Marta Fontanals-Simmons & Lana Bode - I and Silence: Women's Voices in American Song (2019) [Hi-Res]

‘Did I sing too loud?’ asked Emily Dickinson in 1861, in a poem set a century later by Aaron Copland. The expectations of silence often placed on women, historically and politically, and music’s power to break through them, are the themes of this deeply personal recital by mezzo-soprano Marta FontanalsSimmons and pianist Lana Bode.

Their programme reflects and channels the voices of female writers and musicians: Dickinson herself, Sara Teasdale and Virginia Woolf are among those whose words are set in the works brought together here, two of which – Dominick Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf and Peter Lieberson’s Rilke Songs – were written for great mezzo-sopranos of the recent past, Dame Janet Baker and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

"A remarkable exploration of “women’s voices in American song”, this five-work, tonally mellifluous sequence begins with three of Copland’s 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson and ends with an early song by George Crumb." (Sunday Times)

Marta Fontanals-Simmons, mezzo
Lana Bode, piano