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Rachel Payne with Reiko Füting - Twisted Folk
Scarborough Fair arranged by Evan Antonellis [3:50]
My Bonny, Bonny Boy arranged by Evan Antonellis [3:00]
Molly Bann arranged by Reiko Füting[1:46]
Cold Blows the Wind arranged by Reiko Füting[3:13]
I Wonder As I Wander arranged by Reiko Füting [2:26]
Lay Me Low arranged by Nils Vigeland [1:53]
Precept and Line arranged by Nils Vigeland [2:12]
Love And Blessing arranged by Nils Vigeland [2:35]
At the River arranged by Aaron Copland [3:06]
Simple Gifts arranged by Aaron Copland [1:26]
Long Time Ago arranged by Aaron Copland [3:05]
The Foggy Dew arranged by Vincent Raikhel [2:28]
Boulavogue arranged by Vincent Raikhel [3:51]
Kerry Dance arranged by Matthew Hough [1:41]
In the Bright Mohawk Valley arranged by Matthew Hough [2:40]
Tis the Last Rose of Summer arranged by Christopher Cerrone [1:43]
Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes arranged by Christopher Cerrone [2:03]
Shenandoah arranged by Reiko Füting [2:48]
Danny Boy arranged by Reiko Füting [3:19]
How Can I Keep From Singing arranged by Reiko Füting [3:04]
Rachel Payne (soprano)
Reiko Füting (piano)
No recording details
Private CD [52:21]
 
This is an enjoyable disc, one that taps into well-known folksongs via the compositional mediations of graduates and professors of Manhattan School of Music, and of Aaron Copland, three of whose settings are performed.
 
Rachel Payne is the soprano and her colleague Reiko Füting, not only pianist but the arranger of six settings. The tone, as it were, is set by the mellifluous and gentle setting of Scarborough Fair but the same arranger, Evan Antonellis, ensures contrast in his two settings by writing an energetic surging piano accompaniment for My Bonny, Bonny Boy that adeptly recedes into limpidity. Füting has taken Berio’s folksongs as his own model and there’s a terse piano commentary in Molly Bann and an appropriately spare I Wonder As I Wander.
 
The Nils Vigeland settings are of the Shaker songs; Lay Me Low pushes the voice quite high, Precept and Line is a busy setting for solo piano, and Love And Blessing is quite punchy. Of the Copland settings Long Time Ago is rather beautifully done; the other two famous settings are pliantly realised. The Foggy Dew is arranged by Vincent Raikhel and he allows harp-like sonorities via using the piano’s strings. The percussive interjections are strong, even militaristic here in places, whilst the voice goes serenely on. Boulavogue is accompanied by more ‘pots and pans’ percussion, rather less successfully, unfortunately. Tis the Last Rose of Summer, arranged by Christopher Cerrone, has some Ivesian undercurrents one feels, and the same arranger’s Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes is attractively portrayed.
 
The arrangers here pursue in general an Ives to Copland to Berio approach. Those who allow percussive colour generally do so with tact and discrimination though sometimes things run away with themselves; the dichotomy between the canonic nature of these folksongs and the means available subtly to subvert or inter-textualise them can be hard to resist. Payne and Füting are fine ambassadors for this ‘new’ music and have clearly established a first class ensemble; fortunately they’ve been well recorded into the bargain.
 
Jonathan Woolf