Sings Peter Lieberson: Pablo Neruda

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Sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs

Editorial Reviews

This beautiful, touching cycle of five love songs on poems by Pablo Neruda was composed by Peter Lieberson for his wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. They were first presented in Los Angeles in May, 2005. This recording, coming as it does just months after Hunt Lieberson's untimely death, is a fitting tribute to her art. The songs are as arrestingly lovely and moving as are her performances of them. It will be a long time before another singer dares undertake a performance that might try to bring something new to the music. Scored for mezzo-soprano and a bevy of instruments (not all of which ever play at once--flutes, oboe, English horn, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, various percussion, harp, piano and strings--the songs are all "approachable" modern music, filled with both drama and a distinctively Spanish flavor. The songs range from a sensual appreciation of the beloved and a fear of separation to a peaceful but very sad evocation: "My love, if I die and you don't." Lieberson clearly composed them with great love for his wife; we the listeners benefit from that love in the direct, candid music and performances. This cycle may just be the Four Last Songs of the 21st century. A must. --Robert Levine

Product Description
This album serves as a profoundly moving tribute to the artistry of mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who passed away on July 3rd, 2006 after a long bout with cancer, at the age of 52. It is also a testament to the remarkable personal and musical relationship the singer cultivated with her composer husband Peter Lieberson, who adapted five sonnets from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda for this work, jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony.

About: Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried doña Trinidad Candia Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him. At the early age of thirteen he began to contribute some articles to the daily "La Mañana", among them, Entusiasmo y Perseverancia - his first publication - and his first poem. In 1920, he became a contributor to the literary journal "Selva Austral" under the pen name of Pablo Neruda, which he adopted in memory of the Czechoslovak poet Jan Neruda (1834-1891). Some of the poems Neruda wrote at that time are to be found in his first published book: Crepusculario (1923). The following year saw the publication of Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada, one of his best-known and most translated works. Alongside his literary activities, Neruda studied French and pedagogy at the University of Chile in Santiago.

About: Composer Peter Lieberson's work first came to national attention in 1983, with the premiere of his Piano Concerto, composed for Peter Serkin and commissioned by Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for their centennial. Andrew Porter wrote in The New Yorker that it was a "major addition to the modern concerto repertory," and the subsequent recording of the work won Opus Magazine's Contemporary Music Award for 1985.

Following its success, Lieberson was again commissioned by Ozawa and the BSO, which resulted in Drala (1986), "a short symphony but a profound one and, in many of its pages, a profoundly beautiful one," according to the Boston Globe. Drala has been performed recently by the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the London Sinfonietta.

Lieberson's most recent orchestral work, Neruda Songs, a setting of five sonnets by Pablo Neruda for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony for Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. The world premiere took place in Los Angeles in May, followed by a "Composers' Choice" concert with the Los Angeles New Music Group conducted by Lieberson, which featured his Horn Concerto, Free and Easy Wanderer, the Piano Quintet and Rilke Songs. Other recent performances include: Drala at the New World Symphony; Red Garuda at the New York Philharmonic, with soloist Peter Serkin and James Conlon conducting; and Christoper Taylor and the Ying Quartet presenting Lieberson's Piano Quintet at Columbia University's Miller Theater.

Sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs