Christine Brewer releases Echoes of Nightingales, March 8

March 8 sees the newest addition to Christine Brewer’s prodigious discography, with the release of Echoes of Nightingales on the Hyperion label.  This enchanting new album presents the Grammy Award-winning soprano and her long-time collaborator, pianist Roger Vignoles, in a nostalgic selection of the encore songs once favored by Kirsten Flagstad, Eileen Farrell, Helen Traubel, and Eleanor Steber.  As Brewer explains, “these little gems evoke an era of recitals not often encountered these days”; the disc pays tribute not only to four great sopranos from the past, but to an important musical tradition and part of performance history that has nearly been lost.  Much of the same repertoire features in Brewer’s upcoming recital in Washington’s prestigious “Vocal Arts DC” series on March 23, while further highlights of her spring season include a recital at the Savannah Music Festival on April 2 and three performances of Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony and Barber’s Prayers of Kierkegaard with the St. Louis Symphony on April 8-10.
 
In her intimate performance note that accompanies Echoes of Nightingales, the soprano writes:
 
“This collection of songs was inspired by a long-time love of this mostly American repertoire. … Stepping back into that era has been a joy to Roger and me, and I hope it will bring back memories to those who might have heard these women sing these songs, or perhaps ignite a new love affair for younger listeners!”
 
Flagstad, Traubel, and Steber were, like Brewer, leading Wagnerian sopranos of their day.  For them, as for Brewer, the English-language miniatures offered a welcome opportunity to explore a different, less formal aspect of their voices and stage personae.  As John Steane puts it in his pertinent liner notes, “At best, encore time turns a recital into a party.”
 
Most of the 21 composers represented are American and the majority are all but forgotten today, although among the album’s show tunes are “Some Other Time” from Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town and “Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe” from Cabin in the Sky by Harold Arlen, of “Over the Rainbow” fame.  Featured ballads include “Love Went A-riding” by Frank Bridge, best remembered as a chamber composer and teacher of Benjamin Britten.  Less familiar musical numbers include Sigmund Romberg’s romantic hit of Maytime “Will You Remember?”, which became world-famous with the MacDonald–Eddy film of 1937.  The ballads number among them examples by Ernest Charles, several of whose songs were espoused by notable singers of the day, and John Alden Carpenter, whose second symphony was performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Bruno Walter.  All but the album’s final song were favorites of Brewer’s four role models. Celius Dougherty’s “Review,” however, is one of her own encore standbys; a comic novelty, its lyrics are excerpted, adapted, and paraphrased from real reviews.  A full track list for Echoes of Nightingales follows below.
 
Of the soprano’s previous Vignoles collaboration for Hyperion (Strauss: The Complete Songs, Vol. 1), Opera News was fulsome in its praise:
 
“Christine Brewer offers sumptuous tone and, whenever required, a legato both eloquent and ideally steady. … This imposing voice also floats breathtaking pianissimos and navigates surely in melismatic passages. … The soprano’s diction is pristine, her emotional communication satisfying throughout.
 
“Vignoles accompanies his partner brilliantly, from the unsparing virtuosity that propels ‘Frühlingsfeier’ to the gentle chordal fabric of ‘Breit’ über mein Haupt.’  The pianist’s coloristic choices are unerring, the complicated, undulating texture of ‘Hochzeitlich Lied’ being a notable example.  Hyperion provides its usual excellent translations.”
 
Listeners will have the chance to hear songs from the new album including those by Arlen and Charles in live performance when Brewer appears in Washington DC’s “Vocal Arts DC” recital series, described as “one of the great vocal series of the world” (Michael Kaiser, Kennedy Center).  The soprano’s March 23 recital with accompanist Craig Rutenberg juxtaposes some of the nostalgic encores with selections by Menotti, Ives, Alan Smith, and Virgil Thompson.  This last selection fulfils the musical matchmaking of the Los Angeles Times’s Mark Swed who attested last summer that she and Thompson “were made for each other.”
 
For her April 2 recital program at the Savannah Music Festival, Brewer contrasts European masterpieces by Gluck, Wagner, Strauss, and Britten with American art songs, spirituals, and classics from the American Songbook.
 
Other upcoming highlights include two Mahler orchestral engagements, when she reprises his Eighth Symphony with the Royal Concertgebouw under Mariss Jansons in Amsterdam on March 4-6, and undertakes his “Resurrection” symphony with David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony on April 8-10.  Further orchestral appearances include Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic on May 2-4 and Verdi’s Requiem and Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass with the Cincinnati Symphony led by James Conlon at the Cincinnati May Festival on May 20-21.  Anthony Tommasini recently observed in the New York Times that Brewer is “in her prime and sounding glorious.”  At the spectacular close to her full and varied season, listeners will be able to verify this at Brewer’s role debut in a concert version of Puccini’s Turandot on July 17 at the Hollywood Bowl under Gustavo Dudamel.
 
 
Echoes of Nightingales
Encores as sung by Kirsten Flagstad, Eileen Farrell, Helen Traubel, and Eleanor Steber
Christine Brewer, soprano; Roger Vignoles, piano
Label: Hyperion; release date: March 8
 
Track list:
 
1.   Sidney Homer (1864-1953): “Sing to me, sing,” Op. 48
2.   Edwin McArthur (1907-87): “Night”
3.   Arthur Walter Kramer (1890-1969): “Now like a lantern,” Op. 44, No. 5
4.   Mildred Lund Tyson (1900-?): “Sea Moods”
5.   Sir Landon Ronald (1873-1938): “O lovely night!”
6.   James H. Rogers (1857-1940): “At Parting”
7.   John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951): “The sleep that flits on baby’s eyes”
8.   Paul Sargent (1910-87): “Hickory Hill”
9.   Vincent Youmans (1898-1946): “Through the years”
10. Paul Nordoff (1909-77): “There shall be more joy”
11. Frank La Forge (1879-1953): “Hills”
12. Frank Bridge (1879-1941): “Love went a-riding”
13. Idabelle Firestone (1874-1954): “In my garden”
14: Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951): “Will you remember? Sweetheart” from Maytime
15. Idabelle Firestone (1874-1954): “If I could tell you”
16. Trad./Thomas Moore (1779-1852), arr. Friedrich von Flotow (1812-1883): “The last rose of summer” from Martha
17. Harold Vicars (?-?): “The song of songs (Chanson du coeur brisé)”
18. John La Montaine (b.1920): “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening”
19: Harold Arlen (1905-86): “Happiness is a thing called Joe” from Cabin in the Sky
20. Leonard Bernstein (1918-90): “Some other time” from On the Town
21. Ernest Charles (1895-1984): “When I have sung my songs”
22. Celius Dougherty (1902-1986): “Review”
 
 
Christine Brewer: upcoming engagements
 
March 4-6
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Mahler: Symphony No. 8
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Mariss Jansons
 
March 13
Oberlin Conservatory, OH
Recital
Craig Terry, piano
 
March 23
Vocal Arts DC, Washington, DC
Recital
Craig Rutenberg, piano
 
March 28
Friends of Chamber Music, Portland, OR
Recital
Craig Rutenberg, piano
 
April 2
Savannah Music Festival, GA
Recital
Craig Rutenberg, piano
 
April 8-10
St. Louis, MO
Mahler: Symphony No. 2
St. Louis Symphony / David Robertson
 
May 2-4
London, England
Strauss: Four Last Songs
London Philharmonic / Vladimir Jurowski
 
May 20-21
Cincinnati May Festival, OH
Verdi: Requiem; Janácek: Glagolitic Mass
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra / James Conlon
 
May 27-29
Sao Paolo, Brazil
Verdi: Requiem
Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo / Claus Peter Flor
 
June 23-26
San Francisco, CA
Beethoven: Missa solemnis
San Francisco Symphony / Michael Tilson Thomas
 
July 17
Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA
Puccini: Turandot
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Gustavo Dudamel
 
 
www.christinebrewer.com