Par SZYMANOWSKI KAROL. The composition of the Princess Songs marked the beginning of a particularly productive phase for Karol Szymanowski. Based on a series of poems by his sister Zofia, Szymanowski composed this colorful and glittering music in 1915; its exotic, lyrical and fantastical world is expressed in the coloratura soprano’s many passages, featuring trills and rapid runs. The princess herself remains mysteriously undefined. Love is her only recurrent theme. By withdrawing into internal fantasy during a time of war, Szymanowski found an opportunity to retreat into a dream world, and composing songs remained an important part of his lifelong work; in 1933 he arranged three of the six Princess Songs for voice and orchestra. (Sakari Oramo orchestrated the other three and conducted their first performance in 2012). (Translation on UE website by Grant Chorley.)/ Répertoire / Voix Haute et Piano

After a long time spent writing only for piano Schumann produced a true outburst of lieder inspired by the poetry of Heinrich Heine: ?What a blessing it is to write for the voice!? Schumann wrote to his beloved Clara. It is as though a knot was untied while he was writing the Heine-Liederkreis Op.24. Retrospectively Schumann wrote that this new poetic spirit had inspired the composition of lieder to such an extent that it had become the only genre to make significant progress since the time of Beethoven.Indeed these nine songs which represent the only complete setting of the underlying Heine cycle came so close to the spirit of the poet that a new epoch of liedcomposition was founded. This new edition of Schumann?s first collection of lieder is based primarily on the first publication under consideration of the autograph manuscript.All songs in their original keyComprehensive foreword (Eng/Ger) and critical commentary (Ger)Includes an English translation of the lied texts by Richard Stokes (The Book of Lieder) printed separately

Christina Rossetti’s poem The Birthday or My Heart is Like a Singing Bird was published in 1857 and was the subject of at least a dozen musical settings before Hubert Parry. Parry had developed the habit by this point of memorizing a text and ‘cogitating’ on it before beginning composition.In this song Parry employs rippling semiquaver movement in both hands to establish the ecstatic nature of the piece which he only pauses at the climactic ‘Because my love is come to me’ most effectively. It remains one of his best-loved songs.

This is the first volume in a five-volume set of the complete songs and vocalises of Gabriel Fauré the only complete critical edition. Based on the study of hundreds of manuscript and printed sources Roy Howat and Emily Kilpatrick have tested the edition internationally in masterclasses workshops seminars concerts and recordings with the participation of professional singers students teachers coaches and specialists. This first volume contains all songs written up to 1882 encompassing many of Fauré’s most well-known and loved songs including Après un rêve Le papillon et la fleur and Au bord de l’eau. The volume includesa preface in French English and German and translations into English and German of the original poetry.