Editor Reviews:

Album Description:
John Duke (1899–1984) is one of the acknowledged masters of the American art song. This release of twenty-three of his finest songs will afford lovers of vocal music the opportunity to discover Duke’s little-known corpus. Comparison with the musical language of other notable American art song composers (Griffes, Loeffler, or Ives, for instance) reveals an unusually consistent and personal style throughout most of Duke’s career, the composer venturing only slightly afield of a conventional tonal practice derived mostly from European music of the nineteenth century. Musical influences on his language, in fact, are almost entirely European; most of his songs have an accompanimental texture unmistakably his, continuing, in a way, the tradition of the German Lied, using poems in English.

Duke often claimed, both in his writings and in conversation with colleagues, to have developed his art song style somewhat self-consciously after having studied in great detail the historical, poetical, and musical contexts of three previous genres exhibiting a marriage of music and poetry: the Elizabethan song, the nineteenth-century Lied and the French mélodie of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His choice of poetry avoids almost completely the abstract in favor of the tried and true themes of love and mortality, themes that most composers have found the most suitable for musical treatment. Duke’s music is taken very seriously by those who know his work intimately. After all, about how many American composers could it be said that all 265 songs have a natural feel for the voice, an elegantly matched pianistic accompaniment, a recognizable and personal style, and a musical language that never resorts to false syntax? It is easy to see why American singers love to sing his songs.

Rating : - A Generous Packet of Art Songs by American Composer John Duke
Though his name may not be a household word among American composers, to singers the lieder of John Woods Duke are a staple of the recital repertoire. A composer well respected in his lifetime (1899 - 1984), his 265 catalogued songs are the epitome of the marriage of text and music. His musical style never veered from melodic but his integration of poetry with his expressive understanding of the voice places him in the same category with Ives, Griffes, Rorem, Barber, Heggie et al.

This fine recital by soprano Lauralyn Kolb, a former student of the highly regarded Howard Swan of Occidental College and a sought after oratorio soloist and recitalist, with pianist Tina Toglia is a study in musical intelligence. Kolb's soprano voice is beautifully focused and her communication of the texts ranging from ee cummings, Emily Dickinson, Elinor Wylie, Sarah Teasdale, Robert Frost, Richard Nickson, Mark Van Doren to James Joyce is pristine and warmly sensitive. Her collaboration with Toglia demonstrates the way musicians should approach the art song. There are many excellent songs in this collection that could be singled out, but the pleasure of the recital is that the variety selected by the artists is very satisfying for a survey of works by a relatively unknown (to the public) composer. Recommended. Grady Harp, January 06