Composer: Marion Bauer, Henriette Hilda Bosmans, Nadia Boulanger, Elizabeth Claisse, Irène Fuerison
Performer: Susan Narucki, Donald Berman
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Avie
Catalogue: AV2592
Release: 2023
Size: 1.11 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
01. Bosmans: Dit eiland (A. Roland Holst)
02. Bosmans: In den regen (A. Roland Holst)
03. Bosmans: Teken den hemel in het zand der zee
Claisse: 4 Mélodies
04. Issue
05. Complainte
06. Philosophie
07. Les Mendiants
Fuerison: Les Heures claires, Les Heures d’après-midi, Les Heures du soir Op. 50
08. I. Les Heures Claires: I. O la splendeur de notre joie
09. II. Les Heures Claires: XX. Dis moi, ma simple et ma tranquille amie
10. III. Les Heures d’Après-midi: XXVII. Ardeur des soirs
11. IV. Les Heures d’Après-midi: XXIX. Vous m’avez dit
12. V. Les Heures du Soir: XXI. Avec mes vielles mains
13. VI. Les Heures du Soir: XXVI Lorsque tu fermeras mes yeux
Boulanger N: Les heures claires
14. I. Le ciel en nuit s’est déplié…
15. III. Vous m’avez dit…
16. IV. Que tes yeux claires, tes yeux d’été…
17. VI. Ta bonté
Bauer: Poems, Op. 16
18. I. Through the Upland Meadows
19. II. I Love the Night
20. III. Midsummer Dreams
21. IV. In the Bosom of the Desert
GRAMMY Award-winning American soprano Susan Narucki, “one of the great practitioners of contemporary vocal music” (Opera News) presents This Island, a specially curated, unique set of 21 art songs written in the first half of the 20th century, chiefly by women and some receiving their world premiere recordings.
The catalyst for This Island was a line from a collection of letters by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “If you could only be here with me so I could share with you the happiness of these great poems, they would let you realize what we all now need more urgently: that transience is not separation”.
The poems Rilke cites are by Belgian Symbolist Emile Verhaeren, whose poetry Susan discovered has been set to music by composers both familiar and virtually unknown, including Nadia Boulanger and her Paris Conservatoire teacher Raoul Pugno, Belgian Irene Fuerison, Dutch Henriette Bosmans and the mysterious Parisian composer Elizabeth Claisse. Susan rounds out the album with songs by American composer and educator Marion Bauer, who studied in Paris and met Boulanger and Pugno, and Dutch composer Henriette Bosmans whose music Susan was familiar with, bringing the project full circle.
This release by soprano Susan Narucki and pianist Donald Berman is, in a way, a pandemic project. Narucki’s notes recount its genesis: she found a reference in a letter by Rainer Maria Rilke to poetry by Symbolist Émile Verhaeren and, trapped by the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, began to search libraries for musical settings of Verhaeren’s work. This led Narucki to a whole little world of music composed by women, except for a group of songs Nadia Boulanger wrote with her teacher, Raoul Pugno. Boulanger is actually the best known among the group, most of whom (Élisabeth Claisse, Irène Fuerison, Marion Bauer) are almost completely obscure. Not all of the songs (in French, Dutch, and English) set poems by Verhaeren, but all of the composers are creatively linked, and the album has a delightful down-the-rabbit-hole quality. Some are extravagantly romantic. For the flavor of the whole, sample the two settings of the same Verhaeren poem, “Vous m’avez dit,” by Boulanger and composer Irène Fuerison, each of whom set works from a cycle by Verhaeren. For collections of music by women, this is essential, and it is an enjoyable hour for anyone of music in an Impressionist vein that broadens out as the text requires. Narucki’s performances effectively reflect the passion she brought to the project.