This time last week, I shared a little something different: Karl Jenkins’ Ave Verum sung by two baritones, Simon Keenlyside and Bryn Terfel. (Link to the post of 25 March here, if desired.) I rather enjoyed that brief detour from the opera path, and thought I might make it a Friday tradition…thus, “‘lieding’ into the weekend!”

Strictly speaking, “lied” is defined a more narrowly than “song”, being rather specific to a trend in German Romantic music particularly of the 19th century. (Think: Schubert, Strauss, etc.) Oftentimes such lieder (plural form) will consist of the vocalist accompanied by piano.

I’ll be a good deal looser with my own Friday explorations, wanting to explore composers of various genres, or just attracted to what seems like it would be nice listening for a Sunday afternoon ~ but the tendency will be towards lieder as defined.

Today’s find is also somewhat influenced by yesterday’s post on Tosca, in that part of the production’s greatness is the greatness of Bryn Terfel.

“Songs of Travel”

Though not strictly speaking in the “German lied” category, the influence is there. Here we have the great bass-baritone Bryn Terfel singing Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Songs of Travel,” a Romantic-inspired cycle of nine songs written for a solo baritone voice, based on poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Some of these songs were already familiar to me from a Vaughan Williams CD my mom and I used to listen to years ago in the workshop, but I don’t remember the soloist being so beautifully suited to it as Bryn is here. (Well, we already know there really isn’t another Bryn!) And some of the individual songs I don’t recall hearing previously at all, such as the lovely and too-brief “Let Beauty Awake” that begins at approximately 3:13 in this video:

A little background on our composer:

Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in the Cotswolds in 1872, educated at the Royal College of Music, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, served in the Great War, and died in 1958. There is a lovely little biography to be found at this link to the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society website.

“In the next world I shall not be doing music, with all its strivings and disappointments; I shall be being it.”  ~Ralph Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams’ works are, among other things, consummate Englishness put to music. What a gift to have the richness of this Welsh baritone interpreting Scottish poetry put to English music! A dynamic and moving trio. I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend! I’ll see you Monday.