Eric Ferring: Art Song with Piano and Strings

This Friday Delos will release the debut album of tenor Eric Ferring, entitled We have tomorrow. This departs from the usual vocal releases, because accompaniment is provided by not only pianist Madeline Slettedahl but also the member of the Paris-based Quatuor Agate. The members of this string quartet are violinists Adrien Jurkovic and Thomas Descamps, violist Raphaël Pagnon, and cellist Iachemet. As of this writing, Amazon.com has created a Web page for pre-ordering the album’s 26 tracks; but that page does not support pre-ordering the physical CD.

Recording session for La Bonne Chanson (screen shot from a YouTube video created by Delos Music)

The “program” of the album is an impressive one. The “familiar faces” on the album are American (Samuel Barber), German (Johannes Brahms), and French (Gabriel Fauré). The Brahms selection is the relatively familiar Opus 91, consisting of only two songs but score for accompaniment by both viola and piano. Less familiar may be Fauré’s Opus 61, the cycle of nine mélodies entitled La Bonne Chanson, which concludes the album. (The title refers to a set nine poems by Paul Verlaine given the same name.) At the “opposite end,” so to speak, the album begins with Mélodies passagères, Samuel Barber’s setting of five poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.

The one composition that requires all four members of Quatuor Agate is entitled, simply enough, Triptych for High Voice and String Quartet, composed by Arthur Shepherd. The texts are taken from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, but they are sung in English. I suspect that I am not the only one for which this composition provided a “first contact” listening experience. It was first published in 1927, about two decades after Arnold Schoenberg had added a soprano to his second string quartet. It goes without saying that there is no confusing Shepherd’s music with Schoenberg’s!

In the context of a rising interest in female composers, the remaining two composers on We have tomorrow are both American women. The Barber cycle is followed by two songs by Florence Price, “Hold Fast to Dreams” and (the title track) “We have tomorrow.” The account of Amy Beach is both longer and more extensive. It consists of two early works, the Opus 19 “Ecstasy” and the Opus 21 “Chanson d’amour.” The “set” then concludes with the two songs in her Opus 100, “A mirage” and “Stella viotoris.”

According to the background material I have received, Ferring has appeared at Santa Fe Opera but has not yet made it to the West Coast. Given his imaginative approach to repertoire, I suspect that I would not be the only one to welcome his coming here to give a recital in Herbst Theatre! Meanwhile, I shall probably make it a point to revisit this album sooner rather than later!