This CD is reissued by ArkivMusic.
Notes and Editorial Reviews
These songs are beautifully sung by Hampson with a rich and virile but expressively controlled baritone. The accompaniments, too, are models of their kind, never taking attention from the singer, always adding their own beauties of sound.
Britons are used to being told that "we're all Europeans now", but Thomas Hampson and EMI clearly have other ideas. To accompany this collection of 'American songs' we are offered a note by Hampson on the genre of American song as represented here. In it he comments on the American musical language demonstrated, apparently, by songs such as In the Gloaming, Roses of Picardy and Long ago in Alcala, all of which I had previously thought were as European as Buckingham Palace or
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the English Channel.
But, if such arrogant presumptiousness makes my British blood boil, the performances provide a remarkably soothing antidote. These songs are quite beautifully sung by Hampson with a rich and virile but expressively controlled baritone. The accompaniments, too, are models of their kind, never taking attention away from the singer, always adding their own beauties of sound. The sentimentality is neither ignored nor overplayed.
Songs such as Shenandoah and On the Road to Mandalay will be known to all, and performances as good as these will be warmly welcomed by those who recall what singers such as Peter Dawson or Owen Brannigan could bring to the latter. I welcome, too, the chance to hear so many previously unfamiliar songs of varied, genuinely American origin, notably Vittorio Giannini's beautiful Tell me, oh blue sky and Walter Damrosch's Danny Deeper. Yet I confess my British (or, at any rate, European) blood derives the greatest thrill from as beautiful a performance as I've heard of Haydn Wood's Roses of Picardy, as well as superb performances of the long-loved but seldom-heard In the Gloaming (composed by the wife of the Comptroller of Queen Victoria's household) and Long ago in Alcala, composed by Andre Messager for the 1894 Savoy Theatre, London show Mirette.
-- Gramophone [3/1991]
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Works on This Recording
1.
Shenandoah by Traditional
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Written: USA
Notes: Arranged: Roger Ames
2.
On the Road to Mandalay by Oley Speaks
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1907; USA
Language: English
3.
Roses of Picardy by Haydn Wood
Performer:
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1916; England
Language: English
4.
Poems (2) of Masefield: no 1, An Old Song Re-sung by Charles Tomlinson Griffes
Performer:
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1918; USA
Language: English
5.
Tell me, oh blue, blue sky by Vittorio Giannini
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: by 1927; USA
Language: English
6.
Brother Will, Brother John by John Sacco
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
Language: English
7.
Darling Nellie Gray by Benjamin Russell Hanby
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1856; USA
Language: English
8.
Ah! May the red rose live alway by Stephen Foster
Performer:
Kenneth Sillito (Violin),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1850; USA
Language: English
9.
Maytime: Will you remember? by Sigmund Romberg
Performer:
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1917; USA
Language: English
10.
Luke Havergal by John Woods Duke
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1948; USA
Language: English
11.
Do not go, my love by Richard Hageman
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1917; USA
Language: English
12.
When I have sung my songs by Ernest Charles
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1934; USA
Language: English
13.
At dawning, Op 29 no 1 by Charles Wakefield Cadman
Performer:
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Kenneth Sillito (Violin),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1906; USA
Language: English
14.
Tomorrow by Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: 20th Century
Language: English
15.
Long Ago in Alcala by André Messager
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: France
Language: English
16.
Erie Canal by Traditional
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Language: English
Notes: Arranged: Erie Canal
17.
Nightingale by Traditional
Performer:
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Notes: Arranged: Clifford Shaw
18.
The lass from the low country by John Jacob Niles
Performer:
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
19.
In the Gloaming by Annie Fortescue Harrison
Performer:
Thomas Hampson (Baritone),
Armen Guzelimian (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1876; England
20.
Danny Deever, Op. 2 no 7 by Walter Damrosch
Performer:
Armen Guzelimian (Piano),
Thomas Hampson (Baritone)
Period: 20th Century
Written: USA
Language: English
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