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Track(s) taken from CDA66920

Orpheus with his lute

composer
1945
author of text
Henry VIII Act 3, scene 1

Robert White (tenor), Samuel Sanders (piano)
Recording details: July 1996
All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: April 1997
Total duration: 2 minutes 0 seconds
 

Reviews

‘This is a very charming record’ (Gramophone)

‘A delightful, imaginatively wide-ranging anthology. A most enjoyable entertainment as well as a true voyage of discovery’ (Hi-Fi News)

‘I felt as if I was discovering these songs for the first time’ (Soundscapes, Australia)
It has been my good fortune to know many composers and authors whose works I have sung throughout my career. Many are represented on this disc. William Schuman was a good friend of mine. He was a gentleman of such geniality and warmth that it was always a pleasure to be in his company. His 1945 setting of Shakespeare’s Orpheus with his lute is spellbinding. With spare modal harmonies—‘plucked’, as it were, on the piano—Schuman conjures up the famous musician of myth and the instrument with which he transfixed nature. For me, this piece has a mysterious, other-wordly quality that is unique in twentieth-century song. Schuman was President of the Juilliard School from 1945 to 1962, and the President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts from 1962 to 1969. I was touched when Bill asked me in 1985 to sing for his seventy-fifth birthday celebration at Lincoln Center.

from notes by Robert White © 1997

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