Song Cycle - Poems of John McCrae
Settings of poems by Canadian poet John McCrae, including "In Flanders Fields" for which McCrae is probably best known. Scored for solo voice (soprano in the manuscript) and piano.
In the first set of six songs now completed (more are planned for 2006) the poet's main preoccupation is with mortality and death. At first blush this might seem too depressing a subject for music but the key is in the range of emotions and perspectives it inspires. As many have found before, this is fertile ground for a composer.
The reaction of friend and fellow composer David Solomons to the songs attests to this effect. David, who also sings counter-tenor and is recording transpositions of the songs, remarked "I was moved to tears when I heard the mixdown (luckily not whilst I was singing, because that doesn't do the breathing any good!)."
The first six songs are settings of the following McCrae poems:
Click on a song title to listen to David Solomons' recordings.
Click here to preview the scores
Ouverture Bourlesque
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Click here to listen to the music.
A whimsical, sometimes tongue-in-cheek piece intended as a concert curtain raiser and inspired by earlier masters of the genre such as Georg Philipp Telemann and Leopold Mozart. |
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While there is no explicit "programme" for the music, lively entertainments such as the circus came to mind during the writing.
For the composer it was also an amusing respite from the rigours of writing a song cycle.
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