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Leo Smit - Song Cycles from The Ecstatic Pilgrimage

£14.51

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Label: Bridge

Cat No: BRIDGE9227

Barcode: 0090404922725

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 30th July 2007

Works

Smit
Cycle 4, Beyond Circumference (1989) (18 Songs about Death, Faith and Immortality) Texts by Emily Dickinson

Smit
Cycle 3, The Marigold Heart (1989) (15 Songs about Love, Loss and Renunciation) Texts by Emily Dickinson

Smit
Three Poems of Marcia Willieme (1997)

Artists

Georgine Resick (soprano)
Warren Jones (piano)

Works

Artists

Georgine Resick (soprano)
Warren Jones (piano)

About

Leo Smit's magnum opus was his The Ecstatic Pilgrimage, settings of 76 Emily Dickinson poems, grouped into 6 cycles. This CD presents the first recording of the two largest cycles, Beyond Circumference (cycle 4) and The Marigold Heart (cycle 3), comprising 33 songs. In addition, one of Smit's last works, Three Poems of Marcia Willieme, is also heard here.

Writing about The Ecstatic Pilgrimage, annotator Nils Vigeland says the songs "represent an extraordinary response to the poetry itself but also a declaration of personal affinity by the composer towards the poet. Leo referred to the composing of these songs as the happiest time in his creative life. In listening to them one is struck by their consistency. They get right to the text. It isn't that the words aren't illustrated or inflected, but there is something else pushing the music forward. The songs are about the satisfaction of finding the notes in the words."

Marcia Willieme (1936-86) was the daughter of the distinguished philosopher, James Burnham, and met Leo Smit in the 80s. Smit's sensitive settings are alternately ebullient and introspective, reflecting the scope of Willieme's very personal settings.

Performed by soprano Georgine Resick and pianist Warren Jones.