English Song Series 2 - Somervell: Shropshire Lad, James Lee's Wife

$13.99
Label
Naxos
Release Date
November 1, 2002
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      SOMERVELL
    • ORCHESTRA / ENSEMBLE
      Duke Quartet
    • PERFORMER
      Catherine, Patricia, Wyn-Rogers, Christopher, Rozario, Graham, Maltman, Johnson
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      November 01, 2002
    • UPC
      747313211326
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      8557113
    • LABEL
      Naxos
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Vocal
    Works ⌄

    1. O mistress mine

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    2. Orpheus with his lute

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Patricia Rozario, Graham Johnson

    3. Sweet Kate

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    4. No. 1. The shepherd

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    5. No. 2. The blossom

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    6. No. 3. The lamb

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    7. No. 4. Nurse's Song

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    8. No. 5. Birds in the high Hall-garden

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    9. No. 7. Go not, happy day

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    10. No. 9. Come into the garden, Maud

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    11. No. 1. James Lee's Wife speaks at the window

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Ensemble: Duke Quartet

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    12. No. 2. By the fireside

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Ensemble: Duke Quartet

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    13. No. 3. In the doorway

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Ensemble: Duke Quartet

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    14. No. 4. On the cliff

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Ensemble: Duke Quartet

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    15. No. 5. Among the rocks

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Ensemble: Duke Quartet

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    16. The Bargain

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Patricia Rozario, Graham Johnson

    17. Fain would I change that note

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Patricia Rozario, Graham Johnson

    18. Shepherd's cradle song

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Patricia Rozario, Graham Johnson

    19. Come to me in my dreams

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Graham Johnson

    20. Long in Springtime: No. 2. Dainty little maiden

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Patricia Rozario, Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    21. When Spring returns

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Patricia Rozario, Graham Johnson

    22. No. 1. Lovliest of trees

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    23. No. 2. When I was one-and-twenty

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    24. No. 3. There pass the careless people

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    25. No. 4. In summer-time on Bredon

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    26. No. 5. The street sounds to a soldier's tread

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    27. No. 6. On the idle hill of summer

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    28. No. 7. White in the moon the long road lies

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    29. No. 8. Think no more lad, laugh, be jolly

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    30. No. 9. Into my heart an air that kills

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson

    31. No. 10. The lads in their hundreds

      Composer: Arthur Somervell

      Performer: Christopher Maltman, Graham Johnson


Somervell's four songs on poems from William Blake's Songs of Innocence were written in 1889, dedicated to Dolly and Gwen, and simple and child-like in form and appeal, perfectly crafted examples of such work. The song cycle based on Tennyson's monodrama Maud dates from 1898. There are thirteen songs in the whole work that traces the story from the memories of the suicide of the protagonist's father, ruined by unfortunate speculation, making his son's match with Maud, daughter of his father's closest friend, and his betrayer, impossible. Three of these are included here. Maud's family return to the Hall and gradually the young man at the heart of the drama falls in love with her again. In the fifth song of Somervell's cycle, Birds in the high Hall-garden, the lovers meet, before Maud returns to the house, with the flowers she has picked. The verses that tell of the arrival of another to woo her are omitted. The seventh song, Go not, happy day, expresses the love of the couple. The first part of the poem ends with the words that provide the ninth song of Somervell's cycle, Come into the garden, Maud, words perhaps more familiar in the setting by Balfe. The singer calls Maud to the garden, as he hears the sound of music from the Hall, where he has not been invited. As she approaches, he is in ecstasy, but the song does not tell how their meeting is to be interrupted by Maud's brother, his quarrel with her lover, and her brother's death in the dreadful hollow, where the drama had started. In the remaining songs Maud's lover seeks exile abroad and goes out of his mind, while Maud, in his absence, dies. The cycle ends with the singer's resolve to meet his fate in war for his country. The song cycle derived from Robert Browning's James Lee's Wife was published in 1907 with a dedication to Marie Brema, a Liverpool-born singer of German-American parentage who, in 1894, was the first English-born singer to appear at Bayreuth, where she sang Ortrud in Lohengrin and Kundry in Parsifal. James Lee's Wife first appeared, under the title James Lee, in 1864 in Browning's Dramatis Personae and from the original nine poems Somervell takes five. The first version has an orchestral accompaniment, but the songs were later arranged for an accompaniment of piano quintet, and then simply with a piano accompaniment. As in other dramatic monologues by Browning, the woman of the title reveals her story, telling first of changing love, more dramatically in the second song, By the Fireside, as she tells of the rot and rust, run to dust, of a ship seemingly safe in port, as she and her husband had seemed. The same idea continues in the third song, In the Doorway, from which the middle two verses of the original poem are omitted. In the fifth of Browning's poems, On the Cliff, she sings of the parched vegetation on the rock and how from this may come color and life, as with the minds of men. The cycle ends with the seventh of Browning's poems, Among the Rocks, in which she proclaims her message that If you loved only what were worth your love, / Love were clear gain.