Old Song Resung
Liner Notes   Cat. No. 80463     Release Date: 1995-01-01

William Parker Sings Ives, Griffes, Farwell, and Cadman

William Parker, baritone; Dalton Baldwin, piano; William Huckaby, piano

During the last third of the nineteenth century, several thoroughly trained composers from the Northeast began to fashion an American music deriving from German stylistic principles, impeccably crafted and with considerable aesthetic substance—men such as John Knowles Paine, Arthur Foote, George Chadwick, Horatio Parker, and Edward MacDowell.

Most composers who began their careers in the early twentieth century took their lead from these older Northeastern composers, and built on an inherited style, which seemed solid and attractive to them. The four composers represented in this recording were from the same generation. However, in one way or another, they were noticeably different from the others, and each offered his own answer to the question of what might constitute an American music.

During the years that he examined traditional Amerindian myths and songs, Arthur Farwell (1872-1952) gave them a transcendental and highly personal interpretation. He detected a strength of will that pointed individuals toward otherworldly concerns. He recommended the candor, lucidity, and intuitiveness of Amerindian artistic expression, and lauded the feelings of ecstasy and mysticism regularly evinced in the music.

Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881-1946) accepted Romantic practices and their valuation of lyricism and tone color. He found merit in courting the larger American public with "idealized" Amerindian music, that is, music modified so that what otherwise might be rejected as primitive was brought in line with white-American tastes.

Charles Ives (1874-1954) grew up with a respect for New England Transcendental thought, an affection for New England hymnody and American traditional and popular song and dance, and a disdain for any music that seemed pretentious or affectedly polite and delicate. Unlike Farwell and Cadman, he puts into use his own musical experience, of which aboriginal music was not a part. He epitomizes the independent Yankee composer who attuned his ear to the singing of a personalized America.

Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) was, of all the composers on this disk, the most sensitive to the emotional states invoked by natural settings and poetry. He incorporated his feelings in works consisting of subtly blended musical tones that grasp the inward nature of things. While the other composers on this disk were, one way or another, attempting to write a recognizable American music, Griffes was nurturing a style unlinked to national expression. He exemplifies the native composer who, if he was to be taken as American, would have to manifest an unconscious distillation of the American experience in his music.

William Parker (1943-1993) studied with Pierre Bernac and Rosa Ponselle. He won first prize at the Kennedy Center-Rockefeller Foundation International Competition in 1979. He also won first prize at the Toulouse International Competition and at the Paris International Singing Competition.

William Parker

Old Song Resung

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Track Listing

Three Indian Songs: Song of the Deathless Voice, No. 1
Arthur Farwell
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Three Indian Songs: Inketunga's Thunder Song, No. 2
Arthur Farwell
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Three Indian Songs: The Old Man's Love Song, No. 3
Arthur Farwell
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Four American Indian Songs, Op. 45: From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water, No. 1
Charles Wakefield Cadman
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Four American Indian Songs: The White Dawn is Stealing, No. 2
Charles Wakefield Cadman
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Four American Indian Songs: Far Off I Hear a Lover's Flute, No. 3
Charles Wakefield Cadman
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Four American Indian Songs: The Moon Drops Low, No. 4
Charles Wakefield Cadman
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At The River
Charles Ives
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His Exaltation
Charles Ives
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Watchman!
Charles Ives
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The Camp Meeting
Charles Ives
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Sunrise
Charles Ives
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Chanson de Florian
Charles Ives
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Rosamunde
Charles Ives
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Qu'il m'irait bien
Charles Ives
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Élégie
Charles Ives
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Das ist ein Braussen und Heulen
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
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Wo ich bin, mich rings umdunkelt
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
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Des Müden Abendlied
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
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Zwei Könige sassen auf Orkadel
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
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The First Snowfall
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
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An Old Song Re-sung
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
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