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Track(s) taken from CDA67516

Feldeinsamkeit

First line:
Ich ruhe still im hohen grünen Gras
composer
author of text

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)
Recording details: November 2004
All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: September 2005
Total duration: 2 minutes 53 seconds
 

Reviews

‘Finley is always essentially a singer—his tone and command of the singing line are a pleasure in themselves. But he also has the absolute mastery of the composer's idioms and, with Julius Drake, his fearless and totally committed pianist, the technical, virtuosic skills to realise his intentions with (amid all the quirks) complete conviction of naturalness’ (Gramophone)

‘I cannot praise Gerald Finley’s performance too highly. It takes a very special artist to bring such unembarrassed fervour to General Booth Enters into Heaven and to encompass all its extraordinary changes of mood. What a contrast with the intimate and poetic setting of his own words in Berceuse and the magical Tom Sails Away. The whole disc is a revelation of beauty and owes much to Julius Drake’s equally perceptive playing of the piano accompaniments’ (The Sunday Telegraph)

‘Outstanding. Gerald Finley has a voice of great beauty, but it's always under the control of his penetrating intelligence: he risks bending pitches for expressive effect, and he adapts his golden timbre and almost English diction to the childlike tones of The Greatest Man and the cowboy drawl of Charlie Rutlage. Julius Drake is an equally versatile pianist, adept alike in simplicity and complexity … overall, a disc offering sustained illumination and enjoyment’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘This range calls for a voice of great flexibility, which Finley exhibits in singing that at will can be wickedly humorous, touchingly heartfelt or transcendentally awed. Julius Drake is an ever resourceful accompanist, matching Finley's ability to span Ives's breadth from Victorian ballad style to polytonal modernism’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Gerald Finley and his accompanist Julius Drake are fully able to convey the expressive range of these songs … Finley brings an refreshing refinement to many of these songs, and always cleans his boots thoroughly after tramping around in the great Ivesian outdoors’ (International Record Review)

‘Listening to this disc is like walking into the perfect bookshop; with reams and reams of unusual volumes to leaf through at leisure, and no one to disturb you … Finley's singing is communicative, assured and colourful, Drake's playing neat and proper. Absolutely brilliant’ (The Independent on Sunday)

‘Gerald Finley's magnificent, burnished baritone is the ideal instrument for the generous selection presented here … the Canadian baritone's superb diction in three languages is an especial pleasure. A triumph’ (The Sunday Times)

‘Gerald Finley and Julius Drake flourish in Ives's complex, often contradictory, never dull musical world. Listen to Swimmers and the extraordinary General William Booth, and I swear you'll be hooked’ (Classic FM Magazine)

‘Gerald Finley, Julius Drake, and Hyperion here give us the best-ever male-voice selection from one of the most astonishing volumes in vocal history … we ordinary citizens have the right to hear the whole Ives songbook, from these artists. So don't stop now, Hyperion’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘The perfect match of singer to song’ (Financial Times)

‘Brilliantly sung by Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, it has become the gold standard by which all future recordings of these pieces will be measured. Finley meets the daunting vocal and dramatic challenges with total commitment and superb musicianship’ (The Scene Musicale, Canada)

‘Ives, an insurance man for whom composing was an avocation, deserves wider recognition as one of the art-song greats. It's flawless, arresting performances like Finley's — and his supremely elegant accompanist, pianist Julius Drake — that will help make this happen’ (Toronto Star, Canada)

‘As the program unfolds, there's always what you're not expecting next—moments of piety or exultation, sarcasm or simple grief. When you're done, you've heard one of the most stimulating and provocative of song recitals, as well as one of the most varied and difficult’ (Opera News)

‘Gerald Finley's ebony-rich voice and lively imagination gets a workout in this wide-ranging program … Finley is superb throughout, with alert support from Julius Drake’ (Time Out)

‘Baritone Gerald Finley combines a glorious sound with great dramatic instinct. At the climax of General William Booth Enters Heaven, you feel he's holding nothing back. But his voice has an exquisite lightness too, and the moments of lyrical ecstasy are beautifully handled. With some great accompanying from Julius Drake, it's a disc crammed with colour and variety’ (Metro)
Feldeinsamkeit, though dated 1900, was actually composed by November 1897. Brahms set this poem, by Hermann Allmers, as his Op 86 No 2, but Ives’s treatment is one of his most ravishing songs. Ives remembered with pride the established composer George W Chadwick’s visit to Horatio Parker’s Yale class: hearing Ives play over this setting, Chadwick said it was as good a song as Parker could write and almost as good as the Brahms, and composed from an ‘almost opposite approach … for the active tranquillity of the outdoor beauty of nature is harder to express than just quietude’.

from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2005

Bien que datée de 1900, Feldeinsamkeit fut composée en novembre 1897. Ives traite ce poème d’Hermann Allmers, aussi mis en musique par Brahms (op. 86, no 2), d’une manière telle que cette mélodie est l’une de ses plus ravissantes. Il se souvint avec fierté du jour où George W. Chadwick vint visiter la classe d’Horatio Parker, à Yale: en entendant jouer Feldeinsamkeit, ce compositeur reconnu déclara qu’elle était aussi bonne que du Parker, presque aussi bonne que la version de Brahms, et qu’elle avait été composée dans une «approche quasi opposée … car l’active tranquillité de la beauté extérieure de la nature est plus ardue à exprimer que la simple quiétude».

extrait des notes rédigées par Calum MacDonald © 2005
Français: Hypérion

Das Lied Feldeinsamkeit ist ebenso mit 1900 datiert, entstand allerdings im November 1897. Brahms hatte in seinem op. 86, Nr. 2 das gleiche Gedicht von Hermann Allmers vertont. Ives’ Fassung zählt zu seinen entzückendsten Liedern. Mit Stolz erinnerte sich Ives an den Besuch des etablierten Komponisten George W. Chadwick in einer Unterrichtsstunde von Horatio Parker an der Yale University: Nachdem Ives dort sein Lied vorgespielt hatte, kommentierte Chadwick, das Lied könne wohl mit Parkers Liedern mithalten und wäre fast so gut wie das von Brahms. Ives’ Lied sei „von einem fast völlig anderen Gesichtspunkt“, komponiert worden, „…denn den aktiven Frieden der herrlichen feien Natur kann man nicht einfach durch leise Musik darstellen“.

aus dem Begleittext von Calum MacDonald © 2005
Deutsch: Elke Hockings

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