CAROLE BOGARD: A COLLECTION OF AMERICAN SONGS (2 CDS)

A Collection of American Songs

Carole Bogard (soprano), Beth Orson (oboe)

During her distinguished career, Carole Bogard specialized in singing two quite different types of music. On her previous Parnassus release (“Carole Bogard Sings Baroque Cantatas and Arias” PACD 96020), we resurrected some of her best Baroque performances. Here, Parnassus is pleased to present a superb collection of American songs, half of them previously unpublished, and in two cases accompanied by the composers.

“Carole Bogard: A Collection of American Songs” includes major song cycles of John Alden Carpenter, Aaron Copland, and Ned Rorem, all accompanied by the distinguished pianist and conductor John Moriarty. Groups of songs by John Duke and Richard Cumming feature the composers as pianists. In a group of songs by the late William Flanagan, the pianist is the famous composer David del Tredici, here making a rare appearance as a performer.

This set, one of the most extensive collections of American art song on CD, presents many otherwise-unavailable songs (only those of Copland can be considered “standard repertory”). They are sung by one of the most distinguished interpreters this literature has ever had. Ned Rorem considers her, as quoted in the booklet, one of the “three American singers of importance to the agonizing art song.”

The songs by Flanagan, Duke, and Cumming were previously released on now-scarce LPs by the Desto and Cambridge labels. The songs of Carpenter, Copland, and Rorem, from European broadcasts, are all previously unpublished.

The accompanying booklet includes extensive program notes and complete texts of all the songs.

 
Carpenter, J A: Gitanjali (Song Offerings)
Carpenter, J A: Poems (2) by Siegfried Sassoon
Copland: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
Cumming: As Dew in April
Cumming: Heart, we will forget him
Cumming: Three Poems by Philip Minor
Cumming: Two Poems by William Blake
Duke, J W: Four Poems by e.e. cummings
Duke, J W: Six Poems by Emily Dickinson
Duke, J W: Songs to portions of From the Sea by Sara Teasdale
Flanagan: Cycle from Time's Long Ago! by Herman Melville
Flanagan: Good-bye My Fancy
Flanagan: Three Poems by Howard Moss
Rorem: Four Poems by Tennyson