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Interview with Gramophone (January 2008)
The Canadian baritone on his disc of Samuel Barber songs
How well did Barber set poetry?
He starts off at an advantage of being a singer himself, and I think he was meticulous in his writing. There's lots of evidence of him trying to get metre, substance and rythmic things absolutely right. He was naturally adept at it, and he was also meticulous as a composer in trying to make things work for the singer at any cost. One of the pleasures is always the sense of melody. In ther late 1920s-'40s there might have been a movement away from purely melodic writing in other spheres of the classical music industry, but I think Barber was firmly a melodist, and his music is obviously a joy to sing.
He obviously had a keen interest in poetry.
His penchant for Irish poetry, or Celtic in any case, is quite strong. There's a wonderful story of him going on one of those trips to Ireland to Yeats's grave and was delighted to find that it was surrounded by Barbers!
How did you choose the programme?
We tried to represent his gifts as a song composer, and we looked at his entire repertoire (or what would be appropriate for the male voice of course). We wanted to feel that more neglected early songs were worth hearing, and felt that the Mélodies passagères, the Hermit songs, as well as Dover Beach were quite substantial in themselves.
How different do his songs feel with string quartet rather than piano?
I think the density of string sound is so evocative in some way; I like the encouragement to rise above the string sonority, just like any strings and solo voice recording. It encourages line. When you're dealing with four very talented musicians you all have to be cooperative in where climaxes and subtleties happen, and from a purely musical perspective it's very enriching and exciting to do. The Aronowitz are such a talented quartet and I was very pleased with the colours that they were able to achieve; in some ways those colours inspire the voice to take on colours which are more appropriate to the poetry.