Katharine Dain, Sam Armstrong - Forget This Night [CD]

7 Mountain Records

£15.26

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: 7MNTN046
Barcode: 8720828354636
Release Date: 17 Nov 2023
Genre: Classical

 ‘Forget This Night’ explores impermanence and desire through songs by Lili Boulanger, Karol Szymanowski, and Grażyna Bacewicz.
 The heart of the program is Clairières dans le ciel, Lili Boulanger’s only song cycle and an overlooked masterpiece of the genre, which maps the interior emotional landscape of someone deeply in love - from blissful awe to the devastation of abandonment.
 The cycle is framed by songs of Szymanowski (a contemporary of Boulanger, who across the continent and against the backdrop of the First World War was also writing music of simmering passion) and Bacewicz, of a generation later, who treats the same themes in songs of fresh directness and aching lyricism.
 Opening with Boulanger’s first extant song, ‘Attente’, and ending with the premiere recording of a fragment for solo voice she wrote at the very end of her life, ‘Forget This Night’ poses a universal human question: how wholeheartedly can we open ourselves to relationships, and moments, that will inevitably end?

Tracklisting
Lili Boulanger - Attente
Karol Szymanowski - Pieśni
kurpiowskie, Op. 58 - II. Wysła burzycka
Grażyna Bacewicz - Smuga cienia
Trzy pieśni do słów arabskich z x wieku - I. Mamidło
Karol Szymanowski - Des Hafis Liebeslieder, Op. 24 - III. Die brennenden Tulpen
Lili Boulanger - Trois morceaux pour piano - I. D’un vieux jardin
Grażyna Bacewicz - Rozstanie
Karol Szymanowski - Vier Gesänge, Op. 41 - IV. Das letzte Lied
Grażyna Bacewicz - Mów do mnie, o miły
Karol Szymanowski - Das Grab des Hafis, Op. posth.
Lili Boulanger - Trois morceaux pour piano - II. D’un jardin clair
Lili Boulanger - Clairières dans le ciel: I. Elle était descendue au bas de la prairie
II. Elle est gravement gaie
III. Parfois, je suis triste
IV. Un poète disait
V. Au pied de mon lit
VI. Si tout ceci n’est qu’un pauvre rêve
VII. Nous nous aimerons tant
VIII. Vous m’avez regardé avec toute
votre âme
IX. Les lilas qui avaient fleuri
X. Deux ancolies
XI. Parce que j’ai souffert
XII. Je garde une medaille d’elle
XIII. Demain fera un an
Karol Szymanowski - Trzy kołysanki, Op. 48 - I. Pochyl się cicho nad kołyską
Lili Boulanger - J’ai des fréponds (Sketchbook fragment, BN Ms 19469)