THE POWER OF LOVE: AN ENGLISH SONGBOOK

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’.

Elgar:
 Pleading, Op. 48 No. 1
 Speak, Music, Op. 41, No. 2

Gibbs, C A:
 A Song of Shadows Op. 15, No. 3
 Hypochondriacus

Grainger:
 The Power of Love

Gurney:
 Goodnight to the meadow
 Lights out
 The boat is chafing

Holst:
 Betelgeuse
 Journey's End

Lehmann, L:
 Ah, moon of my delight
 Love, if you knew the light
 Pa's bank

Moeran:
 In youth is pleasure

Molloy:
 Love's old sweet song

Peel:
 Almond, wild almond
 The early morning

Quilter:
 Love's Philosophy, Op. 3 No. 1 (Shelley)
 Now sleeps the crimson petal, Op. 3 No. 2 (Tennyson)
 There be none of Beauty's daughters, Op. 24, No. 1

Vaughan Williams:
 Silent Noon

Warlock:
 Queen Anne
 Take, O take those lips away
 The Night

White, M:
 So we'll go no more a-roving
 The Devout Lover
 The Spring has come

"[Victorian parlour repertoire] proves both admirably suited to her distinctively creamy yet expressive voice, and occasionally revelatory...The well-structured programme concludes with Holst's late Humbert Wolfe settings, in which Coote finds surprising power. Journey's End is tragically bleak"
BBC Music Magazine April 2012 *****