087Booklet 28/9/06 15:55 Page 1 ALSO on signumclassics Remember Your Lovers SIGCD066 The Exquisite Hour SIGCD072 Tippett’s songs are few in number, but dazzling in Accompanied by Eugene Asti, Sarah Connolly sings quality. We contrast them here with one of Tippett’s songs by Haydn, Brahms, Hahn, Korngold and Weill. sources of inspiration, Henry Purcell, in an excellently Her distinctive, intelligent, warm, bright-sounding performed programme featuring John Mark Ainsley mezzo-soprano will be enjoyed by her growing & Iain Burnside. ‘army’ of fans in this rich, romantic repertoire. www.signumrecords.com Available through most record stores and at www.signumrecords.com For more information call +44 (0) 20 8997 4000 087Booklet 28/9/06 15:55 Page 3 A Note from The Composer on buying a horse It is songs, on the whole, that make the musical was written to commemorate the life and sudden world go round; but ‘contemporary classical’ death of Kent Opera, an inspirational force in the composers don’t seem to write them very much English artistic landscape. The text, from the (4th these days. During the times when I was writing century BC) Confucian commentator Mencius, 1. On buying a horse [2.26] The Voice of Desire the many parts of this collection, I felt I was taking muses on the long term effect of continually 12. I: The voice of desire [4.05] 2. Ox Mountain was Covered by Trees [5.15] a holiday from the world of new music to practise cutting things down. 13. II: White eggs in the bush [2.48] an ancient craft. Songs from the Exotic 14. III: Written on terrestrial things [3.19] 3. I: Sevdalino, my little one [1.41] 15. IV: Sweet little red feet [1.26] Josephine Nendick, known for her elegant, 4. II: In the lovely village of Nevesinje [3.06] No one thing led me to write these songs these pioneering performances of Boulez, Nono and A Spanish Liederbooklet 5. III: The romance of Count Arnaldos [2.24] ways. Sometimes it was the voice, the words, the beyond, commissioned Songs from the Exotic 16. I: Romance de fonte-frida [4.07] 6. IV: The song of the girl ravished away pianist, the occasion, usually a combination of (1987) to mark her retirement from professional 17. II: Romance de rosa fresca [2.34] by the fairies in South Uist [2.03] 18. III: Seranilla de la zarzuela [2.09] several. I have no idea why one singer ends up with singing. She was accompanied at the piano by Scotch Minstrelsy Chinese philosophy whilst another has to sing a Michael Finnissy, whose sophisticated yet humane King Harald’s Saga 7. I: Bessie Bell and Mary Gray [3.57] Serbian song about trousers. Finding the right words re-inventions of folk music greatly influenced this 19. Act I [4.19] 8. II: Bonnie James Campbell [2.26] is one of the most enjoyable parts of the exercise, piece, in which vernacular poetry from Serbia, 20. Act II [3.22] 9. III: Lady Isobel and the Elf-knight [2.03] 21. Act III [4.34] although increasingly problematic as I find myself Spain and South Uist is heard from my own, far- 10. IV: The gypsy laddie [3.04] 22. Epilogue [1.30] searching the same sources again and again. removed, musical point-of-view. 11. V: The braes of Yarrow [1.55] 23. Ständchen [3.15] On buying a horse (1991) was written for a concert Scotch Minstrelsy (1982) was commissioned by Total Timing [68.06] given in aid of an animal charity. They probably Glasgow University’s McEwan Bequest for the tenor weren’t crazy about this quick blast of peasant Neil Mackie, whose simple and unaffected From miniature to epic - songs from one of music’s great storytellers. cunning, which advises anyone offered a horse performances of Scottish folk songs I greatly with the wrong markings to “tear off his hide and admired. Intending to write a companion piece for JUDITH WEIR feed him to the crows”. this pleasant repertoire, I made a selection of SUSAN BICKLEY - MEZZO-SOPRANO • ANDREW KENNEDY - TENOR much abbreviated Border Ballads; but on closer AILISH TYNAN - SOPRANO • IAIN BURNSIDE - PIANO Originally scored for three singers and small examination, the grisly happenings of these orchestra, Ox Mountain Was Covered By Trees (1990) familiar poems came as a shock, and the resulting www.signumrecords.com - 3 - 087Booklet 28/9/06 15:56 Page 5 songs are histrionic and nervous, though framed by King Harald’s Saga (1979) asks a lot of its soprano On buying a horse ‘beautiful’ piano accompaniments, just as Scotland’s soloist (originally the intrepid Jane Manning). She violent past is obscured by its abundant scenery. has to sing every role, including duets and choruses, Judith Weir is a magic realist, the Gabriel García poems or prose from so far afield then combines in a huge but brief grand opera about the Vikings, Márquez of song. Once you enter her world it them in a way so fresh and utterly personal. Alice Coote was the dedicatee of The Voice of Desire as retold in the 13th century Icelandic saga, seems entirely reasonable that fairies should run Setting John Keats is not in itself remarkable; (2003), which takes its title from its opening song, Heimskringla. Whilst appearing in many exciting off with a Hebridean baby, a turtle dove should twinning him with African folk poetry is. about nightingales, by Robert Bridges. Each of the guises, she also presents her performance as a berate a nightingale, and a sailor should calm the four poems in the cycle (by Bridges, Hardy and radio broadcast, giving helpful explanations of the winds with his special secret song. She is also a As is the quiet pizzicato tango that underpins Keats, alongside a Yoruba Huntsmen’s song) is opera’s three acts before leaping back into character. storyteller. If her operas tell complete stories, Keats’s little white dove. But then Weir’s choice of sung by a bird, whose perspective is more these songs are like postcards. You will look in piano texture is another mark of her originality. sophisticated than its uncomprehending human The medium of radio also inspired the short song vain for back-stories or follow-ups. What were She makes the instrument speak in a way entirely listener realises. The nightingale lives in a darker Ständchen (1997). During Schubert’s bicentenary Bessie Bell and Mary Gray up to in their bower? her own, often with the simplest of means. The emotional world than we can imagine; the blue year, BBC Radio 3 invited many composers to How many white feet did the horse have? And how atmosphere of Lady Isobel’s adventure with her Elf cuckoo knows that the wars we blunder into will choose one of his song texts and set it again. did Bey Pivlyanahin counter Bey Lujibovic’s Night is established by just two notes rocking bring destruction; the thrush sings joyfully whilst Separated from one of Schubert’s greatest-ever outrageous jibe about the lacy apron? Maddeningly, backwards and forwards, somehow both dangerous we are mentally blank; the dove has died rather than melodies, Rellstab’s verse still has a gentle, Weir never tells us. She drops her pebble in the and witty. The first song of Scotch Minstrelsy has face emotional suffocation from its adoring owner. wistful charm whose muted, nocturnal atmosphere pond and walks away smiling. the disc’s most extended piano writing: it is less a I have attempted to capture. song, in fact, than a piano piece with vocal Two magnificent (anonymous) Spanish romances On this disc a huge amount happens. Battles are commentary. A single line, blurred and irregular in from the sixteenth century, and a sly ballad provide © Judith Weir fought, heads are chopped off. Wherever you look its pedaling, branches into two then goes back to the poetry for A Spanish Liederbooklet (1988), people keep dying. Most of them in Scotland. one again. The plague, we learn, is breaking out by written for the soprano Eileen Hulse. Although the Judith Weir’s Scotland is a cruel, dark place, the River Almond, in Perth in 1645. Weir’s music is music was created as a very direct response suffused with sinister magic. Her Serbia is little watery, yet also diseased. None of her sharp to what the words are saying, listeners have better, though at least it yields more laughs. Her primary colours here: this piano writing is all remarked that the music ‘sounds Spanish’, and songs are songs from the exotic indeed. Weir’s shades of grey and murky brown. it may well be that the basic melodic and magic carpet takes us both north and south within rhythmic shapes of these songs emanate from the Europe, then on, in parallel with her operas, to Her use of the voice is no less remarkable, language itself. Africa and China. Her nose for texts is one the changing in response to her vocal as well as her great delights of this collection: how she roots out poetic Muse. Ironically the most performed work on - 4 - - 5 - 087Booklet 28/9/06 15:56 Page 7 this disc is also the most fiendishly difficult. King enlightens Siegfried, and ravens fly over him texts Harald’s Saga is a vocal commando course, where just before he gets stabbed in the back. Like only future SAS members need apply. A jeu d’esprit Wagner’s, Judith Weir’s birds are one step ahead of simultaneously testing and celebrating Jane the game.