The Prince Consort – Ned Rorem: On An Echoing Road (2009) [LINN FLAC 24bit/192kHz]

The Prince Consort – Ned Rorem: On An Echoing Road (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 56:37 minutes | 1,94 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: LinnRecords.com | Covers & Digital Booklet

Ned Rorem is one of the most widely-recorded living American composers, who Time Magazine called ‘the world’s best composer of art songs’, with over 500 songs to his name. The Prince Consort is fast emerging as a fresh, exciting and versatile ensemble. Their performances are characterised by wide-ranging programmes and polished presentation, which showcase different combinations of voice and piano, from solos to small groups in piano-accompanied song. If you want a single-disc introduction to this very fine and important composer of songs you can’t do better than this disc by this fine ensemble.

A first through here is that the poems would make an excellent anthology in themselves – and that is not to disparage the music. Armin Zanner’s introductory essay on the composer and his songs makes much of the echo motif (the phrase adopted for the subtitle is from a poem, well translated by Rorem, by Colette). Rorem is quoted as saying: “I set words to music as I talk them”. He also says that the germ, “the spark that’s lit in the night”, usually goes into the accompaniment. Does that, I wonder, explain a second thought – that these songs are characteristically just a little too delicate, that this prized quality of colloquial ease is a reason why I also think that they will glide out of my mind as easily as they slid into it?

Certainly – certainty at last – this is a most attractive disc. The Prince Consort comprises five singers still young, clear and intelligent in their way with words, and their pianist-director, Alisdair Hogarth. Unusually they have a countertenor in their midst, the excellent Tim Mead, who shares the title-song, a duet with Anna Leese, and has two of the best solos. South African baritone Jacques Imbrailo is also noteworthy: the recording brings out the individual timbre of his voice, and to him goes what I still find the best of the songs, “Early in the morning”.

Tracklist:
01 – Early in the morning
02 – Are you the new person drawn toward me?
03 – Rain in Spring
04 – For Susan
05 – Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
06 – Jeanie with the light brown hair
07 – To a young girl
08 – Catullus: On the burial of his brother
09 – Requiescat
10 – I will always love you
11 – That shadow, my likeness
12 – On an echoing road
13 – I strolled across an open field
14 – Alleluia
15 – Little Elegy
16 – Sometimes with one I love
17 – Hymn for Evening
18 – Orchids
19 – On a singing girl
20 – Now sleeps the crimson petal
21 – What if some little pain
22 – Look down, fair moon
23 – The Rainbow
24 – Do I love you more than a day?
25 – Their lonely betters
26 – Do not love too long
27 – Comment on War
28 – The Serpent
29 – Full of life now

Produced by John Fraser. Engineered by Philip Hobbs.
Recorded at Potton Hall, UK, 10 – 13 February 2009.
Post-production by Julia Thomas, Finesplice, U.K.

The Prince Consort:
– Alisdair Hogarth: artistic director, piano
– Anna Leese: soprano
– Jennifer Johnston: mezzo-soprano
– Andrew Staples: tenor
– Tim Mead: countertenor
– Jacques Imbrailo: baritone

Download:

mqs.link_ThePrinceCnsrtNedRremnAnEchingRad2009LINN24192.part1.rar
mqs.link_ThePrinceCnsrtNedRremnAnEchingRad2009LINN24192.part2.rar