Naxos 8.559216-18
purchase at amazon.com
Setting the 46 poems of William Blake's book of the same name, Bolcom's magnum opus, Song of Innocence and of Experience won four 2006 Grammy Awards:
• Best Classical Album
• Best Choral Performance
• Best Classical Contemporary Composition
• Producer Of The Year, Classical [for Tim Handley]
"Bolcom's dream of setting Blake's poems to music began when he fell under their spell as a teenager; he worked on the composition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience on and off for 25 years, completing it in 1982. Blake's own principle of "contraries" and his use of many poetic traditions is a perfect counterfoil for Bolcom's eclecticism, which encompasses styles ranging from solemn chorales, lush romanticism, abrasive, dissonant modernism, to jazz, folk, country, and rock. His interpretation of the poems, which he calls "A Musical Illumination," is sometimes startling, but always interesting, highly personal, and unquestionably sincere....For some of the most arresting, convincing settings, Bolcom uses his well-known and beloved cabaret style, sung to perfection by his wife and partner, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris." — amazon.com
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Christine Brewer, Measha Brueggergosman, Ilana Davidson, Linda Hohenfeld, Carmen Pelton, Sopranos
Joan Morris, Mezzo-soprano
Marietta Simpson, Contralto
Thomas Young, Tenor
Nmon Ford, Baritone
Nathan Lee Graham, Speaker/Vocals
Tommy Morgan, Harmonica
Peter "Madcat" Ruth, Harmonica and Vocals
Jeremy Kittel, Fiddle
Leonard Slatkin, Conductor