Eleanor Steber
Leontyne Price
William Warfield
Jennie Tourel
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"Warfield does these [songs] practically to perfection, accompanied by Copland himself... a better performance of this ingratiating music is difficult to imagine. The recording is one of Columbia's best."
American Record Guide, December 1951 "This series is among the most handsomely produced to be found these days, with documentation and presentation that are of unfailingly high quality."
Masterworks Heritage -- great artistry of the past, technology of the future
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 60899 - Available on CD |
Simple Gifts (Shaker Song) (Shaker, ed. E. D. Andrews) wav (927k) | real audio |
In this extraordinary compilation, three of the leading American composers of the twentieth century -- Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, and Virgil Thomson -- accompany their own vocal compositions at the piano with some of the foremost singers of their time. The selections offer gems from Columbia's "Modern American Music Series" originally released in the 1950s. The songs find their ideal interpreters in Eleanor Steber, Leontyne Price, William Warfield, and Jennie Tourel. Expertly remastered, the set presents these authoritative performances for the first time on CD, including the previously unreleased Second Set of Copland's Old American Songs. Composer Ned Rorem supplies the notes to this special set, which is supplemented with artwork from the original releases and photos from the recording sessions.
From the incredible remastered sound to the packaging design, the critical acclaim is unanimous for Sony Classical's pace-setting reissue series, Masterworks Heritage. Encompassing acoustic-era gems from as far back as the 1903 Grand Opera Series as well as landmark mono- and stereo-era performances from the 1920s to the pre-digital 1970s, this series continues with five important releases. Delighted collectors are reintroducing themselves to a treasure trove of legendary performances by their favorite artists of the past, meticulously remastered and presented in special, stylishly designed imported packaging.
In this, the eighth installment of Masterworks Heritage, historic recordings of Wagner sung by Lauritz Melchior and Helen Traubel, as well as stereo recordings of Bartók and Prokofiev under George Szell and his Cleveland Orchestra, highlight the latest releases, which also include the first CD release of the debut recordings of violinists Michael Rabin and Ossy Renardy, this collection of twentieth-century American vocal works, and another installment of Lotte Lenya's authoritative renditions of Kurt Weill's songs. Some of these recordings are being issued on CD for the first time, having been unavailable for decades.
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