op 10 (Barber). No 2: Sleep now
17. Three Songs, Op 10 (Barber). No 3: I hear an army
18. Mélodies passagères, Op 27 (Barber). No 1: Puisque tout passe
19. Mélodies passagères, Op 27 (Barber). No 2: Un cygne
20. Mélodies passagères, Op 27 (Barber). No 3: Tombeau dans un parc 'Dors au fond de l'allée'
21. Mélodies passagères, Op 27 (Barber). No 4: Le clocher chante 'Mieux qu'une tour profane'
22. Mélodies passagères, Op 27 (Barber). No 4: Départ 'Mon amie, il faut que je parte'
23. Three Songs, Op 2 (Barber/Stephens). No 1: The Daisies 'In the scented bud of the morning – O'
24. Three Songs, Op 2 (Barber/Housman). No 2: With rue my heart is laden
25. Four Songs, Op 13 (Barber/Prokosch). No 4: Nocturne 'Close my darling both your eyes'
26. Four Songs, Op 13 (Barber/Agee). No 3: Sure on this shining night
27. Four Songs, Op 13 (Barber/Agee). Dover Beach, Op 3 (Barber) 'The sea is calm tonight'
Click here for a short Q and A interview about this CD in Gramophone, January 2008
What the critics say
Gramophone disc of the month
Editor’s Choice
Peter Dickinson, Gramophone, January 2008
A wonderful reminder of Barber's skill as a songwriter, in ideal performances
Performances of this calibre emphasise Barber's stature in the mainstream of 20th-century song composers. The tradition is Anglo-American and "There's nae lark", written when Barber was 16 to a poem by Swinburne in imitation Scots, could even be by Quilter. But Barber soon gets into his stride and by the time he reached his Three Songs, Op 10, there's a rare kind of intensity as impressive as anything on this CD. The poems are from James Joyce's Chamber Music; Barber set a few more, such as "In the dark pinewood" included here; but what a tragedy he never set the whole cycle that could have been an American Winterreise. The Hermit Songs, fey and whimsically amusing, are probably the best-known set.
The immediate comparison is with the Gramophone Award-winning Thomas Hampson, who is accompanied by John Browning, a close friend and colleague of Barber's. Finley's voice is lower - he transposes many of the songs - and richer, with nothing to fear alongside Hampson, who is anyway on a two-CD set. Mostly I prefer Finley, and the recording is warmer.
"Sure on the shining shore" [Sic] is vintage Barber, and Finley and Drake are impeccable (as are the Aronowitz Quartet in Dover Beach). The French songs, to poems by Rilke, who did write in French, have less character, but the single songs are all gems. This is another outstanding Hyperion release that does credit to Barber in what will soon be a run-up to his centenary.
Gramophone Magazine, January 2008
This is a pretty stunning achievement. At his most mellifluous and focused, Gerald Finley has beauty of tone to spare. But he is also at his most expressive – hollowing out the voice for the hopelessness of the song “Bessie Bobtail”, letting it splinter with anger at the climax of the brief, furious “Sea Snatch”. Throughout, Julius Drake proves a predictably accomplished, thoughtful partner. The pair move easily and logically from the prettiness of the very early songs through the complexities of the Hermit Songs and the pensive Mélodies passagères. It’s a canny move to place Dover Beach as the final track. The introduction of the string quartet to close the disc shifts the mood, sending us off in another direction. It comes as a hopeful reminder of the wonder of love, even with a sting in its tail. Entirely appropriate for a bittersweet, marvellous collection.
Top twelve recordings of 2007
Hugo Shirley for Musicalcriticism.com
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/recordings/top-twelve-recordings-1207.shtml
Not the perfect soundtrack to the Christmas family lunch, perhaps, but the redoubtable Gerald Finley's new disc of songs by Samuel Barber is both thought-provoking and emotive. In particular, I admire the way in which the singer has considered the sounds he created to suit this repertoire. The eeriness of so many of these numbers needs not only a beautiful voice but an even vocal production, seamless legato and the ability to respond to the text.
Andrew Stewart, Classic FM Magazine, December 2007
Rating: five out of five stars [Exceptional]
Having served the songs of Charles Ives with enormous distinction, the partnership of baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake shift artistic gear to explore works by one of
America's greatest tunesmiths. Samuel Barber's lyrical writing and subtle feeling for expressive shading were matched in his songs by a Britten-like aptness for word-setting, which ideally suits Finley's compelling blend of emotional conviction and vocal flexibility. On the strength of his interpretation of the Hermit Songs alone, regardless of his majestic readings of Barber's Rilke settings and Dover Beach, Finley enables this album to command its price as one of the year's finest vocal releases. Unmissable."
The Sunday Times, 4 November 2007
Rating: Four out of five stars
In my book, Samuel Barber is one of the finest of all songwriters in the 20th century. Every poem he sets is carefully chosen, thought about, and – the true mark of greatness – enhanced. Every human emotion, whether delight in a cat or regret for lost friends, is astutely conveyed. He sees all aspects of humanity from all angles. Gerald Finley knows this well, and here sings some of Barber’s finest, such as the 10 Hermit Songs, the three powerful James Joyce settings of Op 10, the Op 27 Rilke settings, Mélodies passagères, and some impressively fluent earlier songs. Ably aided by the pianist Julius Drake, Finley communicates with finesse every poetic nuance, his golden baritone allied to rare poetic intelligence.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian,November 16, 2007
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2211456,00.html
Rating: Four out of five stars
Baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake follow their outstanding disc of songs by Charles Ives with a collection devoted to a very different American composer. Samuel Barber's particularly personal brand of romanticism seems so natural and unforced, it's unnecessary to attach the prefix "neo-" to it. Barber's gifts for elegant, melodic writing and his own early experiences as a singer (he once contemplated a career as a baritone) made him a natural songwriter, and two of the works here - the 10 settings of medieval Irish texts that make up his Hermit Songs Op 29, and the magically rapt version of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach - are among his finest achievements in any genre. The Mélodies Passagères, composed in the early 1950s for Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc, are a homage to French song; three other settings of James Joyce and some of Barber's songs to American texts are also included. Finley is a wonderfully persuasive advocate for all these songs, and shows that the best of them rank among the greatest of the 20th century.
Rick Jones, The Times, 10 November 2007
Rating: four out of five stars
Although one might expect tedium from a disc of 27 songs by one composer, interpreted by one singer, there is much variety here. Finley captures the “eternal note of sadness” that the poet Matthew Arnold hears in the wave-dragged shingle on Dover Beach. Elsewhere, the pianist Julius Drake accompanies, most vividly in the thundering Joyce setting I Hear an Army. Finley and Drake make an excellent partnership throughout, but particularly in the pitiful faltering of Bessie Bobtail. Rilke’s French settings are beguilingly moody, though Finley, rather oddly for a supposedly bilingual Canadian, falls rather heavily on the feminine endings.
Dave Paxton for MusicOMH.com
http://www.musicomh.com/recordings/cd-finley_1107.htm
Rating: Four out of five stars
Samuel Barber's songs, some of the finest of the twentieth century, are short, pithy and varied, and this gripping release from Hyperion brings together many of the composer's finest works in the medium.
The Hermit Songs, Op.29, is ten settings of translated medieval Gaelic and Latin poems. Barber noted that they were written by monks, "often on the margins of manuscripts they were copying... not always meant to be seen by their Father Superiors". Though these poems are highly personal utterances, Barber's music only enhances their effect. The Church Bell at Night provides ample demonstration: the sparse, unsettling bass notes and introspective chordal harmonies suggest both the night and the poet's ambiguous mindset. The twinkling in the piano's upper register is the ringing of the bell. The song lasts for but a minute, yet it conjures a fully-realised atmosphere and widely-explored sound-world.
Sea Snatch takes even shorter time, yet the piano's insistent bass line penetrates and sticks in the cranium, the song's abrupt, violent conclusion dramatically suggesting the text's "The wind has consumed us". Fluidity is the key in these songs, and that they are written without time signature allows for great melodic and rhythmic freedom, though the structure always appears to be tightly constructed.
Also present here are the Mélodies passagères, Op.27, 1950s settings of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, where Barber treats the French language with grace and poise. The three early songs that open this disc are also fascinating: There's nae lark for its sweet, only occasionally forced lyricism, In the dark pinewood for its unusual, rich and shifting harmonies. The Beggar's Song is a hardly immature masterpiece, poking fun at Christians who rest on the Sabbath - the poet rests every day! Barber's music, morphing into an ironically sprightly dance rhythm to show the beggar's laziness, is both economical and comic.
Gerald Finley delivers the songs with his famously rich, noble baritone, his experience in the opera house contributing to his theatrical yet subtle characterisation. Occasionally, Finley's nobility and polish of tone lose from the songs their personal element, but he delivers with great expression that cannot help but captivate the listener. Julius Drake is a near-perfect accompanist. Listen to his piano playing in Le clocher chante (part of the Mélodies passagères), and note how its twinkling beauty ripples around the voice. The final track, Dover Beach (an early setting of Matthew Arnold's poem, inexplicably not robbing this masterpiece of its dignity but adding intriguing psychological and dramatic musical layers), works for the brutality and sorrowful dignity of The Aronowitz Ensemble's string textures. The whole, as an introduction to Barber's songs, could hardly be bettered.
Dominic McHugh for Musicalcriticism.com
http://www.musicalcriticism.com/recordings/cd-finley-barber-1207.shtml
Rating: Five out of five stars
Not the perfect soundtrack to the Christmas family lunch, perhaps, but the redoubtable Gerald Finley's new disc of songs by Samuel Barber is both thought-provoking and emotive.
In particular, I admire the way in which the singer has considered the sounds he created to suit this repertoire. The eeriness of so many of these numbers needs not only a beautiful voice but an even vocal production, seamless legato and the ability to respond to the text with either hollow or sharp, biting sounds, depending on the style of the song. The marriage of intelligent delivery with a lavish vocal talent is ideal and makes the disc a real winner.
Barber was evidently an avid reader of poetry and singer of considerable ability, so it is no surprise that his songs are both imaginative as textual settings and realistic as performable works. The Three Songs, Op. 2, are his earliest published examples of this form, and here receive wonderfully vivid performances from Finley. The two settings of poems by James Stephens are the best: 'The Daisies' has a simple purity about it which Finley does nothing to overcomplicate, while 'Bessie Bobtail' is both searing and sombre. The third is scarcely less effective, however: 'With rue my heart is laden' is based on a poem from A E Housman's A Shropshire Lad and Finley picks up on the darkness of Barber's B minor setting.
The composer loved Irish poetry and the Three Songs, Op. 10, are based on works from James Joyce's Chamber Music. Composed in 1939, these are amongst the highlights of the disc; indeed 'I hear an army' is by far my favourite track. It's amongst the scariest, most savage songs I've heard by any composer, largely because of the virtuosic piano writing. Julius Drake is a trusty ally for Finley in this song (as throughout the disc), both of them pushing the expressive boundaries of song performance to the limits.
Modelled on Poulenc's song output (currently being explored by the Wigmore Hall), the Mélodies passagères, Op. 27, show Barber at his most exquisite. Of the five beautifully written pieces, Un cygne finds Finley at his best. Always at home in the French language, he draws out the melodic line in long breaths, mirroring the floating action of the swan. That he is a great interpreter of songs is also shown by the restraint with which he treats the majority of the piece, only broadening out towards the end.
The well-known Hermit Songs are also magisterially performed. The ten songs take under nineteen minutes to perform and are short, pithy and hugely engaging. Over fifty years after they were first performed at Washington's Library of Congress by Leontyne Price with Barber at the piano, Gerald Finley and Julius Drake have made them sound as fresh as if they were new. The many interesting inflections the two performers bring to the works are too many to list, but the contrast between the eerie thinkling sounds of 'Church Bell at Night' and the dense religious chords of 'St Ita's Vision' give some indication of the accompanist's attention to detail, matched throughout by Finley at his best.
The disc is completed by a few other isolated songs for voice and piano, as persuasively performed as the rest, and the final track, 'Dover Beach', has the luxury of the superb four-piece Aronowitz Ensemble for accompaniment. One of the composer's earliest works, it is an eight-minute narrative of extraordinary imagination which caps off yet another brilliant song recital from Hyperion.
Matthew Rye, the Telegraph, 5 January 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/01/05/bmclasscds10.xml
Of all 20th-century American composers, Samuel Barber was the one most imbued with the lyrical spirit. His songs formed an important part of his output, so it is perhaps surprising that they are not programmed more often. To their aid comes the indefatigable Gerald Finley, who makes even the most strait-laced song shine. He is at his best in the varied moods of the Hermit Songs, settings of modern translations of medieval monks' verses, from the spiritual to the bawdy. Julius Drake is his ever percipient partner, while the strings of the Aronowitz Ensemble provide an atmospheric backing for the most famous of these songs, Dover Beach.
David Shengold, Opera News, February 2008
The excellent Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, a welcome Met visitor as Mozart's Papageno and Giovanni and Puccini's Marcello, has made many fine showings on the concert and recital platform as well. He is accumulating a substantial discography illustrating his healthy, fine-napped timbre, distinguished musicianship and stylistic sensitivity. This new disc devoted to Samuel Barber's songs is no exception and can be warmly recommended both to those conversant with the American singer/composer's distinctive oeuvre and to those new to it.
Barber's own refined baritone, trained at Curtis by Emilio de Gogorza, endures on historical recordings in some of his earlier efforts in the art-song genre. Charming as these archival mementos are, Finley — with a more rounded tone, greater range and less "studied" diction — is probably more satisfying, as he too can spin a head tone into air. There are other significant and worthwhile Barber song collections on disc — Roberta Alexander with Tan Crone on Etcetera (1988); Thomas Allen with Roger Vignoles on Virgin (1990); and Thomas Hampson and Cheryl Studer's two-CD set with John Browning (1994). Unlike Finley's, none of these offers the sublime Hermit Songs (given their premieres by Leontyne Price, with Barber at the piano, in 1953) sung by a baritone. For that, one would have to turn to Nonesuch's 1991 general American song collection Beloved That Pilgrimage, featuring Sanford Sylvan with David Breitman. Some of the Hermit Songs make more sense in a male voice, and Finley gives them fine, lively readings, especially delicate in the crowd-pleasing "The Monk and His Cat." No one, however, is likely to match Price's aptly feminine radiance in "St. Ita's Vision" — though Alexander comes close. By the same token, Alexander seems to have captured the feeling-drenched lyricism and lower-register richness of the exquisite James Agee setting "Sure on this Shining Night" like no one else, though Finley's nuanced version is notably good. He and Drake particularly thrive in the difficult Joyce-based Three Songs (Opus 10).
With the fine quartet players of the multi-configuration Aronowitz Ensemble, Finley gives a well-measured yet committed reading of
Dover Beach, a setting of Matthew Arnold's image-rich, pessimistic poem. The word setting is skilled and the sentiments noble; how one feels about this work may ultimately depend — as with the musically more ambitious Knoxville, Summer of 1915 — upon whether or not one knew the inherent "music" of the text before hearing it in Barber's version.
Joseph K. So for La Scene Musicale, 21 January 2008
http://www.scena.org/blog/2008/01/songs-of-samuel-barber.html
Rating: Five performance stars / four ‘value for money’ $$$$
Following the critically acclaimed disc of Charles Ives songs, baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake teamed up for this album of Samuel Barber songs. It reaffirms their position as a great singer-pianist duo. Finley has a beautiful instrument, backed by solid technique, dramatic commitment, and superb musicianship. He is perfectly suited to these songs. A great melodist and unabashedly romantic, Barber's way with a melody bears a strong kinship to fellow American Ned Rorem, and to Giancarlo Menotti, with whom Barber had a lifelong professional and personal relationship. At a time when others rushed to serialism, Barber stuck to a lushly lyrical style deemed to be regressive and old-fashioned. It is thus ironic that his contemporaries, having flirted with atonality, reverted back to a more traditional style. Sadly, Barber, who died in 1981, didn't live long enough to witness the pendulum swinging back his way.
This disc contains 27 of Barber's best output, including Hermit Songs and Dover Beach, two of this three best song cycles. It's a pity that the third, Knoxville, Summer 1915, isn't included. Commissioned by Eleanor Steber, Knoxville is sung by a soprano and very occasionally by a boy treble. For once, I would love to hear a mature male voice in this! While Barber did not specify a voice type for Hermit Songs, it will forever be associated with the great Leontyne Price, who premiered it with the composer at the keyboard, and subsequently recorded it for RCA. It is refreshing to hear a baritone in this piece. Set to translations of Medieval Gaelic poems attributed to Irish monks, it has a disarming simplicity. Barber composed Dover Beach and sang the cycle himself on its first recording in 1935. Barber's skill and sophistication in the setting of this highly dramatic cycle on the loss of religious faith at the tender age of twenty is quite something. The composer dedicated Mélodies passagères Op. 27 to Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc. Composed in a distinctly French manner and derivative in style, it is as if Barber were deliberately imitating Poulenc. Finley sings beautifully throughout. His English is crystal clear, and his attention to textual details exemplary. Julius Drake is at the top of his game, offering excellent support. The recorded sound is warm and mellow. The beautifully produced booklet, with the trademark landscape oil painting on the cover, contains an essay, artist bios and song texts, except for the James Joyce items. Hyperion claims it is for copyright reasons, but it is probably because the Joyce Estate demanded money. This disc is a strong contender as the best vocal recital by a Canadian artist.
David Vernier, Classics Today 25 January 2008
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=11455
Canadian baritone Gerald Finley was justly lauded for his earlier recital of songs by another American composer, Charles Ives (type Q9249 in Search Reviews), and here he equals and sometimes surpasses Thomas Hampson's fine interpretations included on the 1994 DG set of complete Barber songs (with Cheryl Studer, John Browning, and the Emerson String Quartet). His warm timbre, technical facility, fluid, natural phrasing, and conscientious expression brings an easy, unforced clarity to the texts, ideally characterizing each song without distracting mannerisms or undue dramatic inflections.
Barber was a master songwriter, from his carefully chosen texts to his underrated genius for creating piano accompaniments that often are quite independent from the melody yet when combined transform both parts to a surprising and greater whole. Two of Barber's finest songs, "The Monk and his Cat" and "With rue my heart is laden", are good examples of this technique. In the former, even more intriguing is how the composer sets the rhythms of voice and piano against each other, as if they are performing in different meters; but a glance at the score shows the secret in the very clever (but precisely clear and remarkably easy to follow) notation.
In the two most popular of Barber's songs - "The Daisies" and "Sure on this shining night - it would be hard to imagine performances more purely beautiful, sensitive, and true to the music and poetry than Finley's; on the acclaimed DG recording, Hampson's "The Daisies" is just slightly too slow, and on Barber's own rendition (with Leontyne Price from 1953--RCA), he plays it so fast that Price hardly is able to keep up! Cheryl Studer (DG) is just too loose with pitch and phrasing to place her "Sure on this shining night" among the better versions. My only slight reservation here concerns the balance that obscures spatial orientation between voice and string quartet in Dover Beach; otherwise, the sound is ideal.
The success of this recital is simple: allowing a beautiful voice, keen interpretive sense (on the part of both singer and pianist), and first-rate music to combine and present themselves. Well, I guess it's not so simple, otherwise recordings such as this would come along a lot more often, and we can only be glad that the team of Finley, Drake, and Barber finally got together.
Elissa Poole, The Globe and Mail, 4 December 2007
Rating: Four stars
For copyright reasons, Hyperion could not print the James Joyce texts on Gerald Finley’s new disc of Samuel Barber songs, but no matter: Finley’s diction - and Barber’s prosody - are so good we don’t need them. We love the wonderful Hermit Songs - settings of ten strange medieval poems by Irish saints - and the delicate Mélodies passagères, which Finley sings with a dramatic range few can match. Paired with iron and thunder accompaniments, Finley’s baritone rings with an evangelist’s authority; in gentler songs, it sweetens, then seduces. And who but Finley measures out that long, penultimate note in The Beggars Song with such extraordinary finesse?
Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 December 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/23/PKPVTTO08.DTL&hw=Finley&sn=001&sc=1000
Samuel Barber cast a wide net when it came to finding texts for his songs. This anthology includes settings of Swinburne, Joyce, Rilke, assorted Irish lyrics from the eighth to 13th centuries and Matthew Arnold's expansive poem "Dover Beach." If Barber's stylistic range is somewhat smaller, baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake make an absorbing case for the composer's earnest, straightforward works. From his earliest, limpid love song ("There's nae lark"), composed at 17, to the blunt and turbulent "Hermit Songs" and flowing Rilke "Mélodies passagères," which are sung in French, Barber favors lucidly inflected phrases and relatively spare accompaniment to keep the focus on the words. Finley's rich, clean voice is the ideal instrument to serve that end.
Joseph K So, Opus magazine, Winter 2007/2008
On the heels of their critically acclaimed disc of Charles Ives songs, baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake have teamed up once again to record a CD of Samuel Barber songs, also on the Hyperion Label. It reaffirms their reputation as one of the most important singer-pianist duos in front of the public today. Finley’s beautiful, robust yet supple baritone, his well-honed dramatic sense and his special affinity to textual meaning are ideally suited to these songs.
This disc contains 27 of Barber’s finest in the medium, including Hermit Songs, Op 29, and DoverBeach, Op. 3, two of his three best song cycles. It’s a pity that the third, Knoxville, Summer 1915, arguably Barber’s greatest, isn’t included. Commissioned by Eleanor Steber, that cycle is sung by soprano and very occasionally boy treble. For once I would love to hear a mature male voice perform it!
While Barber did not specify a voice type for Hermit Songs, the cycle will forever be associated with the great Leontyne Price, who premiered it with the composer at the keyboard, and subsequently recorded it for RCA. It is refreshing to hear a baritone sing these songs. Set to translations of medieval Gaelic poems attributed to Irish monks, the cycle has a disarming simplicity that touches the heart. Barber composed DoverBeach and sang the cycle on its first recording in 1935. His skill and sophistication in setting this highly dramatic work on the loss of religious faith at the tender age of 20 is really quite astounding.
The composer dedicated Mélodies passagères, Op 27, a small collection of five songs in French, to Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc. Composed in distinctly French manner and derivative in style, it gives the impression that Barber is deliberately imitating Poulenc.
Finley gives highly controlled and nuanced performances throughout. The songs are sung with a tightly controlled, compact tone, using relatively little vibrato, only opening up in the more dramatic moments. His English is crystal clear, and his attention to detail exemplary. Julius Drake, one of a handful of great collaborative pianists today, is at the top of his game, offering excellent support to the soloist.
The recorded sound is warm and mellow. The beautifully produced booklet with the trademark landscape oil painting on the cover, contains an informative essay, artist bios, and song texts, except for the James Joyce items (since their use was prohibited for copyright reasons). This disc is a strong contender as the best vocal recital of the year by a Canadian artist.