John Pickard: Songs for Voice and Piano
The English composer John Pickard (b. 1963) is best known for a series of powerful orchestral works, five symphonies among them. But this album of songs – his complete output for voice and piano to date – demonstrates that he can generate drama on a smaller scale, too. These settings – of two less familiar poets of the First World War, often exploring man’s relationship with nature, and a translation of a ninth-century Anglo-Saxon phantasmagorical allegory – encompass a wide range of moods, requiring soaring vocal lines, declamatory authority and the gentlest intimacy, supported by piano textures that can are up in freewheeling virtuosity.
Roderick Williams, baritone (Tracks 1-5, 7-15)
Eve Daniell, soprano (Track 6)
Simon Lepper, piano
Listen To This Recording:
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Binyon Songs (2010–12)
- Binyon Songs: I Nature
- Binyon Songs: II Sowing Seed
- Binyon Songs: III Autumn Song
- Binyon Songs: IV When all the world is hidden
- Binyon Songs: V The Burning of the Leaves
- The Phoenix
- The Borders of Sleep: I Tall Nettles
- The Borders of Sleep: II The Trumpet
- The Borders of Sleep: III The Mill-Water
- The Borders of Sleep: IV Out in the Dark
- The Borders of Sleep: V The Gallows
- The Borders of Sleep: VI Rain
- The Borders of Sleep: VII No One Cares Less Than I
- The Borders of Sleep: VIII Last Poem (The Sorrow of True Love)
- The Borders of Sleep: IX Lights Out
The Phoenix (1992)
The Borders of Sleep (2000–1)
FIRST RECORDINGS
MusicWeb International :
‘Pickard brings a sense of aching beauty to his setting of these words, matched by the emotionally charged singing of Roderick Williams and the plangent playing of Simon Lepper. […]
The recorded sound too is excellent and atmospheric, and this CD should be snapped up by all those who have an interest in the evolution of English song in the post-Britten era.’
—Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International