English composers Herbert Howells (1892–1983), Stanley Bate (1911–1959) and Edwin York Bowen (1884–1961) offer a wealth of divergent influences illuminating the cultural shifts of the early twentieth century. Their choral, instrumental and orchestral music is well recorded, but their songs less so. This album reveals them to be fine song composers too and includes also one song by Edwin York Bowen’s song Philip. Except for Howells’s Peacock Pie, all the music here is released for the first time.

Timothy Salter writes:

‘I am fortunate to have known two of the three composers represented in this collection of songs. 

My first piano teacher arranged for me, aged about 16, to play to York Bowen. Following a first meeting I had piano lessons with him for a sadly brief time until his death in 1961. 
My memory of him is of a friendly and quite modest figure; by the time I met him his music had been out of fashion for many years. I sensed that our relationship, although of short duration, had a sympathetic quality lent to it by the fact that I too am a composer as well as a pianist. I recall showing him one of my compositions; his response included a remark that I might have difficulty in publishing it these days in the face of the current cultural climate of modernism, hard-edged and experimental as so much of it was.

York Bowen’s own music is in a rich harmonic language characterized by an overtly sensual appeal, and in his teaching, he demonstrated this sensibility too. He once told me with great enthusiasm of a recital to which he’d been recently, given by Walter Gieseking - another pianist-composer - who had played some music of Debussy. Bowen had been enraptured by Gieseking’s limpid playing of a descending cascade of notes, saying it was as if he’d shaken the notes out of his sleeve.  It’s an image that has stayed with me.  

My acquaintance with Howells was more tangential. I recall an early encounter: he was examining a cellist for whose performance I was playing the piano part, and he remarked on the piano playing with generosity. He and I both taught at the Royal College of Music, London; our times overlapped by a few years.  The subjects we taught were composition and what used to be called harmony and counterpoint (later amended to ‘musicianship’ - more elegant but less informative).  Not long after I started to stand in at RCM for absent professors, I was called upon to deputise for him; he had attempted to board a No. 9 bus and fallen, breaking his hip.  Thus, I met all his students but my contact with Howells was mostly a matter of amiable exchanges in the corridor thereafter.  

It’s tempting to consider the coinciding of composer and keyboard player.  Its immediate evidence is in the fluency of the keyboard writing throughout this recording; the musical language, of course, remains individual to each composer.’  T.S.
   

Herbert Howells (1892-1983)

Five Songs for Low Voice and Piano, Op. 7a *

1. The Valley of Silence
2. When the dew is falling
3. By the Grey Stone
4. St. Bride’s Song
5. When there is Peace

Peacock Pie, Op. 33

6. Tired Tim
7. Alas, Alack!
8. Mrs. MacQueen
9. The Dunce
10. Full Moon
11. Miss T. 

Stanley Bate (1911-1959)

ive Songs from Pomes Penyeach, Op. 53 *

12. Simples (No. 10)
13. Tutto è Sciolto (No. 8)
14. Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba (No. 4)
15. Bahnhofstrasse (No. 11)
16. Tilly (No. 1)

Edwin York Bowen (1884-1961) *

17. Cordovan Love Song, Op. 68 No. 4
18. To Myra
19. In June, Op. 68 No. 3
20. Storm Song, Op. 68 No. 1
21. The Hidden Treasure, Op. 67 No. 1
22. A Moonlight Night
23. Love's Reckoning, Op. 67 No. 3
24. Sleep: A Song Triptych (by Philip York Bowen, 1913-1970)
25. If You Should Frown, Op. 68 No. 2
26. Love and Death, Op. 62 No. 2
27. The Wind's an Old Woman, Op. 71 No. 1

World première recordings *

Herbert Howells (1892-1983), Five Songs for Low Voice and Piano Op. 7a and Peacock Pie, Op. 33
 
Howell’s Five Songs for Low Voice and Piano date from 1916, when he was beginning to get the first professional performances in London after his studies in London at the Royal College of Music, where he had been hailed by Sir Hubert Parry, the director, at his audition as ‘an amazingly gifted boy’. Unlike his contemporaries Butterworth, Bliss and Gurney, serious illness spared Howells from serving in World War One: instead, he endured years of experimental and ultimately successful radiological treatment for Graves Disease, enabling him to continue to compose.

The Five Songs explore musical language reminiscent of late Wagner or Hugo Wolf’s Lieder in their complex harmonies and expressive intensity. Howells designated the Songs as Op. 7: he applied the same number to his Three Dances for Violin from 1915 and appears to have neglected if not suppressed the songs. While Howells never explained why he did this, like many of his contemporaries, he was searching for new musical styles unburdened by the late Romanticism embodied in the works of established composers such as Stanford, Parry and Elgar. In 1916, Howells expressed in The Athenaeum his opinion about the superfluous nature of musical settings of highly lyrical poetry. The words for these songs are by ‘Fiona Macleod’, a pseudonym for William Sharp (1855-1905).
 
Howells’s setting of six poems from Walter de la Mare’s Peacock Pie (1922) contrast strikingly with Op. 7a. The verses are addressed to children: the music has a direct simplicity, although the fifth song, Full Moon, reveals the lyricism found throughout his music.

* ‘English Singing’, The Athenaeum (July 1916), pp. 351-52.

Stanley Bate (1911-1959), Five Songs from Pomes Penyeach, Op. 53

Stanley Bate had a successful career as composer and pianist in America and Britain, although his work is little heard today. His strongest influences were Delius and near-contemporary European composers Ravel and Hindemith: he studied at the Royal College of Music with Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Benjamin, Gordon Jacob and with Hindemith in Berlin. These five songs were published by Ricordi in 1951 from a set of thirteen composed in autumn 1946 setting words from James Joyce’s Pomes Penyeach. The fourth, Bahnhofstrasse, with its mechanistic piano figure, is far from the Romantic language of early Howells and Bowen. The poem’s reference to colours relates to Joyce’s own difficulties with vision.

On publication, the critic Harry Dexter praised these five songs for their ‘clarity of texture, sincerity of expression, general sense of purpose and their emotional substance which make for ready understanding and should be taken up by all singers of serious intentions.’ They were first performed by John Cameron and Frederick Stone on 20 October 1952. In the same year, Bate created a version of the songs for voice and orchestra.

Edwin York Bowen (1884-1961)

Edwin York Bowen was hailed by Camille Saint-Saëns as ‘the most remarkable of the young British composers’ and a distinguished pianist. During recent decades his piano music has become widely performed along with some of his chamber music. Most of his other works including the songs have remained largely unknown. 

Bowen’s instrumental music’s subtle chromatic harmonic palette and predominantly melodic language display a late Romantic sensibility; the harmonic language of his songs is more direct, manifesting a keen response to their texts.  They were published during the 1920s, except for Sleep (1937), which the score’s title page attributes to Bowen’s son Philip.

Engineering and production: Frank Morgan for Usk Recordings
Digital editing and mastering: David Wright
Artwork design: Hannah Whale - Fruition Creative Concepts
Record label and distribution: Ulysses Arts Ltd.

Click images above to download/pre-order with digital booklet from iTunes

Music Centre Slovakia releases its album Sacred Music in Slovakia from the Eleventh to Seventeenth Centuries (HC10065) with the Ad Fontes Musical Ensemble digitally on 27 March, and Slovak Sacred Music of the 20th Century (HC10066) on 15 May 2026, in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

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Sacred Music in Slovakia of the 11th to 17th Centuries (download)

Slovak Sacred Music of the 20th Century (pre-order)

Sacred Music in Slovakia from Sources of the 11th-17th Centuries features Gregorian plainchant comes from manuscript codices dating from the 11th to the 16th centuries, set in the context of the vocal polyphonic repertoire from 17th-century Spiš and Šariš sources. The selection of compositions on the recording is thematically based on two five-voice polyphonic works — Magnificat octavi toni by David Thusius and the anonymous Te Boha chwalime — taken from the Levoča Music Collection and the Ľubica Hymnal.

Additional sources of the repertoire include the Bratislava Antiphonaries, the Spiš Missal, the Bardejov Music Collection, and other manuscripts. The selected works were recorded by the vocal-instrumental ensemble Ad Fontes Musical Ensemble under the artistic direction of Sylvia Urdová.

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Albion Records releases I have lived and loved - songs by Vaughan Williams, Peggy Glanville-Hicks, John Raynor and Percy Grainger, with mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge, tenor Alessandro Fisher and pianist Penelope Thwaites, on 12 September 2025.

John Francis from Albion Records writes: 'Plans for this album, devised by Penelope Thwaites, celebrates the depth and richness of folk music's influence on the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and his contemporary and friend, Percy Grainger. Vaughan Williams's great cycle, Songs of Travel, here sung for the first time by a woman, is a masterful evocation of this spirit. There is ample historical evidence for women singing and recording these songs, from Ada Crossley under Sir Henry Wood in 1910 to later singers such as Dame Janet Baker, but on record the Cycle has been a male preserve until now.

'Folk influence' is more than musical. Its roots are in the lives of individuals: an unconscious need to express happenings and the feelings thus provoked. Love and its never-ending complexities is the main impulse, expressed beautifully in the album's Vaughan Williams's operatic songs: love of people, of the natural world and endless connections between the two.

We are proud to present Penelope Thwaite's concept for this pioneering recording with Kathryn Rudge. Alessandro Fisher sings three songs from Vaughan Williams’s operas. We then hear two songs from Vaughan Williams’s former pupil, Peggy Glanville-Hicks (another Australian) and two from John Raynor – a composer for whom Vaughan Williams once sponsored a concert, but whose music has not been recorded until now. Percy Grainger contributes six songs and three duets to conclude the album. The contrasts within this group are remarkable: you will find pathos, humour, and in the final wordless duet, his love for his native Australia.'

Penelope Thwaites AM is known internationally as a concert pianist, composer, broadcaster, editor and festival curator. She has performed in 35 countries, including as soloist with leading orchestras including the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Concert Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic and many more throughout Europe, America and Australia. She is acknowledged as a leading exponenet of the music of Percy Grainger, and is editor of The New Percy Grainger Companion.

Kathryn Rudge studied at RNCM, has won numerous awards and was an ENO Harewood Artist, a YCAT artist and a BBC New Generation Artist. She has featured on many recordings including Parry’s Judith with the London Mozart Players (Chandos, 2020).

Alessandro Fisher won First Prize at the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and was a member of the BBC New Generation Artist Scheme between 2018 and 2021. This is his second recording for Albion Records; the first was ALBCD057 Portraits of a Mind, with William Vann, piano, and the Navarra String Quartet, comprising song cycles by Ian Venables and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The recording was made at Potton Hall, Suffolk, in July 2024. The Producer was Tim Burton and Engineer Deborah Spanton, both of K&A Productions.

Pre-release Singles

Lullula releases its children's album The Birds on 20 June 2025 (UA25050), in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

Lullula's The Birds tells a musical story through a single, arching day – from the dances of early morning playtime to lullabies for dreaming. A musical picture book for very young listeners that journeys through the mountains of the Southern Appalachians, Irish playgrounds, and the Wiegenlieder of 19th century Germany. An album of familiar and new songs, games, rhymes, and friendships – to be listened to again and again.

Artists

Lydia Mahnkopf (soprano), Simone Easthope (soprano), Jonathan Ware (piano), Joel Frederiksen (19th century guitar, lute)

PRE-RELEASE SINGLES

Electronic press kit available from Ulysses Arts.

Colorado Mahler Fest Live releases its first album on 21 March 2025, with Mahler, Symphony No. 3 and Christopher Gunning, Symphony No. 10, conducted by Kenneth Woods, with mezzo-soprano Stacey Rishoi, the Women of the Boulder Concert Chorale, and Boulder Children's Chorale Festival Choir, in partnership with Ulysses Arts (MFL2502).

Christopher Gunning, Symphony No. 10: A Note by the Composer


'I composed Symphony No. 10 in a fairly natural way, the material stated at the beginning constantly leading me from one section to the next. The result could be likened to a series of variations, each contrasting with the last. There is no longer a “standard” format for a symphony; in classical formats there would usually be four movements, but Sibelius changed all that with his mighty Seventh Symphony, which has but one movement in the space of little more than twenty minutes. My Tenth Symphony also plays for some twenty minutes non-stop, and follows a dramatic narrative which to me is vitally important. I have always looked on my symphonies as novels, with characters in the form of themes or motifs which return and develop.


One also chooses a form to suit the emotional range of the music one wishes to compose—or perhaps the form emerges from the material one has. I suppose that was how No. 10 came into being. I knew the piece had to have a wide emotional range; I also knew it had to be relatively concise and straightforward for a listener to follow. If all this sounds excessively technical, I would counter such suggestions by saying that for me the emotional content is everything; if music doesn’t move us, it really is of no value at all.'

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RTF Classical releases Paris 1913: L'Offrande lyique - music by Auric, Boulanger, Caplet, Chaminade, Debussy, Durey, Fauré, Grovlez, Hahn, Milhaud, Ravel, Ropartz, Saint-Saëns and Satie, in partnership with Nimbus Alliance, on 7 February 2025 (NI 6455).

The world première recording of Louis Durey’s L’Offrande lyrique Op. 4, six songs set to texts by Rabindranath Tagore (recipient of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature) in French translation by André Gide, is a highlight of this collection. Inspired by the atonality of Arnold Schoenberg’s The Book of Hanging Gardens, and often credited as the first piece of free twelve-note technique in French music, L’Offrande lyrique navigates a harmonic language which can hold clarity and vivid colour in Lumière ! ma lumière !, or blur into dark heavy clouded gesture in Les nuages s’entassent, effectively supporting Tagore’s language. At times, the words seem to muse over seemingly unconnected piano motifs, before meeting - sometimes harmonically, sometimes not - sometimes walking the same path, other times meandering separately again. For Paris 1913 to include a world première recording of such important music, written over a century ago, is thrilling, and places Durey firmly alongside his contemporaries in the cafés and salons of pre-war Paris. Far from being overshadowed by the better-known composers in this anthology, these songs stand as a testament to the strength of French melodies of the era. © Andrew Matthews-Owen & Claire Booth
 
Claire Booth
British soprano Claire Booth is renowned for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform, with a versatility that encompasses repertoire spanning from Monteverdi and Handel, through Rossini, Berg and Strauss, to a fearless commitment to the music of the present day... A champion of lesser performed vocal repertoire, Booth has released a series of vocal retrospectives of Grainger, Grieg, Mussorgsky and Schoenberg. Her discovery of Durey’s ‘L’Offrande Lyrique’ fits squarely into this narrative, and she is extremely happy to partner with long-time friend and collaborator Andrew Matthews-Owen for this inaugural recording of Durey’s work. © www.claire-booth.com
 
Andrew Matthews-Owen
Welsh-born pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he received numerous prizes and has been elected an honorary Associate. He now enjoys a busy career partnering some of the most successful classical singers of our time, on the concert platform, on acclaimed commercial records, on broadcasts and as a vocal coach. Andrew has partnered singers including Patricia Bardon, Susan Bickley, Claire Booth, Susan Bullock and many more.

RFT Classical is a record label owned by the Richard Thomas Foundation, aiming to bring interesting and occasionally challenging pieces of contemporary music to new audiences. Our first recording of songs with Claire Booth and Andrew Matthews-Owen (and Susan Bickley) was Songs and Vexations (2019) including songs by Debussy, Fauré, Satie and Jonathon Dove, which went on to win the ALLMUSIC.COM “2019 Vocal Recording of the Year”.

Press kit and listening link available for reviewers and radio producers from Ulysses Arts.

Ulysses Arts releases a new album of songs by Messiaen, Frank Bridge, Chausson, Eisler and new works by Paul Willot-Förster on Friday 10 November 2023, performed by mezzo-soprano Maria Hagele and pianist Anna Szałucka with Connie Pharoah, viola, and Emily Turkanik, violin.

SOLILOQUIES ALBUM DETAILS

OLIVIER MESSIAEN, Harawi - Chant d'amour et de mort
1: I. La ville qui dormait, toi  02:31
2: II. Bonjour toi, colombe verte  03:27
3: III. Montagnes  02:58

FRANK BRIDGE, Three Songs for Voice, Viola and Piano, H. 76
with Connie Pharoah, viola
4. I. Far, far from each other  03:33
5. II. Where is it that our soul doth go  03:08
6. III. Music when soft voices die  02:01

'CLEMENS CZERNIK'
with Emily Turkanik, violin
7. Graciella  02:02

PAUL WILLOT-FÖRSTER
with Emily Turkanik, violin
8. Selbstgespräche: I. Vorwort/Entschuldigung  01:48
9. Selbstgespräche: II. Schlaflied  03:05
10. Selbstgespräche: III. Vokalise  03:22
11. Selbstgespräche: IV. Weltende  01:45

ERNEST CHAUSSON, Serres chaudes, Op. 24
12. I. Serre chaude  03:03
13. II. Serre d'ennui  02:30
14. III. Lassitude  02:22
15. IV. Fauves las  01:51
16. V. Oraison  02:16

HANNS EISLER
17. Fünf Elegien No. 4: Diese Stadt hat mich belehrt  01:28
18. Der Pflaumenbaum  01:41
19. Faustus‘ Verzweiflung  00:50
20. Fünf Elegien, No. 1: Unter den grünen Pfefferbäumen  00:53
21. Goethe-Fragment  01:45
22. Was ich dort gelebt  00:57

OLIVIER MESSIAEN, Harawi - Chant d'amour et de mort
23. X. Amour, oiseau d‘étoile  04:47
24. XI. Katchikatchi les étoiles  02:01
25. XII. Dans le noir  05:42

Click here for texts and translations

Vocal ensemble ModernMedieval Voices releases The Living Word, its debut album, on 10 March 2023 on Ulysses Arts. The Living Word pairs chants by Hildegard von Bingen with new works by Daniel Thomas Davis, Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, Caroline Shaw and Caleb Burhans, inspired by her music, life and message. The album's title pays tribute to Hildegard as a pioneer – a woman ahead of her time. Her words, music, and achievements continue to resonate today.

ModernMedieval was created byDr Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, a member of world-renowned vocal quartet Anonymous 4, to explore the worlds of early and new music through lectures, workshops, masterclasses, performances and recordings. ModernMedieval Voices (MMV) is an all-female ensemble directed by Jacqueline. She is joined by early and new music specialists for concerts and special projects that combine medieval chant and polyphony with music from later eras and new commissions influenced by the poetry and sonorities of music from the Middle Ages.

ModernMedieval Voices takes the vocal techniques developed by Anonymous 4 for singing this repertoire and combines them with a fresh approach to programming that introduces this wonderful music to new audiences.

The Ensemble gave its debut performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, performing Hildegard's chant O Jerusalem as part of the Al-Quds : Jerusalem concert with MetLive Arts, described by Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal as ‘exquisitely sung’. MMV has given performances at The National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., The Virginia Arts Festival, and the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York City, broadcast live on WNYC NewSounds Live, hosted by John Schaefer. The Ensemble has also given residencies and performances at Notre Dame University, East Carolina University NewMusic Initiative, Florida’s University of Tampa, Binghamton University, Pittsburgh Dance Project, Liquid Music in Saint Paul Minnesota, Princeton University Sound Kitchen, Electric Earth Concerts in New Hampshire, Dumbarton Oaks, and The Cloisters in New York City as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s MetLiveArts series.

ModernMedieval Voices feature on award-winning album To Shiver the Sky with music by Christopher Tin, which received its world première performance in May 2022 in Washington DC.

‘Although more than eight centuries separate us from this music, ModernMedieval’s approach to Hildegard is above all natural, emphasizing her fluent expressivity in perfect medieval Latin. Hildegard is always a good listen, and juxtaposed with sympathetic contemporary works, her beauties were especially resplendent.’ (Patrick Rucker, The Washington Post)

ALBUM ARTISTS

Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek
Chloe Holgate
Martha Cluver
 
ALBUM DETAILS

Hildegard von Bingen,  O Presul vere Civitatis
Daniel Thomas Davis, Three-Winged Wisdom *
Hildegard von Bingen, O Virtus Sapientie
Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, Meditation *
Hildegard von Bingen, Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans
Hildegard von Bingen, Karitas Habundat
Caroline Shaw, Caritas Abundat *
Hildegard von Bingen, O Viridissima Virga
Caleb Burhans, We Cannot Live *
Hildegard von Bingen, O Jerusalem
 
*Commissioned by ModernMedieval

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Edward Higginbottom is joined by rising star soprano, Holly Teague and percussionist Felix Higginbottom as he takes Rameau's most theatrical compositions into the organ loft and 'reimagines' their performance, meanwhile taking us on a journey through exotic landscapes and arresting scenes.

To be released by CRD Records on 7 July 2023.

The Caritas Chamber Choir and Benedict Preece's recording of traditional Welsh song The Ash Grove releases on all major digital service providers on 26 August 2022, followed by Eric Choate, Beloved, Let us Love, on 16 September, Mikael Carlsson, Ubi Caritas on 14 October, Phillip Cooke, I Sing of A Maiden on 28 October, and Sarah Cattley, What Child is this? on 11 November. These singles are a prelude to Caritas' Christmas album, released on 25 November 2022.

Nimbus Records releases 'Max Kowalski: A Song Recital in German and English', on 5 May 2023, with baritone Simon Wallfisch, soprano Camille Butcher and Edward Rushton, piano (NI.8112).

On 5 August 2022 Lyrita releases The Songs of William Busch, featuring Roderick Williams, baritone, Diana Moore, mezzo-soprano, Robin Tritschler, tenor, and John Reid, piano. The album comprises previously unperformed and unrecorded songs by British composer William Busch, alongside works by Gerald Finzi, Elizabeth Poston and Michael Head.
 
Lyrita's recording is a tribute from daughter to father, made possible through painstaking research and reconstruction by Julia Busch and Diana Moore. Busch, born in 1901, studied music in London, Berlin and the United States. His composition teachers included John Ireland and Bernard van Dieren. His pacifism during World War II resulted in decreased reception for his works. William died tragically on 30th January 1945 in Woolacombe, North Devon, England while he walked back across the headland from Ilfracombe Hospital after visiting his newly born daughter, Julia.

EPK and Soundcloud playlist available for press use.

'Small Wonder: The Songs of William Busch'
Maureen Buja, INTERLUDE, Hong Kong

'The gentle but distinctive voice of composer William Busch comes over strongly in this lovely recital. ... The performances are uniformly excellent.' (Robert Hugill)
Planet Hugill, 24 August 2022

John Quinn, MusicWeb International, Oct 2022

Lyrita Records releases the first recording ofCecil Armstrong Gibbs' complete songs on 4 March 2022 (SRCD.2400). This four-album set is performed by tenor Nathan Vale, soprano Charlotte de Rothschild and pianist Adrian Farmer. A one-volume compilation from the full set offers an introduction to Gibbs' wonderful collection of songs (SRCD.404).

Antony Smith of the Nimbus Group, which manages Lyrita, comments: 'In recording this project, the consistent quality of Gibbs' songs surpassed all our expectations. Alongside his most famous songs, for example settings of poems by his friend Walter de La Mare, are wonderful discoveries – for example To Anise, The Cherry Tree, On Duncton Hill, The Tiger-Lily, Midnight, Slow Horses Slow, The Exile and Take Heed Young Heart. These will be concert winners when programmed by singers, with a direct clarity of expression and supreme sensitivity to text.'

Adrian Farmer, Nathan Vale and Charlotte de Rothschild discuss Gibbs' songs

NIMBUS MUSIC PUBLISHING: GIBBS SONGS

Complementing the release of SRCD.2400 and SRCD.404, Nimbus Music Publishing has released three volumes of Armstrong Gibbs' songs, featured in the albums, in high quality saddle-stitched editions:

NMP1144: Four Songs for Tenor Voice: Willows Leaves: Three Songs After the Chinese Manner (John Irvine) and The Doctor’s Song from ‘Henry Brocken’ (Walter de la Mare)

NMP1145: Four Songs for Soprano Voice: Two Pastorals (H.T. Wade-Gery), Jane Eyre’s Song and Lorelei’s Songs drom ‘Henry Brocken’ (Walter de la Mare)

NMP1146: Two Songs: The Old House (Grey Hayward Kirkus) and The Rainy Day (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Ulysses Arts releases German composerJohannes Schlecht's album Ich spiele noch on Friday 4 March 2022, with Landeskapelle Eisenach (now Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach) conducted by Wolfgang Wappler and Tetsuro Ban, soprano Susann Möbius-Huss and 'cellist Grita Bühler.

Johannes Schlecht comments:

'At some point, many years ago, I had my first contact with poet Rose Ausländer during a night drive. On the radio. I heard her talk about herself andher exciting, fulfilling life, I heard her read from her poems. Her voice sounded cheerful and lovable, friendly and comforting, modest and humble, amazed and hopeful, curious and lively. This voice came from a woman who had been bed-ridden for years, sick, in a Jewish old people’s home in Düsseldorf. I was impressed and touched by the clarity and simplicity of her language and above all, the brevity in which she said the important, essential and necessary. For a long time I had the idea of composing poems by Rose Ausländer, of tracking down the melody of her language and poetry.

For me that means composing by listening to the melody of the language and bringing it to life musically. In this sense, as a composer, I see myself as a creator and mediator. I put my personal, subjective view of poetry up for discussion: I try to provide a comment that brings the word, at best read or spoken, sung to another level of experience and feeling. Understanding the word, initially an ostensibly intellectual means of communication, becomes unimportant. It took me years to tackle Rose Ausländer’s poems. In between, to name just two important works, were the composition of ten songs based on poems by Paul Celan. For this cycle I received the last Hanns-Eisler Composition Prize from GDR Radio in 1989. Paul Celan, just like Rose Ausländer, comes from that melting-pot and centre of Eastern Jewish intellectual life - Cernowitz. I have developed a great affinity for this way of thinking and feeling. And in between there was also the composition of the small volume “DIR”, which was composed and drawn by Heinrich Vogeler, fourteen very soft, tender, sad-melancholy love poems for voice, cello and viola.'

Album Details

Ich spiele noch: Sieben Stücke für Singstimme, Flüte, Oboe, Fagott, Violoncello und Streichorchester nach Texten von Rose Ausländer
Susann Möbius–Huss – Sopran; Landeskapelle Eisenach, Leitung: Wolfgang Wappler

Streichquartett Nr. 1
i. nicht zu schnell
ii. sehr langsam
iii. unglücklicher Walzer mit glücklichem Ausgang
iv. schnell, ausgelassen

Divertimento Streichquartett der Landeskapelle Eisenach:
Simona Balan, Violine; Silvia Peter, Violine; Gheorghe Balan, Viola; Roxana Mereutza, Violoncello

Kommen und Gehen – Orchestermusik für Sophia
i. Sehr ruhig
ii. Ruhige Viertel
iii. Sehr ruhig

Landeskapelle Eisenach, Leitung: Tetsuro Ban

Kommentare zu einem Thema von Max Reger – für Violoncello allein
i. sehr frei, so langsam wie m glich
ii. gehend
iii. sehr ruhig, sempre col legno schnell, hüpfend
iv. sehr langsam
v. gehend
vi. Thema, Largo

Grita Bühler, Violoncello

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