• Tracks

Four Songs, using Hughes texts, come from 1951. Carolina Cabin is the third of these and follows Berger's determination only to write tonal music. In a quasi-strophic setting, the opening piano figure migrates to the bass and returns to introduce the brief second verse. From Hughes' The Dream Keeper comes Lovely Dark and Lonely One, set by Harry Burleigh in 1934. The composer had been a voice student at the National Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Christian Fritsch. His association with Antonín Dvorˇák provided the stimulus for a major career as vocal composer, both of totally original works and of settings of the spirituals. As music editor subsequently, he secured publication of these essays, which he featured in his own performances. At the same time, he provided repertoire for recitals by others, such as Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, and Roland Hayes in the Harlem Renaissance, and even for Ezio Pinza, Nelson Eddy, and Herbert Witherspoon. For 52 years, Burleigh was baritone soloist at New York's St George's Church and for almost half that time, sang on Saturdays at Temple Emanu-El (often performing his setting of Deep River in Hebrew). The first of the five songs in Dreamer cautions that the Sandman "abroad each night, has a dream in his sack to fit each child just right", while the undulating bass of the piano plays against figures in the harp that reflect either the piano or voice lines. Bound No'th Blues is a deploration of a weary and lonely traveler whose complaints appear over syncopated obstinate patterns, with the harp joining in the middle section ("slow, sultry swing"), and offering after-beats for the restatement of the initial idea. The third song, To Artina, is a passionate declaration of consuming love, expressed with great intensity. Down where I am is marked "dark, tough blues, really drag the beat" and obligates percussive activity from the pianist, with the final measures to be improvised by the singer in blues style. The cycle ends with The Dream Keeper. Interspersed among the five songs are two additional poems, Birth and Bouquet, spoken by the singer.