Artist:
Lyric Fest
Genre:
Classical
Total Time:
58:05
Record Label:
Naxos
Purchasing Links:
MP3, Apple Music
Release Date
January 12, 2024
"The Entertainment Factor is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission."
Find out more about this album release after the jump.
Lyric Fest
Genre:
Classical
Total Time:
58:05
Record Label:
Naxos
Purchasing Links:
MP3, Apple Music
Release Date
January 12, 2024
"The Entertainment Factor is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission."
Find out more about this album release after the jump.
Product Description: The Art of Song (co-commissioned by the Brooklyn Art Song Society and Lyric Fest of Philadelphia) was composed at the artist retreat Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY during August 2018 and first performed in Philadelphia on 4 November 2019. The pandemic postponed the New York premiere until June 2022, when the Brooklyn Art Song Society presented Lyric Fest in Brooklyn. The work was recorded under Hagen’s supervision in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute of Music over a two-day span in May and June 2022.
Hagen, now 61, had written dozens of songs before entering Ned Rorem’s studio at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1981, and had penned another 50 before graduating Juilliard a few years later. In the ensuing years, along with 13 operas, he has amassed a catalogue of over 500 individual songs and large-scale cycles. Widely recorded, several dozen are featured on Lyric Fest’s 2017 Naxos release Hagen: 21st-Century Song Cycles (8.559714). There is weight then to his comment when he writes, “As a song composer, The Art of Song represents for me something of a musical ‘closing argument,’ a braiding together of the various themes, vocal traditions, and aesthetic strands of my vocal composing—the performers move fluently from art song to musical theater to cantata to opera, in choral, solo, and ensemble numbers that combine texts spanning over a thousand years—over the past 45 years.”
Divided into four large “life seasons,” the 24 songs, accompanied by piano, are sung by two sopranos, two mezzo-sopranos, tenor, and a baritone. In the first section, Summer, Hagen is in full citizen/activist/artist mode, offering an overview of the human cost of American domestic politics since the Civil War. The second section, Autumn, turns inward, featuring poems about aging, love, nostalgia, and finding fulfillment in accepting one’s place in the world. The third, Winter, features words concerning advancing age, the loss of innocence, and the struggle to find (and maintain) faith. Hagen begins the final section, Spring, with a wry musical theater group portrait of a handful of young pre-9/11 New Yorkers before moving through the tragic loss of a child, the balm of prayer, the turning of the seasons, and, in the final Dante setting, the reconfirmation of song’s ageless functions: to witness, to remember, to mourn, to protest, to remind us of who we are, and who we can aspire to be, to begin again.
Hagen, now 61, had written dozens of songs before entering Ned Rorem’s studio at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1981, and had penned another 50 before graduating Juilliard a few years later. In the ensuing years, along with 13 operas, he has amassed a catalogue of over 500 individual songs and large-scale cycles. Widely recorded, several dozen are featured on Lyric Fest’s 2017 Naxos release Hagen: 21st-Century Song Cycles (8.559714). There is weight then to his comment when he writes, “As a song composer, The Art of Song represents for me something of a musical ‘closing argument,’ a braiding together of the various themes, vocal traditions, and aesthetic strands of my vocal composing—the performers move fluently from art song to musical theater to cantata to opera, in choral, solo, and ensemble numbers that combine texts spanning over a thousand years—over the past 45 years.”
Divided into four large “life seasons,” the 24 songs, accompanied by piano, are sung by two sopranos, two mezzo-sopranos, tenor, and a baritone. In the first section, Summer, Hagen is in full citizen/activist/artist mode, offering an overview of the human cost of American domestic politics since the Civil War. The second section, Autumn, turns inward, featuring poems about aging, love, nostalgia, and finding fulfillment in accepting one’s place in the world. The third, Winter, features words concerning advancing age, the loss of innocence, and the struggle to find (and maintain) faith. Hagen begins the final section, Spring, with a wry musical theater group portrait of a handful of young pre-9/11 New Yorkers before moving through the tragic loss of a child, the balm of prayer, the turning of the seasons, and, in the final Dante setting, the reconfirmation of song’s ageless functions: to witness, to remember, to mourn, to protest, to remind us of who we are, and who we can aspire to be, to begin again.
TRACK LIST:
1 .
The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": America
(01:43)
2 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": Un-American Activities (03:01)
3 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": Peace Quodlibet (02:19)
4 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": War Is Kind - Irish Airman (04:41)
5 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": Mother of Exiles (03:08)
6 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": The Moths (01:53)
7 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Pomodoro (03:34)
8 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Quail (01:56)
9 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": No Sad Songs (01:13)
10 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Brown Penny (03:03)
11 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Love (01:40)
12 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Among the Asmat (04:16)
13 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": Western Wind (01:08)
14 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": Prayer in Midwinter (01:50)
15 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": That I Know (02:17)
16 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": What Lips My Lips Have Kissed (01:20)
17 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": Summer Is Gone (01:39)
18 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": The Wolf (01:15)
19 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": The Lamb (02:59)
20 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": The New Yorkers (05:09)
21 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": The Green for Pamela (03:23)
22 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": Almighty Father (00:52)
23 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": Rain in Spring (01:16)
24 .The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": The Start of Everything (02:45)
2 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": Un-American Activities (03:01)
3 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": Peace Quodlibet (02:19)
4 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": War Is Kind - Irish Airman (04:41)
5 . The Art of Song, Pt. 1 ."Summer": Mother of Exiles (03:08)
6 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": The Moths (01:53)
7 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Pomodoro (03:34)
8 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Quail (01:56)
9 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": No Sad Songs (01:13)
10 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Brown Penny (03:03)
11 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Love (01:40)
12 . The Art of Song, Pt. 2 ."Autumn": Among the Asmat (04:16)
13 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": Western Wind (01:08)
14 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": Prayer in Midwinter (01:50)
15 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": That I Know (02:17)
16 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": What Lips My Lips Have Kissed (01:20)
17 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": Summer Is Gone (01:39)
18 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": The Wolf (01:15)
19 . The Art of Song, Pt. 3 ."Winter": The Lamb (02:59)
20 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": The New Yorkers (05:09)
21 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": The Green for Pamela (03:23)
22 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": Almighty Father (00:52)
23 . The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": Rain in Spring (01:16)
24 .The Art of Song, Pt. 4 ."Spring": The Start of Everything (02:45)
OTHER ALBUM RELEASES:
- New Album Releases: ROOTING FOR LOVE (Laetitia Sadier)
- New Album Releases: DANIEL (Real Estate)
- New Album Releases: STILL (Erika de Casier)
- New Album Releases: STRAVINSKY - VIOLIN CONCERTO; BARTOK: RHAPSODIES 1 & 2; MARTINU: SUITE CONCERTANTE; MEDITATION (Frank Peter Zimmermann, Jakub Hruša)
- New Album Releases: GIRL WITH NO FACE (Allie X)
- New Album Releases: UNTAME THE TIGER (Mary Timony)
- New Album Releases: DIVISION WORLD (Jane Getter / Jane Getter Premonition)
- New Album Releases: REFLET (Sandrine Piau, Orchestre Victor Hugo & Jean-François Verdier)
- New Album Releases: SWING FEVER (Rod Stewart & Jools Holland)
- New Album Releases: LIVE IN PARIS 1973 (Can)
- New Album Releases: 1234 (Modern English)
- New Album Releases: LULLY - ATYS (Marie Lys, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Christophe Rousset)
- New Album Releases: TESTAMENT (fire!)
- New Album Releases: OLUSTEE (JJ Grey & Mofro)
- New Album Releases: EL VIEJO (Corb Lund)
- New Album Releases: OVERTURE! (The Philharmonic Brass & Tugan Sokhiev)
- New Album Releases: NIGHT-BOUND EYES ARE BLIND TO THE DAY (Whitelands)
- New Album Releases: LIAM GALLAGHER JOHN SQUIRE
- New Album Releases: WHERE'S MY UTOPIA ? (Yard Act)
- New Album Releases: LOUISE BERTIN - FAUSTO (Christophe Rousset, Flemish Radio Choir, Les Talens Lyriques)
- New Album Releases: SPEAK TO ME (Julian Lage)
- New Album Releases: TOO HOT TO SLEEP (Daniel Romano)
- New Album Releases: TE DEUM - CHARPENTIER, DESMAREST (Ensemble les Surprises & Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas)
- New Album Releases: PLAYING FAVORITES (Sheer Mag)
- New Album Releases: ASTERISMS (Sean Lennon)
- New Album Releases: HALF DIVORCED (Pissed Jeans)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please keep the comments as civilised as possible, and refrain from spamming. All comments will be moderated. Thank you !