William Bolcom - Songs (Carole Farley; William Bolcom)

Information

Composer: William Bolcom

• You Cannot Have Me Now - or, the Military Orgy (from Greatshot)
• Night Make My Day (from Casino Paradise)
• The Digital Wonder Watch (An Advertisment)
• My Father the Gangster (from Casino Paradise)
• The Last Days of Mankind
• Songs to Dance
• I Will Breathe a Mountain
• Tillinghast Duo
• Mary
• Three Songs (from The Wind in the Willows)
• When We Built the Church (from Dynamite Tonite)

Carole Farley, soprano

William Bolcom, piano

Date: 2005

Label: Naxos

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Review

William Bolcom is a splendidly eclectic composer and a brilliant keyboard partner for singers. He finds just the right tone for each of the many poems by his compatriots. The heart of the selection is I will breathe a mountain, including Emily Dickinson's macabre Bustle in a House, Swenson's Night Practice and Elizabeth Bishop's compassionate description of a venerable fish, brought out of water with 'five old pieces of fish-line hanging from his lip', and which the poet returned to the deep. William Blake's Sweet Mary, who has to 'humble her beauty' has a contemporary ring to it (q.v. Naxos' release of Bolcom's magnus opus, Songs of Innocence and of Experience - 8.559165).

This Naxos CD is compelling, though maybe not to everyone's taste. Recorded in England in the last days of 2004, Farley's spontaneity is preserved on disc, and she even strays occasionally from the exact texts in some of the 34 songs. Their styles are eclectic, from cabaret songs which really need to be heard in the right milieu, to thoughtful art songs which are better listened to at home with the words on your lap.

— Peter Grahame Woolf

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William Bolcom (born 26 May 1938) is an American composer and pianist known for bridging popular and classical music traditions. Educated at the University of Washington, Mills College, the Paris Conservatory and Stanford University, he later served as professor of composition at the University of Michigan. A prolific composer, Bolcom wrote works across genres, including piano études, operas, orchestral music and song cycles, and showed a particular affinity for ragtime. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and multiple Grammy Awards in 2006. Bolcom has also been active as a performer, writer, editor and educator.

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Carole Farley (born 29 November 1946 in Le Mars, Iowa) is an American soprano. She received her formal training at Indiana University and pursued advanced studies in Munich and New York. Farley launched her professional career in 1968 and quickly gained international recognition through operatic and concert performances across Europe and the United States. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1975 and became especially renowned for challenging contemporary roles, including Lulu. In recent years, she has collaborated extensively with prominent American composers on new works and recordings.

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