OTTO LUENING (1900-1996)
The songs (30) of Otto Luening written between 1917 and 1993
Judith Bettina
(sop) James Goldsworthy (piano) Susan Palma-Nidel (flute)
rec Sept 1999, NYC
COMPOSERS RECORDINGS INC CRI CD 840 48.34
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1 She walks in Beauty (Byron) (1951) (2:20)
2 A Farm Picture (Whitman) (1929) (0:37) )
3 The Little Vagabond (Blake) (1980) (2:26) )
4 Young Love (Blake) (1928) (1:06) )
5 Wake the serpent not (Shelley) (1928) (1:31) )
6 Requiescat (Wilde) (1917) (2:27) )
7 Venilia (Sharpe) (1922) (1:53) )
8 Locations and Times (Whitman) (1928) (0:59) )
9 Noon Silence (Sharpe) (1922) (1:14) )
10 Visor'd (Whitman) (1928) (1:22) )
11 Infant Joy (Blake) (1928) (1:17) )
12 Good-night (Shelley) (1929) (1:42) )
13 I faint, I perish (Shelley) (1929) (1:07) )
14 Transience (Naidu) (1922) (2:14) )
15 At Christmas time (Translation by Hesse) (1917) (1:31) )
16 In Weihnachtszeiten (Hesse) (1917) (1:31) )
17 Ach! wer bringt die sch-nen Tage (Goethe) (1928) (1:50)*
Songs of Emily Dickinson (1942-51) )
18 Our share of night to bear (1:11) )
19 "Hope" is the thing with feathers (1:25) )
20 If I can stop one Heart from breaking (1:20) )
21 Experiment to me (1:00) )
22 I felt a Cleaving in my Mind (0:39) )
23 Soul, Wilt thou toss again? (0:59) )
24 When I hoped I feared (0:59) )
25 Love's Secret (Blake) (1949) (2:41) )
26 The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept (Byron) (1951) (2:17)
Joyce Cycle (text from James Joyce's "Chamber Music") (1993)
27 Strings in the earth and air (1:35) )
28 When the shy star goes forth in heaven (2:08) )
29 My love is in a light attire (0:51) )
30 Sleep now (2:17)
This disc comes in the wake of the more generously timed selection of Luening
and Starer songs from Parnassus. The
CRI CD has, however, the virtue of a single focus: Luening and nothing else.
The songs are scattered throughout his long career. In their hymn-like and
sometimes Warlockian simplicity they create a strange contrast with his
experimental avant-garderie of the 1950s and 1960s when he not merely toyed
with electronic music but embraced it whole-heartedly. There were earlier
dodecaphonic works but these had somehow dropped into the background. The
songs might also be reckoned alongside those of Benjamin Britten, or, yet
more directly, with Arthur Bliss's Seven American Poems.
The songs set classic texts by Goethe, Hesse, Shelley, Blake, Joyce, Byron
and Emily Dickinson. The Goethe and Hesse poems are set to the original German
texts.
The songs were written over a long time.The earliest is a German setting
of 1917, the latest being the 1993 Joyce cycle. The style is remarkably
consistent with a touch of wandering tonality here and there e.g. in When
the shy star goes forth (track 28). The first and last songs on the disc
could easily become popular - fine but unpretentious favourites in much the
same way The Salley Gardens and Great Things.
Bettina is, in general, in good voice and sings with informed intelligence
never letting the meaning of the words fall away. Her tendency towards stridency,
noted particularly in the Dickinson songs, takes a little of the gloss off
these otherwise satisfying performances. She is alertly accompanied by
Goldsworthy. The greater playing time and the variety involved in mixing
songs by Starer and Luening would cause me to lean in preference towards
the Parnassus collection.
This is certainly a good collection. It is only a pity that more songs could
not have been accommodated. At 48.11 there was room for at least another
twenty minutes.
The disc is enriched by full texts and by Jack Beeson's programme notes.
CRI's attention to design is faultless. I would like to pay tribute to CRI's
design team who never allow the presentation to obscure the words.
A most worthwhile disc.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
www.composersrecordings.com
