Posted in Classical on Jun 30th, 2008 No Comments »
“Die junge Nonne” is one of Schubert’s greatest songs. I have written an appreciation of it here.
Margaret Price’s recording of this song is of the very highest quality, superbly accompanied by Graham Johnson.
Posted in Country Music on Jun 30th, 2008 No Comments »
My appreciation of this touching, artless and heartfelt song, written about the death of her mother, is here.
Posted in Country Music on Jun 30th, 2008 No Comments »
In my other blog, I have done a number of posts of appreciation of singers and musicians from all genres of music. My appreciation of this Patty Griffin song is here.
Posted in Classical on Jun 30th, 2008 2 Comments »
“Schlafendes Jesuskind” is the most approachable of Hugo Wolf’s songs. It’s a settng of a Morike poem about the sleeping Christchild.
I came to Wolf late - not really getting to grips with his declamatory style. And the orchestral versions of some of his songs made approaching them easier for me. The first time I heard this song was at a concert in November 1981, where the songs were shared between John Shirley-Quirk and Elizabeth Connell, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Ferdinand Leitner.
Here is Elizabeth Connell singing “Schlafendes Jesuskind”. I love the way she floats the word “Himmelskind” at the end.
The song starts 20 seconds in, after audience rustling and settling.
Here are the words.
Schlafendes Jesuskind
Sohn der Jungfrau, Himmelskind! am Boden,
Auf dem Holz der Schmerzen eingeschlafen,
Das der fromme Meister, sinnvoll spielend,
Deinen leichten Träumen unterlegte;
Blume du, noch in der Knospe dämmernd
Eingehüllt die Herrlichkeit des Vaters!
O wer sehen könnte, welche Bilder
Hinter dieser Stirne, diesen schwarzen
Wimpern sich in sanftem Wechsel malen!
Sohn der Jungfrau, Himmelskind!
Sleeping Christchild
Son of the Virgin, child of Heaven, lying on the floor
asleep on the wood of suffering
that the pious painter has placed -
a meaningful allusion - under your light dreams;
You flower, even in the bud, darkling and sheathed,
still the glory of God the Father!
O, who could see,
behind this brow, these dark lashes,
what softly-changing pictures are being painted!
Son of the Virgin, child of Heaven!
Posted in Classical on Jun 29th, 2008 No Comments »
In the early 80s I worked in dismal government offices in Marsham Street, SW1. My civil service career was not going well. Every Friday the BBC broadcast a lunchtime concert from nearby St John’s, Smith Square. Reasoning that an extra half hour for lunch was not going to do more damage to my already doomed career, I regularly attended these concerts.
On 5 December 1983 I was present at a concert by the Dutch soprano, Elly Ameling. A more charming singer it is hard to imagine, with a lovely, innocent and rather delicate voice. Add that to her girlish flirtatiousness and it isn’t hard to see why we were so charmed. The concert was designed to show the range of her singing - from an opening Baroque aria, through French and English song - ending up with this - a song by Richard Strauss, as her encore. Elly introduces it herself, in delightful, not quite perfect, English. I love the way she draws back her voice,as if inside herself, for the last verse, where the girl is thinking only of him.
Posted in Classical on Jun 29th, 2008 No Comments »
As my first post, here is Janet Baker singing Vaughan William’s setting of Rossetti’s poem “Silent Noon”. It was recorded from a BBC recital she gave, with Geoffrey Parsons as her accompanist, in 1981, just after she had retired from the opera stage. I was fortunate to see her final performance at the English National Opera that same year.
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