Amazon.co.uk Review
The art song has become something close to an endangered species in the past half-century, with not much in the way of major new work after Poulenc, Britten, Barber and the occasional orchestral visitation by the odd big-name composer. But one middle-ranking name has almost single-handedly kept the form alive in America. Ned Rorem spent a significant part of his youth sauntering through Paris salons in the footsteps of Poulenc, and it shows in the sheer cultivation of his work which is small-scale but elegant, especially in its response to language. The 32 song-settings featured here are mostly of American poets (Theodore Roethke, Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman to name but three) and in many ways definitively American. But their style, their chic, their savoir faire is Francophile. And Carole Farley gets the tone exactly right-as you'd expect from someone with a deep involvement in Rorem's output. Having him at the piano gives the disc an added documentary status. It's a real catch for the American Classics series on Naxos--beautifully done. The fact that a bargain-basement label has the enterprise to do such things so well never fails to amaze: a standing ovation wouldn't be out of place. --
Michael White