Last updated: 14 June 2011
The fourth Song Prize recital.
View a photo gallery from recital four.
Hye Jung Lee - South Korea
Accompanist: Gary Matthewman
Sweeter than roses (Pausanias) - Purcell
This comes from incidental music written by Purcell for Richard Norton's drama, Pausanias. Pandora is an ambitious woman. She has an assignation with Argilius, whom she intends to blackmail. While she waits for him, an attendant sings this song of seduction, intended to put Pandora in the mood for love.
Schlagende Herzen (Op 29 No 2) - R Strauss
The boy crosses meadows and fields in search of his beloved, a gold ring shining on his finger, his heart beating 'Kling-klang'. Across the fields, a girl is watching and waiting - her heart also beating 'Kling-klang'. Otto Julius Bierbaum wrote the poem.
St盲ndchen (Op 17 No 2) - R Strauss
In St盲ndchen ('Serenade') the poet asks the beloved to open the door quietly, to wake no-one and join him in the garden. There, the flowers by the stream are sleeping, and only love is awake. The nightingale will dream of their kisses, and in the morning the rose will glow with their passion. The poem is by Adolf Friedrich, Graf von Schack.
La colombe poignard茅e (Chansons pour les oiseaux No 1) - Louis Beydts
Louis Beydts was a French composer working in the first half of the 20th century. These two songs are set to poems by Paul Fort. The poet muses on the nature of God and creation. If God had not made the sun, the moon, the planets, storms, day following day, there would be no love, no sorrow, no tears, and no beloved: nor would there be the stabbed dove, a symbol of war.
Le petit pigeon bleu (Chansons pour les oiseaux No 2) - Louis Beydts
The poet would like to be a little blue pigeon sitting on the roof of the beloved's cottage. He would listen to her clearing the plates, putting pine cones on the fire and telling the children stories. Tales of paradise, with birds, animals, trees, rainbows, dewdrops - and two people sitting on a roof. He would listen as an angel listens to God.
Old Sir Faulk (Six songs to poems by Edith Sitwell No 3) - Walton
Walton originally set this poem in Fa莽ade, an instrumental 'entertainment' with narrator, first performed in 1922. Ten years later, this was one of three items which he re-set, to be sung rather than declaimed. Old Sir Faulk is a huntsman, stalking through a surreal landscape which contains "periwigged sheep" and "the goose-king's feathered daughter". The metre is that of a foxtrot.
Davide Bartolucci - Italy
Accompanist: Giulio Zappa
La partenza (WoO 124) - Beethoven
The poet must leave the city of Nice to live far away. How will he manage, and will Nice ever remember him? The poem is by Pietro Metastasio, most famous for his heroic opera librettos in the eighteenth century.
L'amante impaziente (Arietta buffa & Arietta assai seriosa, Op 82 No 3 & 4) - Beethoven
The impatient lover is waiting for his girl. Every second he waits seems like a day, and he thinks she enjoys seeing him pine for her. The first setting is in 'buffa' style, the second is very serious. Again, the text is by Metastasio.
Lydia (Op 4 no 2) - Faur茅
The poet sings of Lydia's beauty - her white skin, rosy cheeks and golden hair. Kisses have carried away his soul, and he wants to live and die for her. The poem is by Leconte de Lisle.
La chanson du p锚cheur (Lamento) - Faur茅
The 铿乻herman laments the death of his beloved as he sails out to sea. She is in her coffin and he will never love another as he loved her. The night sky is like a shroud, and no-one but heaven hears his song. How bitter is his fate, to go to sea unloved. The poem is by Th茅ophile Gautier.
La barcheta (Six chansons en dialecte v茅nitien No 2) - Hahn
The singer is taking his beloved, Nineta, out on a little boat. They will take down the canopy to feel the breeze, and will whisper sweet nothings. If the breeze should be so bold as to lift the veil over Nineta's breast, no matter - the oarsman will be too busy rowing the boat. The poem is by Pietro Buratti.
Che pec脿! (Six chansons en dialecte v茅nitien No 5) - Hahn
In a Venetian dialect text by Francesco dall'Ongaro, 'What a shame!' the singer reminisces with his wife, Nina, about the time when he could think of nothing but her. It was foolish, and now he takes life as it comes. He still loves her, but the torment is no longer there. Neither of them is perfect, they know who they are, and life is more straightforward. But what a shame...
M谩ire Flavin - Ireland
Accompanist: Simon Lepper
Widmung (Op 25 No 1) - Schumann
In 'Dedication', the poet tells the beloved that she is everything to him - his soul, heart, bliss, pain, the world in which he lives, heaven, the grave, repose and peace. Her love makes him worthy of her and raises him above himself. The text is by Friedrich R眉ckert.
Lorelei - Clara Schumann
Many composers have set the famous poem by Heine, which tells the story of the fabled Lorelei, a siren connected with the rock on the Rhine whose currents have caused many boat accidents. In the poem, a fair maiden sits on the mountain top, singing as she combs her golden hair. The boatman is transfixed by her, not seeing the treacherous rocks which could send him to his death.
Chanson triste - Duparc
In this sad song, summer moonlight radiates from the heart of the beloved, making the poet long to drown in its light. All sorrows will be forgotten and maybe healed in the arms of the beloved and through their sad eyes. The poem is by Henri Cazalis, writing as Jean Lahor.
La souris d'Angleterre (Chansons de M Bleu No 9) - Manuel Rosenthal
This poem, by Michel Veber writing as 'Nino' tells of an English mouse who set sail from England on a boat, arriving in Calais and heading for the Hotel d'Angleterre. There, she settled down under the eaves to a diet of malt whisky, bacon-rind, dry gin and treacle, dancing and partying through the night so no-one could sleep. The burghers of Calais tried all kinds of French and Swiss and Dutch cheese in the mousetrap, to no avail - until they tried English cheese.
Why do they shut me out of Heaven? (12 Poems of Emily Dickinson No 3) - Copland
This poem by Emily Dickinson, like much of her work, deals with questions of death and the afterlife. She asks if she has been excluded from heaven for singing too loud - but assures us that she is capable of singing softly as well. If those who are keeping her out were to be knocking on her door, would she forbid them entrance?
The Lake Isle of Innisfree - Philip Martin
This is one of WB Yeats' early poems, written in 1888 when he was in London and missing Ireland. Innisfree is an unhabited island in County Sligo, and the poet imagines living there alone in a rural idyll, building a clay and wattle hut, living on the beans he would grow and honey from beehives. In this utopia, it is eternal summer, with the lake water gently lapping on the shore.
Leah Crocetto - USA
Accompanist: Ll欧r Williams
Vocalise (Op 34 No 14) - Rakhmaninov
There is no text in this song, which Rakhmaninov dedicated to soprano Antonina Nezhdanova in 1912. The vocal line is sung to a vowel sound of the singer's choosing.
Zdes' khorosho (Op 21 No 7) - Rakhmaninov
In 'How nice it is here' the poet meditates on the beauty around him: the shining river, the flowery meadows, the white clouds. No-one else is around - there is just nature, God and the poet, who is thinking of his beloved.
Loneliness (fragment from A Musset) (Op 21 No 6) - Rakhmaninov
The poet is alone at night in his room, full of despair. His heart is beating wildly - he hears a door slam, sees a flickering lamp, imagines he hears someone calling him - but it's nothing, just the clock striking midnight. He is completely alone. The text is by Aleksei Nikolayevich Apukhtin, based on 'Le po猫te' by Alfred de Musset.
Sure on this shining night (Op 13 No 3) - Barber
This is a nocturne, with the poet wandering under the stars in high summer. All should be healed, all hearts intact on a night like this. He weeps out of wonder, all alone, thinking of shadows on the stars. The poem is by James Agee, in 'Description of Elysium', from 'Permit Me Voyage'.
Nocturne (Op 13 No 4) - Barber
The poet bids the beloved to sleep and rest, leaving behind lust and longing, lies and hopelessness. Midnight will heal, there will be nothing but the stars in the blind night sky. The text is by Frederic Prokosch.
Del cabello m谩s sutil - Obradors
In this folk song of courtship, the singer wants to make a chain from her braided hair to bring her to his side. He would like to be a drinking-vessel, to kiss her lips each time she takes a drink.
Chiquitita la novia - Obradors
The bride and groom are tiny - so are the living room and the bedroom. So, they need a tiny bed and a tiny mosquito net. The text is by a 19th century writer using the pseudonym Curro Dulce.
