Listen & tracks
2 of 46 tracks have a preview · 3 works · 55:31
-
Six Elizabethan SongsDominick Argento 6 movements16:18
- 1 Spring 1:37
- 2 Sleep 3:23
- 3 Winter 1:42
- 4 Dirge 3:34
- 5 Diaphenia 2:03
- 6 Hymn 3:59
-
Mélodies passagères, Op. 27Samuel Barber 5 movements8:56
- 7 Puisque tout passe 1:33
- 8 Un cygne 2:09
- 9 Tombeau dans un parc 1:59
- 10 Le clocher chante 1:15
- 11 Départ 2:00
-
Twelve Poems of Emily DickinsonAaron Copland 12 movements30:17
- 12 Nature, the gentlest mother 4:02
- 13 There came a wind like a bugle 1:36
- 14 Why do they shut me out of Heaven! 2:26
- 15 The world feels dusty 1:52
- 16 Heart, we will forget him 2:32
- 17 Dear March, come in! 2:13
- 18 Sleep is supposed to be 2:57
- 19 When they come back 2:08
- 20 I felt a funeral in my brain 2:24
- 21 I've heard an organ talk sometimes 2:08
- 22 Going to Heaven! 2:38
- 23 The chariot 3:21
Her attractive coloratura voice brings out the beauty of Dominick Argento’s Six Elizabethan Songs, the lyricism of Samuel Barber’s French Mélodies passagères, and the drama of Aaron Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson.
Her Copland performance captivated the judging panel in the Award’s final recital.
In the artist’s words
I think that music … began as an emotional language. For me, all music begins where speech stops.
When I’m writing music for words, then I immerse myself in those words and I let the music flow out of them.
These 12 songs were composed during the period from March 1949 to March 1950. The poems centre about no single theme, but they treat of subject matter close to Miss Dickinson: nature, death, life, eternity. The 12 songs are dedicated to 12 composer friends.
Artists
Melanie Duncan
soprano
Melanie Duncan is a first-class Honours graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, and is currently completing a Masters at Monash University on a Monash Postgraduate Scholarship. She has been a semi-finalist in several competitions, including the 1997, 1998 Marianne Mathy Awards, and the 1998 Herald Sun Aria and Australian Youth Aria.
Claire Cooper
pianoforte
Claire Cooper studied with John Winther at the Canberra School of Music and later at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She spent five years as répétiteur and accompanist at the Victorian College of the Arts and joined the Faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne as an accompanist.
Dominick Argento
composer
Dominick Argento composed the song cycle Six Elizabethan Songs.
Samuel Barber
composer
Samuel Barber's scores favour long melodic lines and traditional harmony over mid-century experiment. His catalogue ranges from the Adagio for Strings and its choral Agnus Dei to French art songs and an early Cello Sonata of strong, clear ideas.
Aaron Copland
composer
Aaron Copland wrote the open, slowly shifting harmonies many still hear as the sound of American music. His vernacular style of the 1930s and 1940s gave ballet, song and chamber works a plain-spoken clarity that reaches from folk song to fanfare.
William Shakespeare
composer
William Shakespeare's sonnets and the songs embedded in his plays remain living lyric for composers. On these recordings his words surface in art song, lieder and choral settings that still carry love, wit, jealousy and foolery.
Henry Constable
composer
Henry Constable wrote Elizabethan love sonnets and spiritual lyrics whose fervour and richness of colour have drawn composers to set them. Diana remains one of the earliest English sonnet sequences.
Samuel Daniel
composer
Emily Dickinson
composer
Ben Jonson
composer
Thomas Nash
composer
Rainer Maria Rilke
composer
Digital booklet
Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDFPerformers
- Melanie Duncan · soprano
- Claire Cooper · pianoforte
Technical credits
-
Contributor
Anna Connolly
Denise Shepherd
Dr Carol Williams
Martin Wright
-
Recording Engineer
Thomas Grubb
-
Editing Engineer
Thomas Grubb
-
Mastering Engineer
Vaughan McAlley
-
Venue
Move Records Studio
-
Thanks to
City of Melbourne
Song Recital Award
Details
- List price
- $25.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 55 minutes 31 seconds
- Release date
- 1999
- Categories
- Classical, Vocal
- Musical work copyright
- © 1999 Move Records
- Sound recording copyright
- ℗ 1999 Move Records
- Catalogue
- MD 3212
- EAN
- 9314574321227
More to explore
Below: Music for Low Flutes
This charming and rare recording features predominantly commissioned chamber music for low flutes, written to showcase their lyrical and colourful tonal qualities and to expand a small yet growing repertoire.
A Shropshire Lad
Baritone Blake Fischer and pianist Claire Cooper, winners of the 1998 Song Recital Award, present English and American folk, traditional and art songs by Butterworth, Copland, Finzi and Britten.
Unearthly Music: Music by Australian Women Composers
A tribute to twentieth-century Australian women composers, this flute and piano recital gathers lesser-known chamber works in the hope that listeners, performers and programmers will bring the music to a wider audience.
Bards of Faith and Passion
Jim Minchin sets poems by writers at play or at odds with eternity: soul-poet lyrics across the centuries, from anonymous Latin verse and the metaphysicals to Yeats, Shakespeare and living voices.
Night Thoughts
During the long still nights of Melbourne’s Covid lockdowns, pianist Len Vorster listened widely and thought hard about what he heard. Those evening ruminations became this programme of fifteen nocturnes and night pieces, from Schumann’s circle to Copland.
Laughing
The internationally acclaimed Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, turns to the lighter side of a cappella singing across jazz, madrigal and spiritual repertoire.