Molloy: Love's old sweet song

Alice Coote, one of the most distinctive mezzo-sopranos of today, makes her recital debut on Hyperion with pianist Graham Johnson, a stalwart of the label and tireless explorer of vocal repertoire. The Power of Love creates what Johnson describes as a ‘pageant of English song and poetry’. It’s a journey through half a century of song, surveying not just human love but love of nature and even of money. Some of the most touching pieces here involve the loss of love through death, not least Ivor Gurney’s Lights Out and Gustav Holst’s Betelgeuse. There’s serenity, too, in mellifluous settings by Roger Quilter, while high spirits are supplied by Maude Valérie White’s The Spring has come and Warlock’s sardonic Queen Anne, which includes the immortal lines ‘I am Queen Anne, of whom ’tis said / I’m chiefly fam’d for being dead’.

June 16th is Bloomsday - the day Leopold Bloom journeys through Dublin in Joyce's novel Ulysses. The book is bursting with musical references and the characters almost sing their way through the novel. Their minds are filled with the musical culture of the early 20th century - popular drinking songs, opera arias, and ballads imbue the pages; there are over 40 references to songs in the Sirens chapter alone. RTÉ lyric fm celebrates this very important anniversary with JOYCESONGS - JAMES JOYCE'S MUSICAL DUBLIN containing music referred to in Ulysses, several of which have never been recorded before. The CD features emerging Irish artists Owen Gilhooly, Elizabeth Woods, Emmanuel Lawler, Daire Halpin, and Franck Dunne recorded variously with pianist Pádhraic ó'Cuinneagáin, and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra conducted by Robert Houlihan.