Naxos American
2004
Amy Beach: Songs
About This Album
Naxos' American Classics series brings Amy Beach: Songs and thus enters into a territory of vocal repertoire long considered essential to performers of English language art songs, yet never a very crowded field in terms of recordings. Amy Beach: Songs is a generous survey of Beach's songs dating from 1880, when she was 12 years old, to the very last music she wrote before her death at age 77 in 1944.

Beach's songs were never designed to knock your socks off, but the received wisdom that they are nothing more than pleasant parlor tunes wholly reliant on German models isn't right either. Beach's songs are sensitive, poetic, and made with a clear purpose in mind -- to project the texts through clearly stated and memorable melodic content. Mezzo soprano Katherine Kelton does an excellent job here in a wide range of material, the only caveat being that at times she's a little hard to understand, but all of the lyrics are included in the booklet so this is of no great concern. Accompanist Catherine Bringeraud paces all of the music very well and is strongly responsive to Kelton's voice while maintaining a mostly gentle and dignified calm. Kelton's liner notes are excellent and make the case for Beach without overstatement.
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