Price,Margaret Margaret Price In Recital CD

A song recital new to CD from a peerless lyric soprano, coupled with classic recordings of Ravel and Verdi. In 1971 Andrew Porter wrote that Margaret Price's voice was among the things that make one 'glad to be alive'. In the 1960s she had recorded for a small Welsh label a recital of Welsh, German and Italian songs that would become signature items for her over the coming decades. Reissued in 1969 by L'Oiseau-Lyre, the album makes it to CD for the first time in this compilation. In favourites such as Schubert's Heidenr?slein, Verdi's Ave maria and five Welsh folksongs, Price is on sovereign form, with a gleaming upper register and engagingly fresh phrasing. Also from the early 70s is a rare foray into contemporary music inspired by her Welsh heritage, with Alun Hoddinott's setting of a text by Emyr Humphries, Roman Dream. She recorded this for Argo along with a set of Gaelic folksongs by Phyllis Tate; these, too, are transferred to CD for the first time. More familiar delights are offered on CD2, with Deutsche Grammophon capturing her voice in full and glorious maturity in a 1987 album of Verdi songs and a recording of Ravel's opulent, oriental song-cycle Sh?h?rezade, in which she is sensitively partnered by the London Symphony Orchestra under a long-time musical partner, Claudio Abbado; together in 1971 they had recorded the Altenberg-Lieder of Berg which fill out CD1. Thus Price sings in five languages through the course of the compilation, and shows herself a gifted word-painter in each of them: it's a comprehensive tribute to the art of a soprano esteemed by Sir Georg Solti as 'a musician's singer and a conductor's singer'.

1. BELLINI Almen se non possÆio 2. DONIZETTI La Conocchia 3. VERDI Ave Maria 4. ROSSINI LÆInvito 5. Du bist die RuhÆ, D.774 6. Heidenr÷slein, D. 257 7. Gretchens Bitte, D.564 8. Die Forelle, D.550 9. Y bore glas 10. BugeilioÆr Gwenith Gwyn 11. Wrth Fynd Efo Deio I Dowyn 12. Dafydd y Garreg Wen 13. Y Deryn Pur 14. TATE Three Gaelic Ballads 15. TATE Three Gaelic Ballads 16. TATE Three Gaelic Ballads 17. HODDINOTT Roman Dream, Op. 54 18. BERG Altenberger Lieder 19. BERG Altenberger Lieder 20. BERG Altenberger Lieder 21. BERG Altenberger Lieder 22. BERG Altenberger Lieder 23. Il tramonto 24. La seduzione 25. Ad una stella 26. Lo spazzacamino 27. Perduta ho la pace 28. Deh, pietoso, oh Addolorata 29. Chi i bei d? mÆadduce ancora 30. La zingara 31. LÆesule 32. Non tÆaccostare allÆurna 33. In solitaria stanza 34. NellÆorror di notte oscura 35. Il poveretto 36. Stornello 37. Ave Maria 38. RAVEL Sh?h?razade 39. RAVEL Sh?h?razade 40. RAVEL Sh?h?razade