Dreams Melting

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James Geer’s voice is distinctive, with a cut-through brightness of sound and superb intonation; add to this his intelligent phrasing and sensitivity to nuance and, in the Clarke songs, you can... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2021, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 19th Mar 2021
Catalogue No: SOMMCD0630
Label: Somm
Length: 67 minutes

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Ferguson, H: Discovery, Op. 13

Work length8:09

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

No. 1, Dreams Melting

Track length1:11

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No. 2, The Freedom of the City

Track length1:51

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No. 3, Babylon

Track length1:36

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No. 4, Jane Allen

Track length0:44

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No. 5, Discovery

Track length2:47

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Clarke, Rebecca: The Seal Man

Work length5:21

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Clarke, Rebecca: The Cloths of Heaven

Work length2:07

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Clarke, Rebecca: The Cherry-Blossom Wand

Work length2:56

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Clarke, Rebecca: Infant Joy

Work length1:09

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Clarke, Rebecca: Cradle Song

Work length2:27

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Clarke, Rebecca: Tiger, Tiger

Work length4:20

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Maconchy: Donne Songs (3)

Work length3:19

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

No. 1, A Hymn to God the Father

Track length3:19

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Maconchy: Have You Seen but a Bright Lily Grow?

Work length1:38

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Maconchy: A Meditation for His Mistress

Work length2:45

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

Finzi: Till Earth Outwears, Op. 19

Work length16:51

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

No. 1, Let Me Enjoy the Earth

Track length2:28

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No. 2, In Years Defaced

Track length3:31

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No. 3, The Market Girl

Track length1:43

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No. 4, I Look Into My Glass

Track length2:06

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No. 5, It Never Looks Like Summer

Track length1:14

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No. 6, At a Lunar Eclipse

Track length3:40

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No. 7, Life Laughs Onward

Track length2:09

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Maconchy: Shakespeare Songs (4)

Work length8:37

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

No. 1, Come Away, Death

Track length3:10

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No. 2, The Wind and the Rain

Track length2:23

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No. 3, Take, O Take Those Lips Away

Track length2:07

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No. 4, King Stephen

Track length0:57

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Tate, P: Songs (2)

Work length3:12

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

No. 2, The Falcon

Track length3:12

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Tate, P: Cradle Song (2)

Work length1:59

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Tate, P: Epitaph

Work length2:53

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James Geer (tenor), Ronald Woodley (piano)

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About

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce Dreams Melting, a revealing survey of British songs from the early 20th century by tenor James Geer and pianist Ronald Woodley.

At the recital’s heart are two substantial cycles. Setting seven poems by Thomas Hardy, Gerald Finzi’s Till Earth Outwears provides an intimate and movingly melancholic commentary in what Ronald Woodley describes in his extensive and informative booklet notes as a “male perspective on life, love and loss”.

Rarely recorded, Howard Ferguson’s five-part treatment of Denton Welch’s poems, Discovery, typifies “the subtlety of the relationship between late romanticism, modernism and the inherited idioms of ‘Britishness’ that composers of Ferguson’s generation inevitably grew up with”. Its second song, ‘Dreams Melting’, provides the recital’s title.

Three songs make their first appearance on disc. Elizabeth Maconchy’s setting of John Donne’s passionate but tortured A Hymn to God the Father boasts a searching vocal line underpinned by tellingly interrogative piano. Phyllis Tate’s The Falcon is a sparse but powerful setting of an anonymous medieval text while her variegated treatment of William Blake’s poem Cradle Song is reminiscent of a Bartók folksong arrangement.

Also heard are Maconchy’s Four Shakespeare Songs and settings of Ben Jonson’s Have You Seen but a Bright Lily Grow? and Robert Herrick’s A Meditation for his Mistress, alongside six varied and vital songs by Rebecca Clarke, including The Seal Man, “one of her most soaring flights of imagination”, and Tate’s Epitaph, in which her “quietly understated writing is masterly”.

A compendium of songs by William Walton and Constant Lambert, Façades (SOMMCD 0614), James Geer and Ronald Woodley’s debut SOMM release (with pianist Andrew West) was hailed by The Telegraph as “a wonderful collection of beautifully crafted miniatures”. MusicWeb International declared it “an absolute gem of a disc in every regard” and awarded it a Recording of the Year accolade.

Reviews

July 2021

James Geer’s voice is distinctive, with a cut-through brightness of sound and superb intonation; add to this his intelligent phrasing and sensitivity to nuance and, in the Clarke songs, you can almost imagine you are listening to a topnotch violist, as the composer was herself.

July 2021

Neither tenor Geer nor pianist Woodley is a high-octane star presence but both are clear, engaging conduits of a heady, dense collection of music that requires and rewards repeated listening.

Dreams Melting

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