Barber: Songs ~ Alexander [Import]

Roberta Alexander (Artist), Samuel Barber (Composer), Tan Crone (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Tan Crone
• Composer: Samuel Barber
• Audio CD (April 16, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Etcetera
• ASIN: B0000000O0
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #514,616 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Songs (3), for voice & piano, Op. 2: No 1, The Daisies

2. Songs (3), for voice & piano, Op. 2: No 2, With Rue my Heart is Laden

3. Songs (3), for voice & piano, Op. 2: No 3, Bessie Bobtail

4. Songs (3), for voice & piano, Op. 10: Rain Has Fallen

5. Songs (3), for voice & piano, Op. 10: Sleep Now

6. Songs (3), for voice & piano, Op. 10: I Hear an Army

7. Nocturne, song for voice & piano (also arr. for voice & orch.), Op. 13/4

8. A Nun Takes the Veil, song for voice & piano, Op. 13/1

9. The secrets of the old, song for voice & piano, Op. 13/2

10. Sure on this shining night, song for voice & piano (also arr. for voice, orch, chorus & piano), Op. 13/3

11. Songs (2), for voice & piano, Op. 18: The Queen's Face on the Summery Coin

12. Songs (2), for voice & piano, Op. 18: Monks and Raisins

13. Nuvoletta, song for voice & piano, Op. 25

14. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: At Saint Patrick's Purgatory

15. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: Church Bell at Night

16. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: St. Ita's Vision

17. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: The Heavenly Banquet

18. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: The Crucifixion

19. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: Sea-Snatch

20. Hermit Songs, for voice & piano, Op. 29: Promiscuity

See all 28 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an excellent presentation of Barber's piano songs, August 1, 2006

By 

Reginald Shepherd (Pensacola, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barber: Songs ~ Alexander (Audio CD)

First of all, I must mention that Chopra fan "Huntley Dent"'s review is not of this CD, Songs by Barber, which is all songs for voice and piano, but rather of Arias and Scenes, a collection also sung by Roberta Alexander and also on Etcetera of Barber's orchestral vocal music.

That said, this is an excellent collection of Barber's piano songs. Roberta Alexander has a lovely, creamy voice, and she puts real passion into these songs, though her diction is sometimes slightly occluded. Her performance of "Sure on This Shining Night" is spine-tingling.

There a couple of moments of slight distortion in the recording or the mastering at louder points in the performance.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best colleciton of Barber's orchestral songs and arias, October 10, 2005

By 

Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Barber: Songs ~ Alexander (Audio CD)

Only three songs on this excellent CD are orchestral arrangements of songs originally written with piano accompaniment, but they include the haunting, masterful "Sure on This Shining Night," with text by James Agee. Agee was a natural lyrical fit for Barber's talents, as witness the famous "Knoxville, Summer of 1915"--it sets a prose poem to music that was the intorduciton to Agee's wonderful posthumous novel, "A Death in the Family."

Roberta Alexander does everything well. Her clear, striaghtforward, well-tuned soprano is without wobble or excessive vibrato, so one hears the words more clearly than usual. The arias come from Barber's operas Vanessa and Antony and Cleopatra. It's a shame that the disastrous premiere of the latter effectively shamed Barber into giving up compsoing for the rest of his life.

For anyone who wants to hear a generous sample of Barber's writing for soprano, thse skillful interpretations are unmissable.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lively and pleasan t renditions, March 24, 2006

By 

Kathleen A. Moreland - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barber: Songs ~ Alexander (Audio CD)

The beauty of the artist's voice shows through despite the difficulties of Barber's modern piano stylings. Fans of Barber's vocal music will enjoy this CD.