Catalogue # CDA67888

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:
Lights out
The boat is chafing
Goodnight to the meadow

Holst:
Betelgeuse
Journey’s End

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

Moeran:
In youth is pleasure

Molloy:
Love’s old sweet song

Peel:
The early morning
Almond, wild almond

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
The Night
Take, O take those lips away

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

Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano) & Graham Johnson (piano)