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William Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and of Experience
 
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William Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and of Experience [Box set]

~ Nmon Ford (Baritone), William Bolcom (Composer), Leonard Slatkin (Conductor), Contemporary Directions Ensemble (Ensemble), Peter Madcat Ruth (Harmonica, Vocals), et al.
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Product details

  • Orchestra: University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra
  • Conductor: Leonard Slatkin
  • Composer: William Bolcom
  • Audio CD (28 Mar 2005)
  • SPARS Code: DDD
  • Number of Discs: 3
  • Format: Box set
  • Label: Naxos
  • ASIN: B000641YZK
  • Other Editions: MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 66,302 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

    Popular in this category:

    #19 in  Music > Classical Instrumental > Performers > A-Z > S-T > Slatkin, Leonard

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Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.


Disc 1:

Extraits
Song TitleArtist Time Price
Listen  1. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 1: IntroductionChristine Brewer 3:06£0.79
Listen  2. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 1: The Ecchoing GreenIlana Davidson 2:32£0.79
Listen  3. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 1: The LambThomas Young 3:19£0.79
Listen  4. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 1: The ShepherdChristine Brewer 2:13£0.79
Listen  5. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 1: Infant JoyChristine Brewer 1:58£0.79
Listen  6. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 1: The Little Black BoyMeasha Brueggergosman 4:06£0.79
Listen  7. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: Laughing SongChristine Brewer0:33£0.79
Listen  8. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: SpringChristine Brewer 1:45£0.79
Listen  9. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: A Cradle SongChristine Brewer 4:04£0.79
Listen10. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: Nurse's SongMarietta Simpson 1:35£0.79
Listen11. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: Holy ThursdayChristine Brewer 1:08£0.79
Listen12. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: The BlossomChristine Brewer0:40£0.79
Listen13. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: InterludeChristine Brewer0:25£0.79
Listen14. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: The Chimney SweeperChristine Brewer 3:14£0.79
Listen15. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 2: The Divine ImageChristine Brewer 3:49£0.79
Listen16. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 3: NocturneMeasha Brueggergosman 2:04£0.79
Listen17. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 3: NightChristine Brewer 5:00£0.79
Listen18. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 3: A DreamChristine Brewer 1:41£0.79
Listen19. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 3: On Another's SorrowThomas Young 1:52£0.79
Listen20. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 3: The Little Boy LostMeasha Brueggergosman 2:48£0.79
Listen21. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 3: The Little Boy FoundChristine Brewer 1:56£0.79
Listen22. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Part 3: CodaMeasha Brueggergosman 1:34£0.79


Disc 2:

Extraits
Song TitleArtist Time Price
Listen  1. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 1: IntroductionChristine Brewer 2:17£0.79
Listen  2. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 1: Hear the Voice of the BardChristine Brewer 2:54£0.79
Listen  3. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 1: InterludeIlana Davidson0:51£0.79
Listen  4. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 1: Earth's AnswerChristine Brewer 4:53£0.79
Listen  5. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 2: Nurse's SongThomas Young 1:09£0.79
Listen  6. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 2: The FlyChristine Brewer 1:43£0.79
Listen  7. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 2: The TygerLeonard Slatkin 1:49£0.79
Listen  8. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 2: The Little Girl LostChristine Brewer 1:09£0.79
Listen  9. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 2: In the Southern ClimeChristine Brewer 2:08£0.79
Listen10. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 2: The Little Girl FoundChristine Brewer 4:46£0.79
Listen11. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 3: The Clod and the PebbleIlana Davidson 1:47£0.79
Listen12. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 3: The Little VagabondChristine Brewer 2:30£0.79
Listen13. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 3: Holy ThursdayMeasha Brueggergosman 2:44£0.79
Listen14. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 3: A Poison TreeChristine Brewer 2:09£0.79
Listen15. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 3: The AngelMeasha Brueggergosman 3:15£0.79
Listen16. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 3: The Sick RoseChristine Brewer 3:13£0.79
Listen17. Songs of Experience, Volume I: Part 3: To TirzahIlana Davidson 3:34£0.79


Disc 3:

Extraits
Song TitleArtist Time Price
Listen  1. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 4: The Voice of the Ancient BardChristine Brewer 2:24£0.79
Listen  2. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 4: My Pretty Rose TreeChristine Brewer 1:44£0.79
Listen  3. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 4: Ah! Sun-FlowerThomas Young 2:30£0.79
Listen  4. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 4: The LillyLeonard Slatkin 1:35£0.79
Listen  5. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 5: IntroductionChristine Brewer0:50£0.79
Listen  6. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 5: The Garden of LoveThomas Young 2:03£0.79
Listen  7. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 5: A Little Boy LostChristine Brewer 2:27£0.79
Listen  8. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 5: A Little Girl LostTommy Morgan 4:43£0.79
Listen  9. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 5: Infant SorrowThomas Young 2:23£0.79
Listen10. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 5: VocaliseChristine Brewer 2:58£0.79
Listen11. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 6: LondonThomas Young 3:52£0.79
Listen12. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 6: The School-BoyThomas Young 3:22£0.79
Listen13. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 6: The Chimney SweeperChristine Brewer 1:20£0.79
Listen14. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 6: The Human AbstractChristine Brewer 3:21£0.79
Listen15. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 6: Interlude - Voces ClamandaeChristine Brewer 1:32£0.79
Listen16. Songs of Experience, Volume II: Part 6: A Divine ImageChristine Brewer 5:31£0.79


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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Magnificent Achievement/Bolcom's Masterpiece, 19 Oct 2004
By J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
When William Bolcom (b. 1938) was a teenager he read and was moved by William Blake's set of 46 poems, 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience,' and vowed that one day he would set them all to music. Indeed, began the task in the mid-1950s but set it aside until he arrived at the University of Michigan where he has been on the faculty since the early 1970s. He had remembered the utter joy of participating in the chorus in a performance of Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion' while a student at the University of Washington, a performance that called on many of the resources of that university and its community. He says that he wanted the same sort of experience for those who participate in his orchestral Blake song cycle, and indeed this recording comes from just such a production. It uses many of the resources of the wonderful School of Music at the University of Michigan (its orchestras and choruses) as well as musicians from outside the School and community musicians as well, all under the direction of conductor Leonard Slatkin. Add to this the use of professional soloists from all across the musical spectrum (opera singers, a Broadway actor/musician, a folk/blues musician) and you get a mix that includes almost everything but the kitchen sink. This is Bolcom's 'Symphony of (almost) a Thousand,' as it were, as it takes upwards of 500 people to perform. Ann Arbor's Hill Auditorium was filled to the max when this performance took place on April 8, 2004.

There has been an buzz about this piece among music-lovers ever since its première in Germany under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies in 1984. In spite of the huge number of performers required (not to speak of the need for a stage director) it has since been mounted a dozen times. And those of us who had wanted badly to hear it but had not been able to attend a performance, had had to make do with bootleg tapes of previous performances. And we hoped and prayed that one day it would be recorded commercially. Our wait is over! And thanks to Bolcom's wisdom, it is on the budget label, Naxos, rather than one of the high-priced labels; thus its 3CDs will not break anyone's budget. Bolcom notes that in these days of the easy ripping-and-burning of CDs privately, it made more sense to issue the performance on a budget label in hopes that more people would simply go out and buy it, rather than ask someone to burn it (illegally, of course) for them. In addition, of course, one would get the complete texts and booklet notes as well. Smart move.

What about the music and the performance? The diction and emotional tone in Blake's poems, as is well known, are extremely variable, from elegant Drydenesque verses to the down-and-dirty vernacular of 1790s London, from songs of purest childlike innocence to poetic harangues about the horrors of the world. Bolcom has supplied music, using all the resources available to a 20th century composer, that mirrors both the diction and the emotional content of the poems. Thus we have the simple lullaby of 'A Cradle Song' (sung deliciously by soprano Linda Hohenfeld) to the bewildered trusting tone of 'The Chimney Sweeper' set to a Salvation Army band accompaniment (and narrated by Broadway actor Nathan Lee Graham, a standout whenever he appears here);
from the child's nature poem (of a lost Ant [Emmet] having its way home lit by an obliging glow-worm) of 'A Dream' in a lively atonal orchestral setting and sung expertly by lyric soprano Ilana Davidson, to the corresponding, horrific Webernian 'Little Boy Lost' (sung by soprano Carmen Pelton and the combined choruses) whose Little Boy has no one to help him find his way; from the percussion-accompanied choral Sprechstimme of 'Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright' to the ethereal 'The Fly' sung by string-accompanied children's chorus; from the gentle guitar-accompanied 'Nurse's Song' ['When the voices of children are heard on the green'] sung in her inimitable (and beloved) style by Bolcom's wife, mezzo Joan Morris to the woozy 'The Sick Rose' [eclipsing, in my mind, Theodore Chanler's setting] sung with preternatural calm that nonetheless evokes horror by contralto Marietta Simpson; from tenor Thomas Young whose opening Introduction sets up the expectation that we are in for great things, to soprano Measha Brueggergosman whose rich soprano (and spot-on intonation) is assigned to 'The Lamb' and 'The Blossom,' both set atonally, and Baritone Nmon Ford who sings the hieratic 'Hear the Voice of the Bard (Who Present, Past & Future sees).' Well, you get the idea. There is something here for everyone, but more important there is a unity to both poems and music, in spite of the disparate styles, that makes the set a coherent whole.

Assuming Amazon, as it seems to be doing these days, decides to list all the tracks and allows you to listen to the first minute or so of each track, I would suggest, in addition to the songs listed above, that for more of a taste of the delights of this set you hear snippets from:

My Pretty Rose Tree (CD 3)
Ah, Sun-Flower (3)
The Little Vagabond (2)
London (3)
The Black Boy (1)
Earth's Answer (2)

Bolcom slightly rearranged the published order of Blake's poems, but cites a discovery­-a list of the poem's titles among the papers of Blake's widow--that supports his ordering. He had from early on decided to put 'A Divine Image' at the very end, largely because of its summing-up of human nature:

'Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forged Iron,
The Human Form a fiery Forge,
The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart a hungry Gorge.'

This shattering poem is set to shattering music sung ironically as if by a mystical Sportin' Life by Nathan Lee Graham (with the combined choruses). A devastating finish to a stunning achievement by Bolcom and his musicians.

Make no mistake, this is a magnificent work in a performance whose recording preserves the sense of occasion, almost certainly the major piece by which Bolcom will be most remembered. (Although I need to say that I hope many others of his works survive, including the eagerly awaited opera based on Robert Altman's marvelous movie, 'The Wedding,' set for production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago later this year). 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience' has rarely been off my CD turntable since I received it and likely that will continue: this work contains the world.

You cannot afford to be without this magnificent work. Grab it; it's not likely to be recorded again soon.

TT=2:17:11

Scott Morrison

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars 'The American musical vernacular writ large, 12 April 2005
By Phillip Tolley "British Choirs on the Net" (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Completed in 1982, William Bolcom ''Songs of Innocence and Experience' is a three-hour setting of William Blake poems. It is neither an opera nor an oratorio, but is more a free-flowing dramatic mix of styles, and tonality which seep into one another. Some passages are tonal and tuneful, others dissonant. There are references to jazz, gospel, rock, ragtime and other popular idioms from wandering troubadours with Tambor and Fiddle through to Reggae. Together, these styles add up to what for Bolcom is a single style he calls ''the American musical vernacular.''
''Songs of Innocence and Experience'' calls for not only chorus and orchestra but also a narrator, nine conventional vocal soloists and a folk singer/harmonica player. Its forces and style are grand and its duration long, yet it is held togther by the poetry of William Blake.
This Naxos recording under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, followed a live performance, on April 8, 2004, in Ann Arbor, Michigan commemorating the reopening of recently-renovated Hill Auditorium. It utilizes the University of Michigan School of Music orchestra and Musical Society, various choirs and professional soloists.
To hold a work of such size in terms of both length and resource is a tremendous achievement and Leonard Slatkin manages not just this but also produced a definitive recording. The soloists, who include Joan Morris, the composer's wife, are strong while the heroic tenor manages some 'Brittenesque qualities.
To listen to the work can be daunting and the idioms change so suddenly and dramatically that it is not always possible to relax and listen to a melody, but perseverance pays dividends and the work lingers long in the mind and repays further hearings.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An exceptional, original and enjoyable work...., 10 Jan 2006
By John David Charles Hilton "Creative spark...." (Redcliffe, Bristol United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
It is difficult to know what to call this epic work. A curious hybrid of opera, oratorio, song cycle and Walton's Facade, it is one of most entertainingly original works I have heard in a long time. It deserves a much wider circulation, and is living proof that 'modern' classical music doesn't have to be 'difficult' or obscure...

The resulting work is seriously good with an amazing variety of musical styles on offer.

That it all hangs together so well is testament both to Bolcom's skill as a composer, and to Slatkin's impressive conducting. And the performaces from not only the soloists, but also the choirs and orchestral players are spot on.

The work would fit comfortably onto 2CDs (it's 2 hours 17 minutes long), however doing so would involve dividing the second of the three sections between the 2 CDs, so even though it adds slightly to the price, I prefer it in this format.

In conclusion, I recommend this work to anybody who enjoys good vocal music. William Bolcom, like other living composers such as Rautavaara, John Adams and Arvo Part, deserve a much more prominent presence in the public consciousness.... And it must be said that this is another good example of Naxos doing their bit to further the cause of contemporary classical music...

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3.0 out of 5 stars Surely we aren't meant to sit through it all in one go?
Exhaustive and exhausting, I'm sorry but Bolcom's musical language never really holds this listener's attention. Read more
Published on 22 April 2007 by Stephen M. Whitaker

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