Celebrations in Song: Christine Brewer and Craig Rutenberg at Tannery Pond, by Seth Lachterman



Composers: Gian Carlo Menotti, Alan Louis Smith, Virgil Thomson, Charles Ives

"When I have Sung My Songs to You"
An Evening of American Music
Tannery Pond Concerts, Season 2011, Concert III 

Gian Carlo Menotti: Canti Della Lontananza
Alan Louis Smith: Vignettes: Letters from George to Evelyn based on correspondence of a World War II Bride

Virgil Thomson: Piano Portraits (solo piano),”My Long Life
Charles Ives: Circus Band, At the River, Memories
Ernest Charles: When I Have Sung My Songs To You
A. Walter Kramer: “Now, Like a Lantern
Harold Arlen: Happiness is a Thing Called Joe

Christine Brewer, soprano
Craig Rutenburg, piano

A vague sense of déjà vu pervaded the evening.  A little more than a year ago, I attended a Memorial Day concert at Tannery Pond (reviewed here) to hear the remarkable Brentano Quartet perform Britten, Schumann and Beethoven.  Later on that season,mezzo- soprano Vivica Genaux with Craig Rutenberg performed the little known works ofPauline Viardot.  Tannery’s Independence Day concert seemed to conflate those experiences with a suite of reflective and commemorative American offerings, some of which being quite obscure, with a reappearance of Mr. Rutenberg this time featuring Christine Brewer, one of the great operatic  voices of our time.  Remembrance, subtly woven throughout the program, began with a celebration of the centenary of Menotti’s birth. Later, Ives’s songs captured the passing of small-town American innocence. Virgil Thomson’s witty caricatures remind us of our friendships; and finally, in Alan Smith’s song cycle, the loss of life and love in the time of war is vividly portrayed.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







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