[Cover graphic]

Compact Disc CDA67644

£13.99

In a second disc of Ives’s songs, the unbeatable partnership of Finley and Drake again enthral their listeners and bring them to the emotional core of each work.

The range of style and approach in Ives’s text-setting is startling—from simple, sentimental ballads to complex and strenuous philosophical discourses, sometimes encompassing the most dissonant and virtuosic piano parts, sometimes with the accompaniment pared down to an almost minimalist phrase-repetition. Even those composed in a superficially conventional or ‘polite’ tonal idiom usually contain harmonic, rhythmic or accentual surprises somewhere.

A particular beauty is Mists, composed in 1910. The poem is by Ives’s wife Harmony—an elegy after her mother’s sudden death that year. The manuscript, written while on vacation at Elk Lake in the Adirondacks, is dated ‘last mist at Pell’s Sep 20 1910’. This exquisite and deeply felt setting, with its brume of Impressionistic harmonies in contrary motion, is among Ives’s most atmospheric songs.

This thrilling collection also includes Ives’s War Songs and settings of Goethe.

Recorded on 16–20 February 2007
Recording Engineer
JULIAN MILLARD
Recording Producer
MARK BROWN
Piano
STEINWAY & SONS
Front Picture Research
RICHARD HOWARD
Booklet Editor
TIM PARRY
Executive Producer
SIMON PERRY
© Hyperion Records Ltd, London, MMVIII

Duration: 62'28
DDD
Front illustration: Early Spring Afternoon, Central Park (1911) by Willard Leroy Metcalf (1858–1925)

CHARLES IVES (1874-1954)

Romanzo di Central Park

GERALD FINLEY baritone
JULIUS DRAKE piano

Contents:

  1. On the Counter   1920   Charles Ives [1'28]
  2. The Circus Band   1894   Charles Ives [2'13]
  3. Two Little Flowers (and dedicated to them)   1921   Charles Ives, Harmony Twichell Ives [1'21]
  4. Ilmenau   1901/2   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [2'12]
  5. A Night Song   1895   Thomas Moore [1'19]
  6. Down East   1919   Charles Ives [3'07]
  7. Premonitions   1921   Robert Underwood Johnson [1'50]
  8. The See’r   1920   Charles Ives [1'01]
  9. Songs my mother taught me   1895   Adolf Heyduk, tradapted from Natalie Macfarren [2'25]
  10. In the Alley   1896   Charles Ives [1'58]
  11. Mists   1910   Harmony Twichell Ives [1'38]
  12. They are There!   1917, rev. 1942   Charles Ives   MAGNUS JOHNSTON violin [2'53]
  13. In Flanders Fields   1917, rev. 1919   John McCrae [2'58]
  14. The South Wind   1899, rev. 1908   Harmony Twichell Ives [2'41]
  15. My Native Land   1895   Heinrich Heine, tr. possibly adapted from Eduard Lassen [1'41]
  16. Watchman!   1913   John Bowring [1'43]
  17. The Children’s Hour   1901   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [2'28]
  18. Evidence   c1898, rev. 1910   Charles Ives [1'19]
  19. The World’s Wanderers   1895   Percy Bysshe Shelley [1'43]
  20. Slow March   1887/8   Charles Ives [1'50]
  21. Omens and Oracles   c1900   ‘Owen Meredith’ (Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton) [2'52]
  22. Those Evening Bells   1903, rev. 1907   Thomas Moore [1'53]
  23. Allegro   1900   Charles Ives [1'20]
  24. Evening   1921   John Milton [1'59]
  25. The Last Reader   1921   Oliver Wendell Holmes [1'39]
  26. To Edith   1919   Harmony Twichell Ives [1'27]
  27. At the River   1916   Robert Lowry [2'29]
  28. A Christmas Carol   1894   Charles Ives [2'07]
  29. The Light that is Felt   1904   John Greenleaf Whittier [2'11]
  30. Romanzo (di Central Park)   1900   Leigh Hunt   MAGNUS JOHNSTON violin [2'58]
Sleeve Notes

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE CHOICE

'Finley is a wonderfully assured interpreter … perfectly registering their switchback changes of mood and presenting their occasional lapses into sentimentality with total conviction. More than any other performers on disc, Finley and Drake establish these songs, with all their quirks and flights of fantasy, among the most important of the 20th century in any language.' (The Guardian)

'Gerald Finley has everything and more in his darkly full-bodied voice to match the often formidable technical and expressive requirements of Ives's songbook - reinforced by Drake's elastic, expressive piano … This is a must-buy album' (The Times)

'This is a highly successful follow-up to Gerald Finley and Julius Drake's first Ives recital from 2005. Here there is the same sort of mix, from familiar songs such as The Circus Band and Watchman! to an early requiem for the family cat and the intriguing title song, Romanzo (di Central Park), with its obbligato violin part atmospherically played by Magnus Johnston. Finley is his usual charismatic self, at home as much in the hymnody as the parody, and he is careful not to over-sentimentalise the more homely numbers while injecting pathos into the war songs. Drake projects Ives's often complex accompaniments with clarity and style' (Daily Telegraph)

'Outstandingly well sung and played, equally well recorded, and highly recommendable to all lovers of fine songs and fine singing' (BBC Music Magazine)

'The variety of songs recorded here is extraordinary … Gerald Finley's warm baritone sits right inside Ives's soundworld, while Drake refuses to be fazed by the idealistic piano writing' (Classic FM Magazine)

'The programme has been selected and sequenced with care … The booklet includes not just texts but also comments by Calum MacDonald about every single song. Hyperion always gets these things right; even the cover art is a bull's-eye. Finley and Drake give no cause for complaint either … The engineers have done their work well. Finley and Drake are perfectly balanced and they perofrm in an environment of intimate warmth' (International Record Review)

'It's the best kind of fun. The astonishing range Ives exhibits in the 30 songs on the disc - some comic, others serious – Is astonishing. Finley, in even better voice than on the Barber CD, and Drake, relishing Ives' complexities, dig deep into them all' (Bay Area Reporter, USA)

'Gerald Finley's second disc of Ives songs is every bit as wonderful as the first. Finley is the perfect song recitalist... He can sound dreamy, tender, raucous, heroic, and serene, all without ever disfiguring his timbre or letting the pitch waver. Julius Drake offers accompaniments that are as perfect and knowing as the singing, and the engineering couldn't be better... This is magnificent--vocal recitals don't come any better' (ClassicsToday.com)

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