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Songs of Travel (CD)

 

Composers: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Derek Holman, Benjamin Britten

Performers:

Release date: 22 Dec 2002 (originally 1998).

Recorded by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Toronto, 8-10 May 1996.

Number of Discs: 1

Label: Musica Viva

ASIN: B0000067V0

 

 

Tracks: click on each title to hear a sample

 

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel (1904) (1872-1958) (words by Robert Louis Stevenson)

1       The Vagabond (3:16)

2       Let Beauty awake (1:55)

3       The Roadside Fire (2:22)

4       Youth and Love (3:24)

5       In Dreams (2:49)

6       The Infinite Shining Heavens (1:58)

7       Whither must I wander? (4:23)

8       Bright is the Ring of Words (I :57)

9       I have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope (I :54)

 

Derek Holman: The Centered Passion (1986) (1931 -) Song Cycle for baritone and piano (words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Six poems from "In memoriam A.H.H. ')

10     Old Yew, which graspest at the stones (3:47)

11     Tonight the winds begin to rise (2: 10)

12     The path by which we twain did go (3:14)

13     The time draws near the birth of Christ (3:58)

14     Now fades the last long streak of snow (2:36)

15     Thy voice is on the rolling air (4:37)

 

 

Benjamin Britten: British and Irish Folksong arrangements (1913-1976)

16     The brisk young widow, No. 33 - vol. V (2:01)

17     Ca' the yowes, No. 37 - vol. V (3:49)

18     Dear harp of my country, No. 29 - vol. IV (2:40)

19     The last rose of summer, No. 31 - vol. IV (3:57)

20     The plough boy, No. 16 - vol. III (1:48)

21     The ash grove, No.6 - vol. I (3:02)

22     The Salley gardens, No. 1 - vol. I (2:44)

23     Oliver Cromwell, No.7 - vol. I (0:46)

 

What the critics say

New York Times (David Mermelstein) 27 September 1998

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E6DC1E30F934A1575AC0A96E958260


Three years ago, Bryn Terfel excited listeners with his Deutsche Grammophon account of Vaughan Williams's ''Songs of Travel.'' Now Gerald Finley, a Canadian, shows that Mr. Terfel isn't the only one with something to say about these songs.

A setting of nine poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, this 1904 cycle touches on love, loneliness and nature's beauty. Though it is hardly comparable to Schubert's ''Winterreise'' or Mahler's ''Songs of a Wayfarer,'' the music demands an emotional commitment. The honey-toned Mr. Finley sings it ardently, sensitively shading phrases.

Derek Holman's ''Centered Passion,'' of 1986, is new to records. Mr. Holman, a Canadian born in England, sets six Tennyson poems, charting a voyage of loss, pain and inner peace. Mr. Finley, adeptly using dynamics to convey emotion, proves a keen interpreter of the often anguished songs.

In eight folk-song arrangements by Britten, Mr. Finley again sings passionately but with apt tenderness and even humor.

Stephen Ralls is the gifted accompanist. Subtle but not self-effacing, he lends atmosphere to works in which mood is vital.
 

La Scena Musicale - Vol. 3, No. 6 April 1998

http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm3-6/sm3-6dis.htm

Gerald Finley’s debut album confirms him as one of Canada’s greatest singers. The talented 38-year old baritone who recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Papageno is here revealed as a consummate interpreter of English art song - not surprising since he has pursued his career in England for the last decade. Finley’s smooth rich lyric baritone is straight and clean with a warm timbre that touches the heart. He brings an intimate domesticity to Vaughan Williams’ pastoral songs, though he could have unbuttoned a bit more in Britten’s Folksong arrangements. The obligatory Canadian content is Derek Holman’s song cycle The Centered Passion (1986), a bleak excursion through Tennyson’s In Memoriam. I would rather have heard Finley sing Schubert, Schumann, Fauré or Duparc. Ralls’ discreet and tasteful accompaniment crowns this charming album.