There are a couple of themes explored in this album by baritone Roderick Williams. The first is indicated by the title; many of the songs involve birdsong, a common enough theme in poetry from the 19th century down to the present day. The second only emerges when one listens to the music: Williams and pianist Andrew West cross gender boundaries in most or all of the songs here. He offers Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben, becoming perhaps the first male singer to record the cycle, breastfeeding and all, and the songs by ...
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There are a couple of themes explored in this album by baritone Roderick Williams. The first is indicated by the title; many of the songs involve birdsong, a common enough theme in poetry from the 19th century down to the present day. The second only emerges when one listens to the music: Williams and pianist Andrew West cross gender boundaries in most or all of the songs here. He offers Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben, becoming perhaps the first male singer to record the cycle, breastfeeding and all, and the songs by Brahms also have female protagonists. Some of the German songs have more general sentiments, but Williams does not shy away from those that are explicitly female. As an intermezzo, he performs four songs by composer Sally Beamish that set erotic texts by the male Persian poet Hafez, raising the question of to what extent a female composer can empathize with the sensations therein. Williams, in his note, offers nothing beyond the observation that listeners must decide for themselves about...
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