Customer Reviews

Foss: Time Cycle, Phorion, Song of Songs

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I heard Time Cycle as a teenager when it first came out and still treasure my 33 1/3 record, which I've told my son to guard with his life. I've waited YEARS for the piece to be re-released on cd and at last, it has been.

I believe that Foss deserves far more recognition than he's received, and this piece will show why. It should be noted that it was encored immediately after its premiere performance in '61, was it? It won the NY Music Critics Circle award too. It's haunting and I shall play it for everyone who sets foot in my home. I live in Spain and recently requested an airing of it on our national clasical music station's request show.

The Time Cycle is an unsung (forgive pun)masterpiece of Twentieth Century twelve-tone composition and superbly sung by the late Adele Addison.

Three diverse scores by Lucas foss that show him to be a composer of uncommon gifts. His Time Cycle my well be one of the masterpieces of the vocal/orchestral literature of the 20th century. The great Adele Addison gives a magnificnet performance, Again the recording executives passed up the opportunity to record this great American singer in her vast repetoire that spanned early baroque to contemporary--She was one of the great lieder singers of her generation matching the great Irmgard Seefried -but nothing exists on disc of Addison's Schubert ot Hugo Wolf or Charles Ives--What a loss

Addendum to earlier review: Adele Addison is alive and well and a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, very good news for me and for all music lovers. My apologies for my error.

Three diverse scores by Lucas foss that show him to be a composer of uncommon gifts. His Time Cycle my well be one of the masterpieces of the vocal/orchestral literature of the 20th century. The great Adele Addison gives a magnificnet performance, Again the recording executives passed up the opportunity to record this great American singer in her vast repetoire that spanned early baroque to contemporary--She was one of the great lieder singers of her generation matching the great Irmgard Seefried -but nothing exists on disc of Addison's Schubert ot Hugo Wolf or Charles Ives--What a loss

I'd heard about Foss' Time Cycle for years and so was really interested in its re-issue. The work is outstanding and absolutely fresh: the quality of Foss' invention and the agility of his imagination is wonderful. Don't pass this up if you have any interest in American orchestral music.