Donald Swann was one-half of the comic duo Flanders and Swann; it may be because of that, or because he was so prolific (he wrote more than 2,000 songs, stopping only very shortly before his death in 1994), but his serious art songs have never attracted strong attention. This double-CD set shows the esteem in which Swann is held by singers -- a quintet of them, including the septuagenarian Dame Felicity Lott, is on hand -- and it introduces what is really quite a delightful body of work. The variety of text authors, running ...
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Donald Swann was one-half of the comic duo Flanders and Swann; it may be because of that, or because he was so prolific (he wrote more than 2,000 songs, stopping only very shortly before his death in 1994), but his serious art songs have never attracted strong attention. This double-CD set shows the esteem in which Swann is held by singers -- a quintet of them, including the septuagenarian Dame Felicity Lott, is on hand -- and it introduces what is really quite a delightful body of work. The variety of text authors, running from Shakespeare to J.R.R. Tolkien, with several American writers thrown in, might get your attention right off. One cannot do better in summarizing Swann's appeal than to quote the booklet notes by accompanist Christopher Glynn: "A sketch of Donald Swann's life must piece together a very English humor and self-deprecating charm, his deep roots in Russia and the East (Swann's mother was Turkmen), a lifelong search for meaning and solace in religion, a love of language, a gift for...
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