Mary Howe: Songs and Duets

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Catalogue No: TOCC0634
EAN/UPC: 5060113446343
Release Date: 2022-02-04
Composer: Mary Howe
Artists: Christopher A. Leach, Courtney Maina, Mary Dibbern

The name of Mary Howe (1882–1964) seems to have vanished from the history books. But she was an important voice in American music in the first half of the twentieth century, as an activist and organiser, as a concert pianist and, especially, as a composer. This pioneering album of her songs shows her late-Romantic style open to influences from Debussy, Mahler, Richard Strauss and other contemporaries: she was, she said, ‘alert for new sensations, like a Puritan on a holiday’.

Courtney Maina, soprano (tracks 1,2, 4, 10-13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22)
Christopher A. Leach, tenor (tracks 1, 3, 5-10, 13, 17, 18, 21, 22)
Mary Dibbern, piano

Listen To This Recording:

  1. The Horseman (1940)**
  2. Berceuse cossaque (1922)*
  3. Chanson souvenir (1925)
  4. Reach (1925)*
  5. Vier Gedichte

  6. No. 1 Der Einsame (1931)*
  7. No. 2 Liebeslied (1931)
  8. No. 3 Schlaflied (1931)*
  9. No. 4 Herbsttag (1934)*
  10. The Rag Picker (1932)**
  11. Chanson des Coulennes (1933)*
  12. Now Goes the Light (1935)*
  13. Two Goethe Settings (1940)*

  14. No. 1 Am Flusse
  15. No. 2 Die Götter
  16. L’Amant des roses (1942)*
  17. Two Mirza Schaffy Settings (1942)

  18. No. 1 Nicht mit Engeln *
  19. No. 2 Mein Herz **
  20. Lullaby for a Forester’s Child (1945)**
  21. Rêve (1945)*
  22. Spring Come Not Too Soon (1947)*
  23. Horses (1951)*
  24. Little Fiddler’s Green (1952)*
  25. https://d3i77y9w5vf4up.cloudfront.net/TOCC0634/Track22.mp3

  26. Music When Soft Voices Die (1921)**

*FIRST RECORDINGS
**FIRST MODERN RECORDINGS

1 review for Mary Howe: Songs and Duets

  1. :

    ‘Courtney Maina’s voice is just right for Howe songs. Her readings are beautiful and perceptive, a quality shared by Christopher R. Leach, who uses his resonant voice especially well in the Rilke songs. Mary Dibbern’s comprehensive notes and analysis could well be the beginning of a full-length biography. Her accompaniments here are very skilled, especially so in those songs where the piano is as important as the voice. Let us hope that more of Howe’s music will be forthcoming, especially more songs and some of the orchestral music, and that greater familiarity with her music will obviate the need for the word “forgotten”.’

    —William Kreindler, MusicWeb International

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